08/26/2026
The last thing most 400/800 collegiate athletes imagine after graduation is becoming a marathoner.
Angela Reckart certainly didn’t.
After a standout career at TCNJ, she went straight into Division I coaching.
But now she’s back home in New Jersey, coaching athletes remotely, and doing a lot more than dabbling in distance running.
She’s steadily progressing toward the 2028 U.S. Olympic Trials marathon standard.
Angela’s running journey actually started at Lower Cape May Regional High School, where she competed in the 100m, 200m, and long jump. At TCNJ, she moved up to the 800m and became a 7x All-American. (Fun fact: one of her teammates was Kate Powell Gordon, mother of Natalie Dumas. They won the NCAA 4x400 title in 2004).
From there came a successful collegiate coaching career with stops at UNC Chapel Hill, Penn State, and Duke. Among the highlights: helping coach the UNC women to the 2014 ACC XC title and the Penn State women to the 2015 Big Ten title.
But Division I coaching is a weekend-after-weekend grind. With a husband and two daughters at home, eventually it was time for a change.
In 2024, the family packed up, returned to New Jersey, and Angela began helping with her parents’ family business.
And suddenly, she had something she hadn’t had in years:
Time to train.
Angela had always run casually while coaching - mostly for sanity - but serious training and the D1 coaching lifestyle rarely coexist.
So, more than two decades after beginning her career as a sprinter, she decided to see what she could do over 26.2 miles.
Here’s how it’s going:
🏃 2024 Jacksonville Marathon: 2:55 debut
🏃 Philadelphia Marathon: 2:49:46, 1st Masters
🏃 Boston Marathon: 2:45:56
This spring, she went back to the shorter stuff:
⚡ 5 Mile: 28:29 PR (Cape May 5)
⚡ 5K: 17:10 PR (East Coast Champs)
Now Angela enters marathon cycle No. 4, targeting the Indianapolis Marathon on 11/7, followed just a month later by another big swing at the USATF Club Cross XC Champs.
And now comes a question very few Masters athletes ever get to seriously ask:
How close can she get to the Olympic Trials standard?
This fall, Angela Reckart gets to find out.
Angela (far right) with