The spring marathon season has come and gone, and it didn’t disappoint, producing sensational races and world headlines. This was particularly true in Boston and London. However, you might have heard little or nothing about two of the best marathon performances in those events.

The big media coverage went to seemingly-unbeatable Eliud Kipchoge, who finished sixth at Boston, where Evans Chebet gained his third straight World Marathon Major victory in 12 months. At the London Marathon, Kelvin Kiptum ran 59:45 for the second half, en route to a course record 2:01:27, and Sifan Hassan demonstrated that she can win in the marathon as she has at multiple shorter distances.

But 75-year-old Jeannie Rice and 59-year-old Jenny Hitchings outran them all, on an Age-Gender performance basis, both setting new world records for their age groups. Rice’s 3:33:15 in Boston won’t count, since the Boston course is considered ineligible due to its significant downhill slope and point to point layout, which allows for a tailwind boost. Still, she beat the fastest 75-79 age-group male runner by more than 20 minutes, which has likely never happened before in a global marathon. And five weeks before Boston, at age 74, she ran 3:31:22 in the Tokyo Marathon.

A week after Boston, Hitchings ran 2:45:27 in London—a marathon world record for women in the 55-59 age division. Remarkably, she’s at the high end of that age range, as she’ll turn 60 in early July. Not only that, but it was her personal best marathon in 40 years of running.

Many Paths to Marathon Success

Rice was born in South Korea and immigrated to the U.S. in her mid-30s. A retired real estate agent, she now divides her time between south Florida and Cleveland. Hitchings is a longtime resident of Sacramento, California, where she works as a middle-school cross-country coach and a private running coach.

Rice and Hitchings live on opposite coasts, but they have much in common. They’ve both been running for decades, both are extremely consistent in their training, and both log multiple 20-milers in their marathon buildups. Surprisingly, neither makes a particular effort to include hill training, a staple among other top marathon runners. Both are small and lean. Rice stands 5-foot-2 and weighs 96 pounds; Hitchings is 5-foot-4 and 100 pounds.

But Rice and Hitchings also present some stark contrasts. These differences carry an important message: There are many paths to marathon success, and the best senior runners understand this. Through their experience and wisdom, they’ve learned to focus on the positives and jettison the junk.

Here’s a look at some of the major contrasts between master marathon greats Jeannie Rice and Jenny Hitchings.

1. Select the Best Course for Your Goals

Both Rice and Hitchings had previously won age-group titles at Boston. Rice chose to return there in April for emotional reasons, as Boston marked her 40th anniversary of marathon running and her 130th marathon. Hitchings selected London for technical reasons. In 2021, she ran 2:45:32 at Boston. It would have been a record except for the point-to-point course prohibition. So this spring she opted for London’s record-eligible course.

Rice: “Boston has always been a special marathon for me,” said Rice. “My preparation wasn’t the best, as I ran the Tokyo Marathon in early March, and then did some traveling. But I wanted to have my Boston celebration, and I had quite a few running friends there with me.”

Hitchings: “London was on my marathon ‘bucket list’ anyway, and it gave me a great opportunity to set an age-group world record,” said Hitchings. “Since my 2:45 at Boston didn’t count, I figured I should take a crack at London while I was still in the age group.” [She will turn 60 in early July.]

2. To Be Coached, or Go It Alone?

Rice has always been self-coached. Hitchings, a running coach herself, has had a longterm coach-athlete relationship with Chicago-based Jenny Spangler. Spangler won the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon in 1996 and ran a 2:32:39 marathon in 2003, after turning 40.

Rice: “I’ve been approached by people who wanted to coach me, but they seemed expensive and had other demands I didn’t like. I listen to what my friends do and what others are doing in training. I try to run 50 miles most weeks, and a bit more before my marathons. But I don’t actually follow a schedule. Mostly I just train the way I feel. I’m still running strong and beating records, so I must be doing something right.

