Thurmond's quest was mother of all goals

No, Aretha Thurmond isn't greedy, she just believes she can do it all. Believes she can have it all.

No she isn't delusional. She just thinks she can push through whatever pain confronts her. Thinks she can win, no matter what the doctors, the manuals, even her friends tell her.

She isn't greedy, but this weekend she allowed herself a moment of disappointment after she wasn't able to reach the most impossible goal ever set by a woman athlete.

On Friday, a typically sticky summer afternoon in Indianapolis, 18 days after the labor pains began, 18 days after she gave birth to Devon Theoppolis, Thurmond was back in the discus ring, throwing in the National Track and Field championship.

It hurts to even think about it.

Before the competition, longtime rival Suzy Powell saw Thurmond, hugged her and said, "I can't believe you're doing this. I'm so proud of you."

A surprisingly large group of fans gathered at her end of the field to watch the competition.

"I had a nice cheering section," said Thurmond, a three-time national champion and two-time Olympian. "It was like they were cheering for me more because I just had a baby than because I was coming off a championship."

She didn't plan on this. A year ago, Thurmond set two goals. Make the national team in 2007 and qualifying for a place in the world championships this summer in Osaka, Japan. And compete in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Then came Theo.

"I continued to train like I was going to compete in the nationals," she said by telephone from Indianapolis. "I wanted to be ready, just in case. We decided it would be a game-time decision. How I felt and how the delivery went. I mean if I had had a Caesarean, I wouldn't have competed. I'm not that crazy."

I confess, I'm not an expert on childbirth. But I can imagine the pain. No I can't. I only know it hurts. A lot.

And I can't begin to imagine how Thurmond did what she did. Three days after giving birth, she was back at the University of Washington practicing.

"You know me, I'm a discus thrower," she said. "It's so much of what I do."

Thurmond's labor lasted a little more than three hours. "The doctor said it was an Olympian-like delivery," she said.

Theo weighed into the world at 8 pounds, 14 ounces.

"The baby was healthy," she said, "so I just thought, 'Why not go for it?' "

Many of her friends, of course, told her she was nuts. But her husband, Washington assistant track and field coach Reedus Thurmond, who throws today in the men's discus championship and understands his wife's hunger for competition, told her to go for it.

"I'm not going to sugar-coat it," said Thurmond, who as Aretha Hill was a four-time All-American at Washington. "That first day back, it hurt a lot."

Thurmond made between 10 and 15 throws the first few days. And after practice she didn't feel any alarming soreness. She believed she could compete. She was going to Indianapolis.

"I'm super proud of her," Reedus said. "When she told me she wanted to compete, I said, 'Let's do it.' If she wasn't too sore, why not? The way she put it all together these last nine months, her mental fortitude was amazing.

"She decided to have the baby naturally, so the drugs wouldn't slow her down when she got back. And during the delivery she was able to fight off the pain. Ninety percent of it was mental and she fought it and fought it."

Thurmond trained until a week before she delivered. Reedus has a video of his wife, nine months pregnant, wheeling around the discus ring.

"Here she is with this big, giant belly," Reedus said, "and she's moving really well in the ring."

On Friday, Thurmond threw 180 feet, 6 inches, a post-partum PR, but more than 35 feet short of her personal best. She finished sixth, and only the top three finishers qualify for Osaka.

"I just didn't have the same horsepower behind my throws," she said. "I didn't have the speed at the finish that I needed. I guess this wasn't the ideal way to train for nationals.

"But I want women to know that it's amazing what we can do. It's amazing what your body is capable of. It's amazing what your mind is capable of. Having gone through this now, I'm amazed at what the female body can go through."

Aretha Thurmond isn't greedy. She's merely amazing.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists