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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [ChasingPB] [ In reply to ]
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That's very interesting.

So a few years back I meet with GJ's coach. I asked him specifically when he knew she was ready to win the gold at Rio. You know what he told me?

London 2015 when she raced sick as hell, had snot flying out her nose the whole race, felt like shit, didn't want to race, didn't give a shit and still executed a plan (got the W as well). He told me he knew then and there that she was mentally prepared and would show up on race day ready to fight under any race condition. He said he didn't even give a shit about her result, but her ability to fight through adversity and execute- that's when he knew she was finally ready to take it on race day no matter the conditions.



I don't know what that means in terms of GJ 2018, but I found that interesting that he would pick that moment in her training, and again it to me was more noted what her mental game was in terms of nothing stopping her. And I'm not going to compare a ton today, because honestly I think we are just watching an athlete play out an "comfort" decision to finish her career. She's a gamer and she's going to give it her all in this sport and do everything she can, but I also think this was the "safe" decision in terms of her athletic career. Safe in terms of it was by far the easiest on her and her family moving forward, even if it wasn't the most successful but was very lucrative helpful decision as well. ETA: It was also an decision that was helped in that...what's it really matter if she fails at the marathon? She's endurance athlete royalty now with her gold medal, so whether she makes it or not in marathon running, it won't have much impact on her overall. She's still going to get a ton of money at speaking engagements if she chooses that route, she's forever an golden girl within USAT and triathlon. So this is sorta an easy gamble to do with very little negative associated with it.

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II
Last edited by: B_Doughtie: Oct 7, 18 10:40
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [ChasingPB] [ In reply to ]
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ChasingPB wrote:
Little wrinkle in the plot line... Gwen just mentioned being sick today in instagram... Interested to see what that's all about

Excuses
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [B_Doughtie] [ In reply to ]
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Just clarifying, are you saying you think her marathon career is more lucrative than triathlon? I think in the Outside Online article I just saw said she'd have to win multiple majors a year to equal what she was doing in triathlon. Or are you saying it's still lucrative just not as much

Chasing PB Podcast Latest interview with Eli Hemming on Targeting a US MTR spot in Tokyo
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [ChasingPB] [ In reply to ]
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I'm saying that by switching to marathon running that she was able to get to train for 3 more years on someone else's dime and on her terms. That was never going to be the case with ITU.

And that's why I think it was an easy switch. She had zero interest in being away from family, she had zero interest in traveling and living out of a suitcase for weeks at a time.


So that's a far more lucrative lifestyle for her as a mother and wife than living the itu lifestyle, even if she was making more money. She realized the cost of that, and wanted no part of that for another 3 years.

ETA: So she gets paid full time to do her favorite sport, see her family every day, lay roots in an town in the U.S.....yeah that's a huge win win for her. Do I think it would have been the same without the funding opportunity? I doubt it, but I also know she simply took advantage of her opportunity.

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II
Last edited by: B_Doughtie: Oct 7, 18 10:52
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [B_Doughtie] [ In reply to ]
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B_Doughtie wrote:
Essentially why I suggested she shouldn't be switching is that she basically doesnt have the timeframe to be looking for what is the best distance for her. That should have already been decided upon and a training plan built to excel in that specific event.....not using 2 years of a 4 year cycle to figure out what event works best.

And again I say this because I think post Tokyo she's out. She's throwing her hands up and saying "mom/wife" time full time now.
η

...and at that point we'll have another "magnificent" switch story, back to triathlon but long distance this time, to take KonaWC by "surprise"... Marketing is the name of the game here! Lots of it!😉

"Discipline is the highest of all virtues. Only so may strength and desire be counterbalanced and the endeavors of man bear fruit."
Nikos Kazantzakis, The Rock Garden
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [ChasingPB] [ In reply to ]
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ChasingPB wrote:
monty wrote:
Little wrinkle in the plot line... Gwen just mentioned being sick today in instagram... Interested to see what that's all about //

I mentioned this earlier, it is the only reason for a positive spin on this race, that she did it sick. But that begs the question, why is she racing sick in the first place?? I do understand the pressure for her to get in a qualifying time, and if it was not full blown flu or a terrible cold, but perhaps the beginning or end of an illness, I can see the urge to race anyway.