“I know it’s possible that a coach could help me the way ’s coach helped him, but it’s also possible that things could go wrong. I like to decide my training according to how I feel each day.”

Hitchings: “I coach other runners, and I could certainly coach myself, but you know what they say about doctors who treat themselves: They have a fool for a patient. I think that can also apply to athletes who coach themselves. It’s just smarter to have someone looking over your shoulder, and adding some perspective.

“I’m one of those who’s often guilty of running too fast on my easy days, or getting excited and going too hard when I’m training with friends. Jenny [her coach] holds me accountable for those kinds of things. She has a great personal performance record that I respect a lot, and has been coaching for many years.

“It’s also important to me that she’s a female coach of my own age. She understands what I’m going through and dealing with in terms of female physiology.”

3. Make Rituals of Your Training Day

Both runners say they enjoy a relaxed morning cup of coffee before launching into their days. But Rice is up earlier, and often out the door quicker. Hitchings needs more time to be ready for a solid run.

Rice: “I like to get my run done early, so I have the whole day in front of me when I get back home at 7:30 A.M. or so. I’m usually running by 6 A.M. In Florida, where I spend my winters, that can be important for the cooler weather.

“But on days when I’m going 20 to 23 miles, I’ll get up at 3:30 A.M.  and begin running at 4:30 A.M.  I’ll go two hours on my own, and then join a local training group for their morning loop, which gives me another hour or so.”

Hitchings: “I coach a number of people who can roll right out of bed and start running. I’m not one of those. My favorite time to run is about 8 A.M. or 8:30 A.M. in the morning. I like my coffee first, and the morning newspaper, and I always make sure to get a light breakfast in my stomach. Since my favorite place to run is the American River Parkway, that gives me another 15 minutes of drive time before I get going.

“There have been times when I had to be a noontime runner, and that was OK, too. But 4 P.M. or 5 P.M.? That’s not going to happen. By that time of day, I’m too tired or depleted.”

4. How to Avoid Injury

This one is easy for Rice, who has never been injured except for a fall (and banged-up knee) in 2021 that cost her several weeks of running. Hitchings also considers herself relatively injury-free, but she has encountered an assortment of typical runner injuries through the years: Achilles tendinitis, piriformis pain, and surgery for Haglund’s deformity (a bony growth at the back of the heel resulting from mostly genetic causes).

Rice: “I go to the gym three times a week for a light strength workout, some pushups, and some stretching. But it’s not a serious session at all. I also golf for fun; I really enjoy golfing.”

Hitchings: “I try to do light weight work as much as I can, and I ride my bike 20-30 miles a week outdoors, and do Peloton indoors. Recently, I added Pilates once a week to improve my strength and mobility.

“Also, Jenny and I have agreed to take one hard running day out of my weekly schedule. I used to do speed work of some kind on Tuesday and Thursday, and a long weekend run. Now I’m down to speed on Wednesday, and a weekend long run that often has some tempo-pace segments.”

5. Of Sweets and Supplements

While both are clearly fit, Rice and Hitchings say they enjoy a wide variety of foods, and have no particular restrictions in their diets. Both enjoy wine drinking. Hitchings admits to a sweet tooth, too, but desserts are not a problem for Rice.

Rice: “Breakfast is usually oatmeal with fruit and nuts. At lunch and dinner, I enjoy a green salad with some sort of seafood or fish on top. I’ve never liked sweets and don’t crave them, but I love cheese and nuts. That’s my big downfall—cheese and nuts. The only supplements I take are calcium with vitamin D, B-12, and magnesium.”

Hitchings: “I eat  ‘clean,’ a well-balanced diet with an emphasis on carbs. I simply don’t feel good if I eat heavy, creamy, or fried foods. I get most of my vitamins and minerals from real foods, though recently I’ve added Athletic Greens to my routine.

“When I’m in heavy marathon training, I find it hard to maintain my weight, so I’ll have some protein shakes and maybe one chocolate bar, muffin, or pastry per day. I’ve got a drawer full of vitamins, calcium, collagen, and iron supplements, but I never seem to stick with any for long. It’s just too much.”

What’s Down the Road?

While realistic about their futures, neither Rice nor Hitchings sound the least bit intimidated by the unwritten future. Despite aging, both are driven to perform. They hope to keep running hard and fast, and chasing age-group records. Both plan to run the Chicago Marathon on October 8, as it will be the site of this year’s

Rice: “Getting faster at 75 is almost impossible, but this year I’m going to run a few road miles to work on my speed. I’ve won my age group in every World Marathon Major but London, so I want to get back to London in the next several years. I want to run the Sydney Marathon, the Ho Chi Minh City Marathon, and, of course, I must run the Seoul Marathon in the country where I was born.”

Hitchings: “I’m running faster at 60 than I’ve ever run in my life. My time in London was literally my lifetime best, and I’ve been running a long time. Sometimes I get asked, ‘When are you going to stop running?’ My answer is always: ‘Why would I stop?’ I’m still getting faster, and I’m still enjoying it.”

Rice, though 15 years older, feels the same. It’s fun winning major marathons, of course, especially when she beats most men her age. In local and regional races, she challenges herself to finish as high as possible in the masters division against females three decades younger (and sometimes wins outright).

“I love competition,” she says. “I’m motivated to train hard, and I’m excited about setting more records as long as I can. Maybe into my 80s.”

Running is about finish times, sure, but it’s even more about attitude. Find the goal that’s right for you, and go after it. This is the approach both Rice and Hitchings have followed successfully, and neither plans to change course now, no matter how many candles adorn their next birthday cake.

Both are on a shared mission, and they’d like others to join them. As Hitchings says: “I think if we keep a positive attitude and motivation, we can go out there and do much more than people think. It’s important to show others that we can defy the way aging has been defined for us for so long.”

RELATED: The Surprisingly Simple Training of the World’s Fastest Marathoner

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When you become a runner, it changes your life. But you may not know how much it improves every aspect. Here’s the evidence on the amazing benefits running can give you:

Benefit 1. Running adds years to your life and life to your years.

Numerous studies have shown that running increases lifespan. This has led to the oft-repeated observation: “If exercise were a pill, it would be the most popular pill in the world.” Worth noting: It would also be the least expensive, with little to no cost.

A of research on running and longevity found that runners have about a 25 to 30 percent lower rate of all-cause mortality on follow-up than non runners. It concluded: “Any amount of running, even once a week, is better than no running.”

Another showed that runners gain about three years of extra life. Why? Some of the biological pathways include: greater cardiovascular fitness, better body composition (less fat), lower cholesterol, excellent glucose and insulin control, stronger bones, better hormone regulation, and positive neurological functioning.

Few of us, however, simply want to live longer. Rather, we hope for a long, productive, healthy, active life. That’s where running and high-fitness shine. Since “seniors” consume a high percent of the public-health budget with their late-life illnesses, much research is targeted at what can be done to keep them healthy. Exercise nearly always wins this race.

For example, recent at Ball State University found that a group of 75-year-old lifetime runners and bicyclists (who had been exercising for 50 years) had biological profiles closer to 25-year-old graduate students than to their non-exercising 75-year-old peers.

In another famous study, compared local runners in their mid-50s with non-exercising Stanford community members who had the same top-notch medical care. Twenty-one years later, the death rate was more than 50 percent lower among the runners. More unexpectedly, the runners were reaching certain “disability scores” 11 to 16 years later than the non-runners. In other words, they were staying younger for longer. And the older the subjects became, the greater the advantages seen among runners.

Benefit 2. Running helps you sleep better.

If you haven’t seen numerous articles on the importance of sleep in recent years, you’ve been, well, asleep under a rock somewhere. And sleep may be especially important for athletes. After all, it’s when the body performs all its repair work. In her book on sports recovery, science writer Christie Aschwanden rates sleep as one of the few recovery “techniques” that’s actually supported by good evidence.

According to  “We have solid evidence that exercise does, in fact, help you fall asleep more quickly and improves sleep quality.” An article in the notes that the exercise-sleep connection goes both ways. The more you exercise, the more you need quality sleep. Also, the worse your sleep habits, the less likely you are to exercise regularly.

Runners were once warned that an evening workout would disrupt that night’s sleep. However, a produced an opposite finding. Except for a hard interval workout undertaken within an hour of bedtime (don’t do it!), other evening exercise actually improved ease of falling-asleep and quality of sleep.

Benefit 3. Running can improve your knees and back.

This is one running benefit that many find difficult to believe. They reason that running is an impact sport, which must be bad on the joints. What’s more, everyone knows a few runners who developed knee pain, and had to switch to bicycling. True enough, but it’s also true that sedentary, out-of-shape adults have worse knee and back problems, on average, than most runners.

Looking for proof? Okay, fair enough. Here’s with non-active controls, and concluded: “In our cohort, the arthritis rate of active marathoners was below that of the general U.S. population.” Even When researchers looked at the knees of runners who had just completed a multiday, 2700-mile run across Europe, they found that “The extreme running burden seems not to have a relevant negative influence on the femoropatellar joint [knee joint] tissues.”

In a study of (17 men and 27 women), researchers noted that post-marathon: “The knees of novice runners achieved sustained improvement, for at least 6 months post-marathon, in the condition of their bone marrow and articular cartilage.” Same goes for the lower back. In a 2020 report titled investigators looked at disc spacing in veteran runners vs. non-runners. The finding: “Middle-aged long-term endurance runners exhibit less age-related decline in their lumbar IVDs [intervertebral disc height].” And the more years subjects had been running, the better their disc-spacing looked. Likewise for weekly mileage. More running was better.

Benefit 4. Running helps you lose weight, and keep it off.

Because it involves continuously moving your entire body weight, running burns more calories than most other activities. And you don’t have to run fast to achieve max burn. You get almost as much from running slow (but it takes twice as long).

It has been said that you “can’t outrun a bad diet,” but that’s a half-truth at best, as pointed out by a 2019 The authors note: “It is incontrovertible that exercise can and does result in weight loss.” Moreover, it leads to a “multitude of other positive effects on health.” If you want to keep track, running burns roughly 100 calories per mile. (For more accuracy, multiply .75 x your body weight in pounds to get your personal calorie burn per mile.)

Losing weight isn’t difficult; it’s keeping the weight off that’s incredibly hard. has shown that individuals can lose significant amounts of weight for about six months. After that, unfortunately, the weight creeps back. Usually, it has all returned, and sometimes even more, after another six to 18 months. Everyone has heard of “yo-yo dieting; this is it.

Only one group is known to beat the odds, and that is individuals who commit to a consistent, long-term exercise regimen. One program—the —has kept track of these successful weight-losers. The NWCR is following a large group of people who have lost an average of 66 pounds, and kept the weight off for 5.5 years. Ninety percent of them exercise an average of an hour a day. Ninety-eight percent have modified their diet in some way.

In a 2018 paper titled the authors found that individuals exercising 200 to 300 minutes per week achieve better weight maintenance than those doing less than 150 minutes a week. It takes work and consistency, but the effort is worthwhile, as

Benefit 5. Running improves your immunity.

Exercise scientist and 58-time marathoner David Nieman has spent the last 40 years looking at the links between exercise and immunity. He’s uncovered mostly very good news and a few cautionary notes, while also looking at the effects of diet on the immunity status of runners. His summary: Modest exercise improves immunity, ultra-endurance efforts can decrease immunity (at least until you have fully recovered), and dark red/blue/black berries help your body stay strong and healthy.

In a 2019 paper, Nieman and Laurel M. Wentz summarized “.” Among and diet, they report evidence that running can improve the body’s surveillance against disease, lower inflammation, enhance gut microbiota composition, reduce risk of upper respiratory infections and influenza, and improve antibody response.

