APPROACHING 35, GRØVDAL IS BETTER THAN EVER
By David Monti, @d9monti.bsky.social
(c) 2025 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved, used with permission.
NEW YORK (13-Mar) — Four-time Olympian Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal of Norway will hit 35 this June, but is nonetheless coming off of her best-ever year as a runner. In 2024 the adidas-sponsored athlete ran national records at 3000m (8:27.02), 10-K (30:52), and the half-marathon (1:06:55). She was also successful in championships racing, taking the silver medal at 5000m at the European Athletics Championships, the gold medal in the half-marathon at those same championships, and eighth place at the Paris Olympics in the 5000m.
But it was here in New York where Grøvdal enjoyed one of her most satisfying wins. At the 2024 United Airlines NYC Half last March, Grøvdal rallied in the 17th kilometer to catch Kenyans Gladys Chepkurui and Edna Kiplagat. Grøvdal had finished third in both the 2022 and 2023 editions of the race and didn’t want to land on the third step of the podium again.
“I was so tired then,” Grøvdal told reporters. “Just thinking, it’s third this year also. But then, I don’t know. I just tried to don’t get the gap too big. Suddenly, I was just behind them again.”
She ended up dropping the Kenyan duo and went on to win by a comfortable 18 seconds, stretching her arms high as she broke the finish tape in Central Park near Tavern on the Green. The $20,000 first prize wasn’t bad, either.
“It’s up there,” Grøvdal said when asked how last year’s victory compared with the other important wins in her long international career which began when she was just 15 years-old. “I have three European golds. They are big, but I think this is right around that one.”
Grøvdal credits consistent training and staying healthy for her late-career success, and she’s excited to defend her NYC Half title on Sunday.
“I’m not sure what’s the secret,” Grøvdal told Race Results Weekly today in an interview in Times Square. “I had a lot of years now with no injury. I’ve been training well; I think that’s the key. And, of course, I started the season with this race last year and with a win, so it was a very good start.” She continued: “It’s just many years with a lot of work.”
Varying her running has also been important to Grøvdal, who enjoys cross country, track, and road running equally. Although she missed last December’s European Athletics Cross Country Championships –an event in which she has a record 10 individual medals– she did place 13th in the World Athletics Cross Country Championships last March.
“I think that’s what motivates me, to do a lot of races,” Grøvdal explained. “I love cross country, I love roads, and I love track. So, I’ve always been very into competing, and competing in different distances from shorter to longer. I think that’s very important to me to have the drive to do running, actually.”
Remarkably, Grøvdal is still maintaining –and even improving– her speed. Over the last three seasons she has lowered her half-marathon best to 1:08:07 in 2022, 1:07:34 in 2023, and then 1:06:55 last year. She’s also run season-best times for 5000m of 14:31.07, 14:45.24 and 14:38.62 for 2022, 2023 and 2024, respectively. That made her the fastest European at that distance for 2022, and the third-fastest for both 2023 and 2024. That’s noteworthy for an athlete who races half the time or more on the roads.
“I just think when I’m in good shape I can do all the distances very good, and now is my first year I am training for a marathon. Everybody tells me you get slower now. So, hopefully I will run fast at 5 and 10-K still, because I think I have to improve my 5 and 10-K for the marathon, also.”
Grøvdal’s first marathon is on the immediate horizon. She has chosen to try the distance at the Haspa Marathon Hamburg, the same event where two-time Olympic Marathon gold medalist Eliud Kipchoge made his debut. She could have run in London (on the same day) and surely made a solid appearance fee, but in Hamburg she’ll be able to run with less pressure and bring her own male pacers (the TCS London Marathon uses an all-women’s elite race).
“My plan is to run in Hamburg the 27th of April,” Grøvdal said. She continued: “It was that one or London. But I think for my first marathon maybe it’s good to have a more low-key (race). I can have two guys who helping with the pacing; London is the women-only. So, I think it will be a good place to start, then I do a fall marathon.”
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On Sunday Grøvdal –and the approximately 27,000 other runners in the field– will compete on a new course from Brooklyn to Manhattan which will cross the Brooklyn Bridge for the first time. Her main rivals will be Lonah Chemtai Salpeter of Israel, Sharon Lokedi of Kenya, Emily Sisson and Fiona O’Keeffe of the United States, and Calli Hauger-Thackery of Great Britain.
“We like to call the New York City Half ‘the one to run,'” said New York Road Runners CEO Rob Simmelkjaer at a press conference this morning. “We’re excited to go over the Brooklyn Bridge.”
