The Trials of Kevin and Billie Kirk
rabbit Chase Team Athletes Pursue their Olympic Trials Dream
By Brent Terry
Anthony and Cleopatra
Nicholas and Alexandra
Ken and Barbie, Dick and Jane
Superman and Lois Lane
I am not impressed.
I love you the best. – Charlie Sexton, Impressed
When we think of power couples, the first ones that come to mind are usually pairs like Barack and Michelle Obama, Beyonce and Jay-Z, and okay, Superman and Lois Lane, couples who are accomplished and inspiring, but also maybe a bit intimidating. Kevin Kirk, 26, and Billie Hatch Kirk, 27, married elite runners from Ogden, Utah are also accomplished and inspiring, but do not skew so much toward intimidating as, well…adorable. Unless you are lined up next to one of them at the start of a road race, when, yeah, intimidating is the right adjective indeed.
Kevin, though, is quick to point out that he found Billie plenty intimidating early on in their relationship.“He thought I was scary,” interjects Billie, rolling her eyes maybe just a little and lighting up with amusement. “She and her friends really intimidated me! (to the point where if they were gathered in a room talking, he would exit the building and enter through another door) I was a freshman and she was a sophomore and had already run all these fast times, so yeah, maybe she was a bit scary.”
But attraction triumphed over intimidation soon enough, and by November they were dating. Exactly five years later they were married—their cross country coach at Utah Tech officiated—squeezing in a quick weekend together as newlyweds before diving right back into school, training and racing. Fast forward to October 2026, one week out from Kevin’s Olympic Trials qualifying attempt at the TCS Toronto Waterfront Marathon, and Kevin and Billie are sitting in their kitchen, talking with me via Zoom, their year-old son Cooper happily wigglesome and stealing their phones, bouncing back and forth between mom and dad, the absolute picture of maybe slightly hectic family bliss. It is a gloriously easy interview. The only thing I say to begin is basically, “Tell me about your lives from the time you met until now,” and they—okay, mostly Kevin—(“I’m a talker,” he says,) were off to the races.
It’s a whirlwind story: dating, marriage, bachelors and graduate degrees, a change in cities and schools, then full-time work and a new child. And, of course, running, lots and lots of running. By the time Billie had finished at Utah Tech and then Weber State Universities, she had won numerous conference titles, set school records, and earned all-America honors. Her 2:35:47 at the 2023 Bank of America Chicago Marathon earned her a place on the starting line of the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon. If Billie’s journey from solid college runner to Olympic Trials qualifier was right on schedule, Kevin’s route was maybe a bit more relaxed.
A classic late-bloomer, Kevin says, “I wasn’t that good in high school, or even my first two years in college.” But then once again, the “intimidating girlfriend” factor played a part. “I realized if I didn’t up my game, she would be faster than me,” he jokes. “Just watching how hard she worked and how quickly she improved really inspired me to try and do the same.”
It must have worked, as by fall of 2021 Kirk had finished 9th in the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) cross country meet and was for the first time considering competing at a high level post-collegiately. The marathon, though, like certain women, was a little scary. “Billie had already qualified for the Trials in Orlando. I was already signed up for LA, but not sure if I was really going to run or not. Then we went to the Trials (more on that later) and the whole environment was so inspiring that I said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’”
He ended up running a quick 2:23 in his marathon debut, finishing seventh at LA and taking home the prize money for first American. The effort devastated him however. “At about 24 miles into the race, I passed a guy who was walking and thought maybe I should just walk it in with him. He looked like he was having more fun than I was.” But competitive instincts won out in the end, and Kevin finished with a fast debut and shattered legs. “At the finish I was just done,” he says. “They put me in a wheelchair and took me away from the finish line, which I kind of liked, but after a while they were like, ‘Dude, you have to get up and walk!” So, he limped off to find Billie and his family and proclaimed his marathon career to be over. By the next day, however, gamely standing in line for a ride at Disneyland, he came out of retirement, talking about what he would do differently for his next marathon. By the next day he had signed up for one.