Nieman proposes a J-curve illustrating the finding that regular exercise is good, but extreme exercise can temporarily lower your immunity. Many other health investigators have confirmed this pattern. In the textbook the authors state: “It is generally accepted that moderate amounts of exercise improve immune system functions and hence reduce the risk of infection.”

Benefit 6. Running improves cognitive function, and reduces cognitive decline and Alzheimers.

This is the newest and most unexpected area of health benefits produced by running, but it makes complete sense. Running raises heart rate and blood flow. That includes oxygen-rich blood being pushed to the brain. It’s hard to imagine this wouldn’t be a very good thing.

It’s possible, as one revealed, that running improves brain health by stimulating the release of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). This protein encourages the growth and survival of neurons in the brain. showed that high fitness improves total brain volume, including gray matter. Even if you don’t begin running until you gain protection from the kinds of brain plaques linked to cognitive decline and Alzheimers.

Benefit 7. Running reduces risk of many cancers.

In 2016, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a remarkable into the exercise habits and cancer incidence of 1.44 million American and European adults. The authors concluded that high-fitness exercisers, such as runners, had a lower risk for developing 26 different kinds of cancer than low- and non-exercisers. The benefits could not be traced to either non-smoking or low-body-weight–two known cancer-protectors. There was something special about exercise that lowered cancer risk.

Many other researchers have found similar results. In addition, running is also helpful if you In that case, regular exercise lowers side effects from the difficult treatments while supporting you physically and emotionally. It also reduces mortality from the cancer, and decreases the likelihood that you develop another type of cancer.

Benefit 8. Running improves mental health, and reduces depression.

Many runners take up the sport to improve their physical fitness. After a short time, these new runners often give a different answer to the “Why do you run?” question. That answer: “Because it makes me feel better.” They’re talking about emotions, mood, mental energy, fewer blue days, and the like.

The evidence for this effect is overwhelming. reached these conclusions, among other positive outcomes: 1) Exercise is “an effective treatment” for depression; 2) Exercise is as effective as psychotherapy and prescription meds; and 3) Exercise “may serve as an alternative” to costly and often-hard-to-find/schedule medical treatments.

A chapter in the 2019 from the American Psychological Association states: “There is substantial evidence supporting exercise use in the treatment of mental disorders, especially depression.” As positive as this evidence appears, it does not mean you should rely solely on running and other fitness exercises when battling depression. Depression is a serious, widespread disease, and should be confronted with a full array of medical approaches.

Benefit 9. Running improves glucose regulation, and lowers risk of diabetes and pre-diabetes.

High blood glucose levels, often leading to diabetes, are a major “side effect” of the obesity-overweight epidemic in the Western world. They also threaten to shorten healthy lifespans, and to overwhelm the public-health system (so many individuals; very high cost).

Running and other vigorous exercise can substantially improve this grim outlook. According to the exercise can: 1) Prevent or reduce Type 2 diabetes (caused, typically, by poor lifestyle); and 2) Benefit those with Type 1 diabetes (largely caused by genetics). It can also prevent those with pre-diabetes from developing full-fledged Type 2 diabetes.

The was published in late 2019. It followed more than 19,000 adults for more than 6 years, and compared rates of diabetes in runners vs. non-runners. Result: The runners had a 72 percent lower rate of diabetes development. The researchers concluded: “Participating in leisure-time running is associated with a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes in adults.”

Benefit 10. Running lowers your blood pressure.

In 2016, a world health index called the of its investigation into a mind-boggling 388 different health risks, and the effect each of them has on our wellbeing. It found that the number one risk, by a large margin, was high blood pressure. (Even more so than cigarette smoking.)