Whoops missed that. My guesses I can think of

-I think the OQ definitely could serve as motivation. She's now got the flexibility to do whatever she needs to build up to trials. That's considerable peace of mind, I have to imagine.
-Maybe there was a contingency plan in place? I'm not familiar with pro marathoning, could she have entered New York if she had pulled the plug early on today?
-She has talked a lot about one day championship style racing and having to show up to give what you have. Might have been a part to see exactly what she can pull together on less than a perfect day.

Would be fun to be a fly on the wall in a situation like this, because I'm sure there was some good talk within her team

She already had a trials qualifier based on her half marathon. So nope.

Also, to be accurate, what you mentioned above as an OQ should called and OTQ.
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [ChasingPB] [ In reply to ]
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Kudos to Gwen.

In the past 2 years she has...

Won an Olympic Gold
Gave birth to her first child
Switched sports and found a new challenge
Trained for the highest level of running while being a mother

I don't get why people think she should do.....go back to ITU instead. She has stated that she did not want to travel around the world for racing, nor to do training camps. She has a family now and that is obviously her biggest priority. She never really enjoyed triathlon (has mentioned this several times) but more wanted to get the gold. She has also stated that she has zero desire for an Ironman. Marathon seemed like a great challenge for her that allowed her to be the person she wanted to be outside of sport while still earning a good career in terms of sponsors, pay, etc.

I commend Gwen for having such a great perspective and not giving into the public pressure (triathlon 2020/Ironman, etc). She has done what she wanted to do, accomplished a lot more than she ever thought she would while working 70+ weeks in finance.

I predict she will continue with this through olympic trials, give it her best and call it an athletic career after trials. Probably launch her own running or triathlon coaching company after this.
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [monty] [ In reply to ]
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A lot of incredible arm chair quarterbacking going. I do think she will be lucky to make the US Olympic team and very lucky to ever get down to a sub-2:25 . With that said...it does look like she just blew up. Maybe she was already in 2:30, sub-2:30 form, but had a bad race. I mean, maybe her nutrition is not dialed yet, maybe she had bad taper or she's had a bit of a niggle that flared up and she couldn't push through. I still think she'd be better off going for Rio 2020 or Ironman 70.3 and/or Ironman. It is her life and if she isn't passionate for triathlon, I totally understand her reas9n for pursuing her run career.
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [marklemcd] [ In reply to ]
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The half marathon qualifying window is different than full. Half times start September 1st 2018. But i guess with her 2:36 today she is fine.
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [ericMPro] [ In reply to ]
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So we don't know. That was all I was asking
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [JoeO] [ In reply to ]
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"I am gutted, I would say very disappointed with my result...To be brutally honest, right after the race I looked at my husband and said ‘Oh my goodness, I’m really questioning what the heck I’m doing.” -GJ

Yikes
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [marklemcd] [ In reply to ]
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Ah yes she needs to empower the 1 day racing rule and social media/coaching conversations. I have my athletes live by this creed- after a negative and I mean negative/bad/pissed off performance you

A)never go to social media and say what your feeling/thinking immediately post race

B)never talk to your coach with anything more meaningful than a check in immediately after race usually if they are there in person.

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [marklemcd] [ In reply to ]
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marklemcd wrote:
"I am gutted, I would say very disappointed with my result...To be brutally honest, right after the race I looked at my husband and said ‘Oh my goodness, I’m really questioning what the heck I’m doing.” -GJ

Yikes

Well that clears it right up.
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [marklemcd] [ In reply to ]
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marklemcd wrote:
"I am gutted, I would say very disappointed with my result...To be brutally honest, right after the race I looked at my husband and said ‘Oh my goodness, I’m really questioning what the heck I’m doing.” -GJ

Yikes
Ah but she also said that she is not giving up and with that she was off to her scheduled meet and greet for her fans. Classy.
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [B_Doughtie] [ In reply to ]
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I think she's a really well performing professional athlete.
She's excellent at making money in her 9 to 5.
So whatever everyone may say, she's a highly successful entrepreneur, who seems to value get family life.
Maybe her results are not the best in the world, but she's definitely way out there in terms of being a great professional.
Depending on your definition of professional, that might make her one if the best professional endurance athletes ever.

