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By George Zeliff 

For runners, an injury diagnosis is frustrating. However, an unidentified injury can be much more agonizing, and in the case of Julianne Quinn, costly. 

Since qualifying for the U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Marathon with her 3rd place, 2:42:14 time in the 2017 Philadelphia Marathon, Quinn had been training for the Trials until pain in her right leg slowed her down just a month before the race. When Quinn received the results of her second MRI exam on February 3, only 29 days before the race, she backed out of the trials.  

“Nothing showed up on my MRI, but unfortunately I'm still feeling discomfort,” Quinn wrote in an email. “I'd rather figure out what's wrong and get myself running pain-free as soon as possible than risk further injury to run what will likely be a mediocre (at best) race at the Trials.”

Quinn remains uncertain what causes the nagging pain she feels in her thigh, but the MRI results did offer some comfort to her: they showed no signs of the stress fractures she suffered as an undergraduate at Columbia University. She had a successful career outside of her injury, qualifying for NCAA regionals twice in the steeplechase. Quinn ran this event under the coaching of Delilah DiCrescenzo, the subject of the pop song “Hey There Delilah” by the Plain White T’s.

An earth and environmental engineering major, Quinn continued her education and earned her Ph.D. from Cornell in 2017. Her Ph.D. dissertation won first place in the Universities Council on Water Resources Ph.D. Dissertation Award in Natural Science and Engineering, an award given to only two people nationwide each year. She is now an assistant professor of environmental engineering at the University of Virginia and has become part of the Charlottesville running scene.. 

“I do a lot of work on the tracks and I do a lot of runs from my office, so I think people know that I'm a runner,” Quinn said. “I'm recently trying to put together a faculty mentoring network for student athletes on the track team to mentor them on graduate school or undergraduate research, post collegiate running. Anything they'd be interested in in those arenas.” 

Quinn has taken the first step and has already met with Vin Lananna, the director of the Virginia track program, to discuss this network. 

Quinn currently is working with her former assistant coach, Jon Clemens. No longer at Columbia, Clemens now serves as the professional coach to Quinn, as well as her husband, and other friends from New York. Specifically Chelsea Benson and Bailey Drewes, who are just two of the seven friends Quinn knows running in the Olympic Trials. Quinn will still travel to Atlanta for the marathon race, where she will cheer and hold signs for her friends to see. 

Clemens sends different training regiments to Quinn and her husband Alex, so the two will run together only occasionally. Alex ran in the 2017 Philadelphia Marathon with his wife, but he could not call her that until the day was over. Alex carried an engagement ring all 26.2 miles so that he could propose to Quinn at the finish line, but Quinn’s qualifying finish made things a little difficult for the future groom. 

“When I finished, I was waiting for her. She finished like surprisingly very quickly after I had finished. Think like only three minutes or so,” Alex recalls about the race. “When she finished there were instantly cameras everywhere and people wanting to talk with her. I didn't feel like it was super appropriate. First of all, because I think, you know, she's not huge in the limelight, and not only that, but also I didn't want to steal her thunder. So I decided to hold off until she was done with that and everything calmed down and we were with friends and family to pop the question.”

The proposal made Quinn’s qualification race special, but also that year, she set a new personal best of 2:39:16 at the 2018 California International Marathon, which was “icing on the cake.” 

Quinn said her goal for the Olympic trials was to push her limits and attempt for another personal record. Looking past the trials, Quinn wants to run under a six-minute pace for the marathon, and wants to break 1:15 in the half marathon, but her goals have been put on ice for the moment, until she can properly diagnose her injury and is back to full health. 

“I'd rather focus on getting healthy than rush back and risk further injury” Quinn said. “I can try to qualify and run again in four years.”

Leading up to the 2020 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Marathon, Atlanta Track Club partnered with the Grady Sports Media program at the University of Georgia to profile some of the competitors in the 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials. The authors of these stories are undergraduate students enrolled in the program and have been lightly edited by the Club. See all of the stories at https://www.atlanta2020trials.com/news/uga-trials-project.