Running and other moderate exercise is a proven, non-drug-related way to lower blood pressure. A looked at results from 391 randomized controlled trials, and confirmed “modest but consistent reductions in SBP in many studied exercise interventions across all populations.” The same paper reported that the systolic blood pressure lowering effect of exercise among hypertensive populations “appears similar to that of commonly used medications.” A year earlier, a review article in the concluded that both aerobic and strength training “elicited significant reductions in both systolic and diastolic BP.”

What kind of running is most likely to improve your blood pressure? It was formerly thought that steady, continuous workouts were most effective. However, newer research has reversed that position. This supports higher intensity interval training for better blood pressure.

Bonus Benefit: Running builds your self-esteem.

And when you have that, you can achieve just about anything. We don’t have a lot of studies to support this running benefit, because it hasn’t been much investigated. (Although found that “Regular aerobic exercise plays an important role in improving self-esteem.”)

But we do have Oprah Winfrey. In the early 1990s, Oprah decided she wanted to do something special for herself during the year of her 40th birthday: She wanted to get in shape, and finish a marathon. Despite her background as being an overweight, non-exercising, African American woman, she nailed her goal in the 1994 Marine Corps Marathon, completing the distance in a respectable 4:29. Afterwards she said, “Life is a lot like a marathon. If you can finish a marathon, you can do anything you want.”

In addition, we’ve heard thousands of stories from runners about how running taught them an important life lesson: Take one step at a time, just one at a time, and you can get where you want to go–in a marathon, in pursuit of your educational goals, in launching a new business, in recovering from loss and disease, and so on.

We’re not saying that running is easy 
 or that life is easy. Neither are. But running is measurable; we count the miles and minutes; we can see where we were at the beginning of our journey, and how far we have come. This teaches a simple truth: Effort produces results, no effort produces nothing. The effort is worth it.

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There’s no doubt that Hans Smeets stands atop the world of 75-year-old distance running.

In recent years, he’s captured 15 world championships, including two gold medals (800 meters, 1500 meters) in last summer’s World Masters Association Championships in Tampere, Finland. Last fall he added an age-group world record in the mile (5:41.20). And most recently, in March 2023, Smeets won two more gold medals in the World Indoor Championships in Torun, Poland.

When the Dutch athlete slipped into a physiology lab at Maastricht University last year, he established more new records. His maximal aerobic capacity (“VO2 max”) of 50.5 ml/kg/min is the highest ever measured in a 75-year old. Since VO2 max is widely regarded as the ultimate test of cardiac fitness, Smeets could be considered the fittest-ever 75-year-old.

In fact, you could say that he’s 75 going on 25. According to a of the U.S. “National Fitness Registry” for age and VO2 max, Smeets checks in with a score roughly the same as an average male in his mid-20s.

This data comes from research just published in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance. The paper is titled—catch a deep breath— The paper’s first author, Bas van Hooren, is himself a Dutch national champion in the 10,000 meters. He’s also 45 years younger than Smeets, and interested in learning how he and others can extend their top-level running careers.

“I hoped to gain more insight into physiologic aspects that contribute to exceptional performance,” van Hooren says. “And to learn more about Hans’s training routine, so we could use this information to optimize performance in other masters athletes.”

Evolution of an Age-Group Champion

We often think of the Netherlands as flat—the highest point in the country reaches barely above 1,000 feet—but the area in the south around Gulpen, near the Belgian border, is actually quite hilly. Smeets was raised and still lives there, and believes the hills have contributed to his athletic success.

He dabbled in running as a teen, training little and without much ambition. After quitting running at 18, however, he didn’t return to it for more than three decades. Smeets started back up at 50 when he was working as an IT administrator at a school in Gulpen. Several colleagues had a regular running routine, so he joined in with them. “I was just running at work with friends,” Smeets says. “But it went so well that I started training seriously again.”

Six years later, at 56, he was covering close to 100 miles a week, which enabled him to set his lifetime best for 5000 meters—17:11. In the several years prior, he had notched his best half-marathon and marathon times, too, of 1:17:34 and 2:49:29. “I liked the training very much,” he notes. “And also found it motivating that my performances were quite good.”