NO
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [marklemcd] [ In reply to ]
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"I am gutted, I would say very disappointed with my result...To be brutally honest, right after the race I looked at my husband and said ‘Oh my goodness, I’m really questioning what the heck I’m doing.” -GJ //

This is exactly why I'm a fan, she is not looking for any silver lining, just the facts of the matter. She knows, I know, and many others know, that she was ready to run in the 2;20's somewhere, but something serious is amiss. I hope that this shocks her enough to make the proper changes, I believe she knows what she has been doing wrong, but like most athletes, they hand over all responsibility to coaches, spouses, and friends. And it especially seems to be a thing with women, going all the way back to my day. Stop being told what to do, and just do what all your years of top level training and performance tells you to do. Dont be so skinny, dont feel you have to run the mileage of other ladies, just do what got you here. Maybe ride the bike again a bit, drop about 25% of the miles per week, eat some burgers, drink a beer..


But like others have said, she is fine financially and will be for the near future. But that is very little solace when your whole athletic endeavor starts crashing headlong into a brick wall. She can still pull up and miss the ground, but it has to be soon, and it has to be a change of something...
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [monty] [ In reply to ]
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I swear I feel like once you become a triathlete, you can never go back in terms of training philosophy. It's why it kills me when I see these HS athletes who are top junior triathletes and run sub 15 5k off tri training, then get forced to D1 running programs, and coach axes out the cross training, the very thing that likely helped and allowed said athlete to get to the top end results.


How often for 6+ years would she do a long hard interval run and then recover by swimming or biking and not running again for 24 hours.....whereas what's the recovery for a runner???? Oh an "easy" 8k or easy 30 mins, etc.....when the answer to your question is, how do runners recover? By running....that's a very hard concept to follow for an elite athlete when they haven't been prescribed to that philosophy in many many years.

Now with that being said, there is sport specificity and with the marathon, you can't fake running 26.2 miles. You maybe can fake 18 or 20 of those 26.2 miles, but that last 10k is going to kill you if you don't have some volume on the legs. But I think there are some "junk" miles that an marathoner can subsitute with a bike to keep their body on schedule.

ETA: But there is also an thought that I likely wouldn't really want an itu triathlete to turn to marathon for their next immediate sport of choice, simply because it's f'ing hard to train up and race well at. As I said I think you can fake 70% of the race on fitness, but then you can hurt badly. So I likely wouldn't have prescribed an athlete like GJ to go to this specific distance, if she only wanted to run. But again, I think a lot of this was taking advantage of her gold medal and the "dream" that sponsors see/hope/think and thus $$ to train and live as she wanted (as a family in the U.S.), and that was a lot of variables that made it hard to turn down. So in that aspects I would think this is an unique case whereas most triathletes would make this type of change.

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II
Last edited by: B_Doughtie: Oct 7, 18 14:44
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [monty] [ In reply to ]
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I was there today and also was in NYC last year. I struggled today as well after the 30k mark. There was a stretch there straight into the wind, maybe it would have been better to take the foot off the gas and make up the time in the last 4 miles cos it is a protected straightaway. I think that Gwen made the same mistake seeing how her time dropped between the 30k and 35k marks.

Next races on the schedule: none at the moment
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [alex_korr] [ In reply to ]
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alex_korr wrote:
I was there today and also was in NYC last year. I struggled today as well after the 30k mark. There was a stretch there straight into the wind, maybe it would have been better to take the foot off the gas and make up the time in the last 4 miles cos it is a protected straightaway. I think that Gwen made the same mistake seeing how her time dropped between the 30k and 35k marks.

The last 2-ish miles into the headwind didn’t help, either.
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [alex_korr] [ In reply to ]
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Its a marathon guys, of course over 26 miles there are going to be hard spots. But the top 6 guys went under 2;06+? and winning woman 2;18? Hard to call this anything other than a fast course, and of course she was not on pace very early, so there is that too. Along with her gutted comment, so it was not the course that defeated her today..
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [B_Doughtie] [ In reply to ]
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Yep, was just thinking that Nicola Spirig ran 2:37 in Zurich and I can bet she didn't run any 100mi weeks or do altitude training and all that crap...

