Shawanna White
Shawanna White is not only a fast runner herself, she’s also a fan of the sport. She knew about all the great Kenyan and Ethiopian distance runners. But when it came to African-Americans, she hadn’t heard of any who competed in long distances—and didn’t see many around on the starting lines of her own races.
So when she read Amby Burfoot’s First Ladies of Running: 22 Inspiring Profiles of the Rebels, Rule Breakers, and Visionaries Who Changed the Sport Forever and the chapter on Marilyn Bevans—the first African-American woman marathoner to break three hours—she wanted to find out more.
She contacted Burfoot with a question: “Are there more women that broke three hours; are there women who qualified for the Olympic Trials?” she asked. “I just wanted to know, because I don’t see these people.”
Burfoot passed her question along to running historian Gary Corbitt—the initiator of the Starting Line 1928 project—who quickly promised to investigate. The result was the creation of the American Born Female African American All-Time Marathon Rankings, which Corbitt now regularly updates.
Currently, Shawanna herself sits at eighth on the list—and also holds the distinction of running the most sub-three-hour marathons of any African-American woman (she’s broken that particular barrier 16 times). In 2022, she was inducted into the National Black Distance Running Hall of Fame and featured in the documentary Breaking Three Hours. And at age 42, she isn’t planning to slow down anytime soon.
Shawanna grew up in Atlanta, raised by her grandmother, and was always an active child; at field day, she’d frequently win races. But when her middle-school P.E. teacher asked her to join the track team, her grandmother told her to focus instead on her classes.
In 10th grade, a coach approached her again. This time, Shawanna told him to ask her grandmother directly. To her delight, her grandmother said yes—as long as the coach would drive Shawanna home from practices and meets, so she wouldn’t have to take the bus.
He agreed, and Shawanna’s running career began. Her coach quickly saw her potential over longer distances, and steered her in that direction. “He wasn’t a coach that would simply just put all the Black kids into sprints,” she said. “I can’t say most schools are like that.”
She was surprised to learn she’d also run cross-country—the idea of three miles through the wood, grass, and dirt sounded peculiar—but her talent at it eventually earned her a college scholarship.
Shawanna considered several schools, including South Carolina State University and Grambling University, both historically Black universities. “I went to historically all-black schools all my life. And I was like, ‘I know, the world is not like that. There’s more different types of people in the world,’” she said. So she decided, instead, to attend the University of West Georgia.
The summer before, she ran track rather than doing the prescribed pre-cross-country training. When she first arrived, she struggled. The first time she ran up a 1,000-foot dirt hill on a training run, she stopped in the middle, crying and telling her coach she couldn’t continue.
But with time and effort, she improved. She’d go on to make the all-conference team all four years, place second in cross-country in the Gulf South Conference, and help her team make it to Division II nationals. And the day she cried on the hill? It became a tale of perseverance, recounted time and again by her coach. “He would tell every recruit that story, and say, ‘Look at White now,’” she said.
Shawanna also earned her bachelor’s degree in Health and Physical Education, with the goal of becoming a P.E. teacher. She’d noticed that, contrary to her childhood, many kids were no longer playing outside. A career inspiring them to move more would keep her excited to go to work each day, she decided.
First, though, she took a brief detour. After college, she felt a bit burned out on running, and briefly pursued a career in the music industry. The ending of a relationship brought that chapter to a close, and Shawanna got a job teaching P.E. in a Georgia charter school—one that didn’t have a sports program.
Eager to bring her students the joy she’d found through running, she took them to compete in an exhibition track meet. When they wanted to keep going, she signed them up for competitions through the parks and recreation department. In the process, she reconnected with her own athletic past. “After seeing those kids running and working hard, it ignited the bug back in me to see how good I can become,” she said. “So at that point, I was like, ‘You know what? I’m going to lace up these tennis shoes again and see what can happen.’”
She began training on her own at first, then joined the South DeKalb Striders; eventually, she became fast enough to earn a spot on the Atlanta Track Club’s competitive team. There, she beat her college personal-best in the 5K; ran on two winning all-women’s Hood to Coast relay teams; and eventually, signed up for her first marathon.
Heading into the 2011 Albany Snickers Marathon, Shawanna felt certain she could break three hours. Her half-marathon time was 1:19:53, and she’d heard you should double it and add 10 minutes to set a reasonable marathon goal. But she didn’t yet have a handle on pacing or fueling for that distance, and ran a disappointing-to-her 3:12, followed by a visit to the medical tent.
Immediately afterward, she thought, never again. However, the goal of running sub-three still inspired her. So, with guidance from a new coach, she lined up again at the Kiawah Island Marathon, where she ran 2:55:30. Her coach told her that, with effort, she could qualify for the Olympic Marathon Trials—and so, she had a new goal lighting her on fire.
That mission kept her going through several more sub-three races, and countless more 5Ks, 10Ks, and half-marathons. Shawanna prefers to race most weekends, using some events as goal efforts, others as hard workouts, and many as an opportunity to earn prize money. And the bigger target also helped her navigate her most serious setback, a hip injury in 2013 that eventually required surgery.
Recovery was difficult, and taught her a skill difficult for many independent, tough athletes—asking for help. With support from family and friends, she attended physical therapy and weaned her way off crutches and onto the Alter-G treadmill. Over months of hard work, she returned to her previous training.
Staying consistent with her rehab, and supporting her friends’ goals in the meantime, helped her pull through, she said. “Most people, when they get injured or hurt, they try to stay away from running,” she said. “But for me, I lean into running more by volunteering and cheering on my friends.”
And in the end, after what she calls the most difficult experience of her life, she reached new heights. At the 2018 One City Marathon—despite tripping on cobblestones and falling mid-race—she ran a personal-best 2:45:19, just 19 seconds off the Olympic Trials qualifying mark at the time. Of course, coming so close had her questioning where she could’ve made up those seconds. However, in the end, she was happy with a huge personal best—and continues her quest to break more barriers in the future.
That positive mindset is pulling her through some new challenges, including a mysterious issue in which her leg sometimes swings out of control. Sometimes it seems similar to runner’s dystonia, a neurological condition with which Olympian Kara Goucher was recently diagnosed, and that is difficult to treat. However, she has some evidence that the problem is linked to strength imbalances, including her most recent run—a 3:10:08 at the 2022 Chicago Marathon.
Afterward, she’s feeling strong—she even won a 5K the following weekend—and has her sights set on new goals, including adding to her sub-three total at the Rocket City Marathon in December, and in the future, qualifying for the 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials (the standard for which is now faster–2:37).
Regardless of how her next races go, telling her story both in interviews and on social media remains important to Shawanna. And she has another big goal: getting a whole group of African American distance runners together at a single event. “I think it would be powerful and inspiring if we could get at least five of us to show up to a race, and have a really good day,” she said.
Note about the author: Cindy Kuzma is a freelance writer, author, and podcaster based in Chicago, and part of the leadership team for Starting Line 1928. She contributes regularly to Runner’s World, Women’s Running, SELF, and more; is co-author of Breakthrough Women’s Running: Dream Big and Train Smart and Rebound: Train Your Mind to Bounce Back Stronger from Sports Injuries; and co-host of The Injured Athletes Club podcast.