Which they were. Quite good, in fact. But not world-beating.

 

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Two Major Changes

In the following decade, Smeets made two major updates to his training that catapulted him to the top of age-group running against his peers.

First, at 60, he began to focus on middle-distance track races, particularly the 800 meters and 1500 meters. He switched from roads to track by doing speed work with a local runner. “I found that the fast sessions went very well for me,” he says. But how well?

The next year, he ranked first in the world at both 800 meters and 1500 meters. The successes kept coming for the next several years. Smeets dominated his events at virtually every big track championship. It was getting to the point where there was little left for him to chase. But he felt one final, persistent itch. While he had a big collection of gold medals, he had never actually set a world record for his age group.

This goal prompted his second training update: At 66 years old, “that was when I decided to lose weight,” he says. “I wanted to see if it would help me set a world record.” Smeets dropped 15 pounds. He didn’t follow any particular diet, choosing instead to be more mindful around portion sizes and nighttime snacking. “I’ve always had a good diet, with a lot of fruits and vegetables, and I bake my own sourdough bread with different grains,” he reports.

These two interventions had a dramatic effect. The next year he set a world record for the indoor 1500 meters. “My times were much faster at all other distances as well.” Being mindful of his body composition has contributed to his high VO2 max.

When building up to his racing season, Smeets covers 42 to 48 miles per week with the longest run of one hour and 45 minutes. He includes tempo workouts once or twice a week but describes most of his runs as “leisurely.” Indeed, the area around his home is so hilly that he invariably “walks up at least two of the slopes on every endurance run.”

Once he launches into his summer track racing, Smeets cuts his weekly mileage in half, and he eliminates fast training. His frequent races provide plenty of speed work. He also makes sure he’s logging enough time in bed, nine hours each night.

Van Hooren, the researcher, admits that he expected much of what he observed in Smeets’s treadmill testing. After all, a guy couldn’t be that fast without exceptional physiology.

Still, Van Hooren was struck by several aspects of Smeets’s training and lab results. For example, Smeets has never kept any sort of detailed training log, and doesn’t rely on any modern day digital devices. He seems to train in a totally intuitive manner. “This shows us that an athlete can reach exceptional results without all the fancy technology,” notes van Hooren.

RELATED: Most People Get Slower with Age. But Is That Inevitable?

Impressive Lab Results

Van Hooren measured Smeets’s stride rate at several different speeds, with a range that spanned from 9:40 per mile to 5:40 per mile. Some experts suggest that runners should stay close to 180 strides/minute at all speeds. Smeets fell well short at 9:40 pace when he used 171 strides per minute, but increased his stride frequency to 187 at 5:40 per mile. “This result highlights that stride rate is very individually based, and also dependent on speed, leg length, and mass,” says van Hooren.

Lastly and perhaps most importantly is the big question: How can a guy run so fast when he trains relatively slowly?

First off, Smeets clearly has natural leg speed. In an all-out short sprint test, he hit a top speed equivalent to 3:24 per mile pace (for just five meters). Nonetheless, he doesn’t train to achieve that speed. He appears to train mostly at moderate—even slow—paces, which does have its benefits. Smeets hasn’t lost any time to injuries in the last several years, and rarely missed more than a week to injury time in his previous decades of training.

“We know higher speed training produces more damage, which requires more recovery time,” observes van Hooren. “By doing higher volumes of easy training, masters athletes might be able to gain positive adaptations with less damage and need for recovery.”

You might think that Smeets, having entered a new age group, would want to target more records at longer distances. He doesn’t seem greedy in that way. Also, he hasn’t raced the half marathon or full marathon for more than a decade, and isn’t one to overstate his potential at those distances.

Yet the question is intriguing. If Smeets has the highest VO2 max for his age, he has the potential for fast racing at longer distances. Of course, those races will also require a high running economy, and good ability to deal with hydration and fueling issues.

