Molly Seidel is an absolute beast and it’s a hell of a comeback story (and a great person from everyone I’ve met who knew her). But this sort of implies that she’s some nobody who just pulled off a massive upset...she was an absolutely dominant college athlete at Notre Dame who was in an injury rut.

FWIW, the Oregonian did a piece on Galen Rupp (maybe the best current US men’s distance runner) and the difficulty of making ends meet as a distance runner because the riches typically go to the sprinters.