If you want to be the best, you have to race the best.
Of course you should race against the best competition you can get. You learn nothing from winning races with slow runners.

How good will Gwen be as a runner? We do not know yet.
But we know that it has been done before.
Ingrid Kristiansen was a top xc-skiing racer before she changed to pure running.
Her times are still pretty amazing.

I think it is cool that Gwen is trying to do something she loves.

Her indoor 5,000m was impressive but also not that surprising when you imagine here tri training.

I don’t understand all of the racing. Becoming a marathoner takes time. These short camps followed by races, looking st Pittsburg and now USA Champs, is possibly a poor strategy. Again, citing the best marathoners since the 70’s, they go away for 5+ months to build their base strength. Lydiard’s approach is the obvious example, but how does Gwynn’s approach compare to Deena’s under Vigil? I see glaring issues, do you guys?

http://www.coolrunning.com/...omy-of-a-medal.shtml

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wovebike.com | Wove on instagram

Again I never made any mention about her coach and his involvement in this, it was just an observation of a *potential* worry from afar based on my experiences coaching female runners without any real hard factual information. And yes even some of the best coaches in the world make mistakes sometimes. At that level of competition even doing an extra 200 on the track in one training session could lead to injury or problems, I've seen it happen.

But I would never tell a female athlete that you cannot carry extra weight. Weight management is a very tricky topic and you need to be very careful in what you say and how you address it to athletes.

Gwen’s best sport is triathlon. I view her move to running as a way to further her brand, make money, and spend more time with her family. I wish her the best but I don’t think she can parlay a world-class run leg in triathlon into anything better than elite level as a runner. I hope she comes back to triathlon where she truly is world class.

I am pretty sure she is still breast feeding as well, which will cause fatigue.

I was watching the race track side with someone who has also seen a lot of track races and we both agreed that Gwen looked tired from the gun. She just had very little pep and looked to be fighting the pace even in the early miles. If you look at Huddle or Hall or any of the women who finished ahead of her, Gwen has a lot of excessive movement in her upper body which is only going to become a bigger issue as she moves to the half and full marathon. With the excessive shoulder and arm movement, she's going to use a lot of extra energy. She still has some work to do but she has made great progress with her 15:15/31:55.

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Shawn
TORRE Consulting Services, LLC
http://www.TORREcs.com

She stopped breast feeding 2 weeks prior. I'm sure it had some effect though including her own diet and also emotionally (positive or negative?).

Here's the interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9i3xld9ABk

Interesting result for her.

I would have thought she would have done "better", but every race and situation is different. Some said she ran faster, a few months ago, and that's true, but this was a championship meet (place matters more), perhaps a bit of extra nerves, and from what I heard it was not ideal conditions - high humidity and windy!

Also it's clear that Gwen has been in the process of gradually upping the mileage and she took no real down-time or significant taper, to run in this race. It sounded like it was a bit of a "last minute decision".

It's another step, but it's an important step. Running a great 10K - be it on the track or the road, is a great step up point and indicator of marathon potential. Note, I did say "potential" - beyond 20K in a marathon, is where things really start to happen, so even having a great 10K time, even a 1/2 marathon, time is not indicative that the marathon will be a slam-dunk for a runner! It's a bit of a different beast.

Will Gwen be great at it? We'll not know really, until she has had a couple of goes at a full marathon. She probably knows that herself. Thus, all you can do is commit to the preparation as best as you can.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

If you look at Huddle or Hall or any of the women who finished ahead of her, Gwen has a lot of excessive movement in her upper body which is only going to become a bigger issue as she moves to the half and full marathon. With the excessive shoulder and arm movement, she's going to use a lot of extra energy


Yes - she reminds me a bit of . . . Paula Ratcliffe! :-)

Now not saying Gwen will get to that level, but Paula was a bit ungainly, but on the track, the road or cross-country, it did not seem to slow her down at all!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Here's the interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9i3xld9ABk //

Thanks for that link, so pretty much what I thought it would be. She was a little flat( could be several reasons already expressed here), and she made a few tactical errors in the group that caused her to burn matches she shouldn't have. Coming off breast feeding may or may not have been a factor, just throw it into another cause for being flat.


SO not a great or bad race really for what it was. I liked that she said she would love to run that exact race over again right now, tells me she has a handle on what made her flat and the mistakes tactically that can easily be fixed. I just hope she does whatever it takes to be well rested before the next race, whatever it is. Sounds like it will be on the road now, so tactics are not such a big deal(postion) but pace changes will be..IT would be nice for her psyche to get another good result in the bank with her early season ones. You can see she feels like she "should" be winning most these races, or at the very least sprinting for the wins.. I think she should be too...

.... another race, this time 2min back from Huddle at Beach to Beacon 10k.

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wovebike.com | Wove on instagram

Maybe she was practicing marathon pace today.... but in seriousness, I just wonder if she needs to hunker down for a while with no races - take a page from the Deena/Vigil playbook: http://www.coolrunning.com/...omy-of-a-medal.shtml

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wovebike.com | Wove on instagram

She mentioned in an instagram post about the race that.."I have loads of work in front of me but I think I'm starting to learn how to run a 10k with marathon tired legs." Obviously, being a competitor and professional, she is looking to place the best she can at every race but I believe these races are for her to get used to running at speed on tired legs instead of the goal of winning.

Yup. Keeping sponsors happy. Increasing quality in training with the odd race. And learning every time.

Coach Jerry is the man, he'll have Gwen peaking for her fall marathon. Guessing it'll be New York again given she hasn't announced it yet. (Vs Chicago/Berlin that everyone has announced)

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https://www.strava.com/athletes/nbrowne1