Meanwhile, Billie was rehabbing a knee injury that had come on just before the Trials, six weeks before LA. “I hadn’t run for like a month before the Trials, but decided to give it a shot, try to go five miles, at least, be a part of it.” At mile 24 she stepped off the course, in agony, having given everything she had and then some. Kevin, as usual, was in awe, both with his wife and with the Olympic Trials atmosphere.
“There were all these people running around that I had seen on tv and read about. It was so exciting. At one point we were in the same room as Galen Rupp. Before a race I just want to talk to everybody. Billie is more quiet, more serious. I’m sure she was thinking, ‘I wish he’d just shut up.’” Billie nods in confirmation. After the race Billie too announced her retirement. The next day she bought an exercise bike. Retirement over.
Since the marathons of winter, 2024 Kevin and Billie’s life has been crazy—
Grad school, graduation, training, parenthood— but they seem unfazed. I ask them about that.
Billie bounces Cooper and laughs. “We look back and wonder what we used to do with all our time!”
“We both have full-time jobs,” says Kevin (Kevin works in administrative support at an office-space company, Billie helps oversee elections in Weber County) “We both train, we have Cooper….”
Their faces are lit up by happy wonder. Kevin says two things have really helped them establish a routine that has allowed them to flourish. The first was a change in employment. Kevin had been working as manager of the Ogden Fleet Feet running store, a job he liked, but a schedule that made raising a family and training at a high level very difficult. “Sometimes I would get home from the store after 7:30. Cooper would already be asleep and I’d still have to get my run in. It was a lot.”
The job change provided a more steady and flexible schedule and allowed him and Billie to be together with Cooper. The second big life-enhancer was a high-tech running stroller, which allowed them to build training miles into family time. They also have a bike trailer, but Cooper seems to prefer the stroller. “It’s more cushioned and comfortable for him, I think” says Kevin.
“He loves the stroller,” adds Billie. “He doesn’t always want to go at first, but once we start, he always settles in and seems to enjoy it.” It seems like he’s a runner already! Cooper is also very aware of the park across from the loop where Kevin and Billie do workouts. “He knows that if he plays his cards right, there just might be a couple of rides down the slide in it for him,” Kevin says.
It hasn’t always been smooth sailing. Cooper was born prematurely and there were a couple of nervous weeks. Just after the birth, Billie convinced Kevin to leave the hospital to run a half marathon he had planned. After all, she told him, they’d just be sleeping, anyway. So he went to the race, won it in a new fastest time, and brought home some “Target money.”
A few months post-partum, and Billie’s running was going shockingly smoothly. She ran a solid race at Ogden’s WSR 10-Miler in April of this year, with Kevin taking on pacing duties, and all systems seemed go for going after a 2028 Trials qualifier. But almost immediately she was felled by agonizing lower back pain. “I had a sacral stress fracture,” she says. “My doctor says they don’t usually come on all of a sudden, but in my case it did.” It was a tough blow. Back to square one after a long, post-partum road to fitness, back onto the bike, now with training partner, Cooper.
Time passes, Billie grinds out miles on the bike, slowly returns to running. She plans to run a 5k in Toronto the day before Kevin’s marathon. A shot at qualifying again is in the cards for next October at Twin Cities, where Kevin ran his 2:16:33 PR in 2025. Things are looking up. As for Kevin, the hay is in the barn, as they say. New training under the guidance of a new coach looks to have him moving on from a minor plateau and onto new heights this coming weekend in Toronto. Cooper has grabbed Mom’s phone and high-tailed it from the room. Everything is as it should be. Everything’s good.
Brent Terry is an English professor and runner living in Connecticut. He is the author of five collections of poetry and the novel The Body Electric. He plans to run his first 100 mile trail race next June. This is his thirtieth story for rabbit.