B_Doughtie wrote:
I swear I feel like once you become a triathlete, you can never go back in terms of training philosophy. It's why it kills me when I see these HS athletes who are top junior triathletes and run sub 15 5k off tri training, then get forced to D1 running programs, and coach axes out the cross training, the very thing that likely helped and allowed said athlete to get to the top end results.


How often for 6+ years would she do a long hard interval run and then recover by swimming or biking and not running again for 24 hours.....whereas what's the recovery for a runner???? Oh an "easy" 8k or easy 30 mins, etc.....when the answer to your question is, how do runners recover? By running....that's a very hard concept to follow for an elite athlete when they haven't been prescribed to that philosophy in many many years.

Now with that being said, there is sport specificity and with the marathon, you can't fake running 26.2 miles. You maybe can fake 18 or 20 of those 26.2 miles, but that last 10k is going to kill you if you don't have some volume on the legs. But I think there are some "junk" miles that an marathoner can subsitute with a bike to keep their body on schedule.

ETA: But there is also an thought that I likely wouldn't really want an itu triathlete to turn to marathon for their next immediate sport of choice, simply because it's f'ing hard to train up and race well at. As I said I think you can fake 70% of the race on fitness, but then you can hurt badly. So I likely wouldn't have prescribed an athlete like GJ to go to this specific distance, if she only wanted to run. But again, I think a lot of this was taking advantage of her gold medal and the "dream" that sponsors see/hope/think and thus $$ to train and live as she wanted (as a family in the U.S.), and that was a lot of variables that made it hard to turn down. So in that aspects I would think this is an unique case whereas most triathletes would make this type of change.

What's your CdA?
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [monty] [ In reply to ]
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I totally agree that it is a fast course but I feel that it requires the right strategy to maximize the outcome. She went out too fast and I felt the same way about the way my race went.

But yeah, she ain't good enough at this point to contend for the gold.

Next races on the schedule: none at the moment
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [alex_korr] [ In reply to ]
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alex_korr wrote:
I totally agree that it is a fast course but I feel that it requires the right strategy to maximize the outcome. She went out too fast and I felt the same way about the way my race went.

But yeah, she ain't good enough at this point to contend for the gold.

She went out in 17:59 (2:31 pace)? Care to explain how that was too fast? It's not like she went out with the leaders and blew up. She was with the meager field of American women and then got dropped by them running over 2:30 pace.
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [alex_korr] [ In reply to ]
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alex_korr wrote:
I totally agree that it is a fast course but I feel that it requires the right strategy to maximize the outcome. She went out too fast and I felt the same way about the way my race went.

But yeah, she ain't good enough at this point to contend for the gold.

With all due respect, unless you were running under 2:20-2:25... comparing her race to yours is... well, I think a bit hard to do.

apple, meet orange.
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Re: Predict Gwen's Chicago Marathon Time [monty] [ In reply to ]
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monty wrote:
"I am gutted, I would say very disappointed with my result...To be brutally honest, right after the race I looked at my husband and said ‘Oh my goodness, I’m really questioning what the heck I’m doing.” -GJ //

This is exactly why I'm a fan, she is not looking for any silver lining, just the facts of the matter. She knows, I know, and many others know, that she was ready to run in the 2;20's somewhere, but something serious is amiss. I hope that this shocks her enough to make the proper changes, I believe she knows what she has been doing wrong, but like most athletes, they hand over all responsibility to coaches, spouses, and friends. And it especially seems to be a thing with women, going all the way back to my day. Stop being told what to do, and just do what all your years of top level training and performance tells you to do. Dont be so skinny, dont feel you have to run the mileage of other ladies, just do what got you here. Maybe ride the bike again a bit, drop about 25% of the miles per week, eat some burgers, drink a beer..


But like others have said, she is fine financially and will be for the near future. But that is very little solace when your whole athletic endeavor starts crashing headlong into a brick wall. She can still pull up and miss the ground, but it has to be soon, and it has to be a change of something...



Hopefully she can pull of some strong races before making a decision to go back to triathlon. She could be set up very well financially with a few more olympic golds and dabbling into 70.3/IM after that.

Ruble Triathlon Coaching Average of 30 coached PR's per year
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Last edited by: Zach Ruble: Oct 7, 18 17:37
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