“It’s hard for me to answer questions about other distances,” Smeets says. “If I had to take a guess, I think I could run the half marathon in 1:35, and the marathon in 3:30.” Those would be world-class times for sure, but not close to world-record performances. At 75, Ed Whitlock ran 3:04:54.

What are the secrets behind Smeets’s success? “If I had to pick two words to explain Hans’s success, they would be consistency and high volume,” Van Hooren says. “He trains a lot and has done so regularly over many years. This builds up huge adaptations, thus contributing to great performance.”

Amby Burfoot won the 1968 Boston Marathon, and has been writing about running and fitness since 1978. His most recent book is .

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In November 2017, , a 54-year-old British ultrarunner, completed ten marathons in ten days on a treadmill, with a combined time of 43 hours 51 minutes 39 seconds, breaking the former Guinness World Record by more than two hours. What’s important about Gayter’s feat now—besides being an impressive mark —is that she ran all ten marathons in the sports-sciences lab at Teesside University in Middlesbrough, England, allowing exercise physiologist Nicolas Berger to compile mountains of information. He presented these findings in a published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

The paper’s data includes details on Gayter’s sleep, hydration, and calories burned and consumed during each 24-hour cycle; her heart rate and perceived exertion while running; and ten-day changes in her body weight, fat, and muscle. And while the data reveals interesting information about how her body responded to the challenge, Berger warns that we can’t consider her specific strategies universally applicable. “Other runners probably shouldn’t use Sharon’s example as a template for their own ultra efforts,” he says. “Sharon’s quite unique, particularly in her recovery and consistency.”  Still, Gayter’s data and race experience suggest some principles runners can apply. Here are the highlights.

Slow Down to Spare Carbs

Gayter is an accomplished ultrarunner who has completed over 200 ultras, including Badwater, Marathon des Sables, and many other marquee races. Her experience was evident in the Teesside lab, as she finished all ten marathons between 4:21:21 and 4:24:38—an average of 4:23:09 per marathon. “It went exactly as I planned,” she says. “I thought there would be less than ten minutes between my fastest and slowest times.”

Gayter had hoped to consume a steady supply of fuel as she ran. According to many endurance nutritionists, marathoners should aim to consume 120 to 240 calories (or more) per hour. Gayter tried, but her stomach refused to cooperate.

“We had drinks, jelly beans, sandwiches, smoothies, and protein drinks on hand, but she became so nauseous she was unable to take them,” Berger says.

As a result, Gayter choked down a mere 180 calories on day one and just 126 calories on day two. After that she consumed only water and several handfuls of grapes during her last eight marathons—about 46 calories per marathon.

Another runner might have justifiably panicked over the low fuel supply. Gayter had been there before, however, and knew she could carry on. “I rarely take carb drinks in my ultras, due to the nausea problem,” she admits. “I thought they might be OK on this short run, but it just didn’t work out.”

Instead she ran smart, at a pace that felt sustainable. She estimates she could have run a single hard marathon in about 3 hours 30 minutes at the time—over 50 minutes faster than her average over the ten marathons. “Her marathon pace was slow, so she had little need for fast energy from carbohydrates,” Berger says. He calculates that Gayter burned fat for 67 percent of the calories she needed versus only 33 percent from carbohydrates.

“Sharon is used to running long distances with little to no carbohydrates, relying on fat stores for energy,” says Berger. “Other runners who consume as little on the run as she did would probably find their performance dropping off after three hours.”

Even with the controlled pace, Gayter’s heart rate increased by five beats per minute in the third hour of each marathon, and by another five beats in the fourth hour. Similarly, her perceived exertion rose by about 10 percent during the third and fourth hours. Berger says the increase in heart rate and perceived effort were both quite minor, and expected. “Running for three-plus hours becomes uncomfortable, and there’s not much we can do about that,” he says. “Perhaps with more energy intake and salt or electrolyte intake, Sharon would have experienced less upward drift in heart rate and effort.”

Replenish Rapidly

Berger says Gayter often tries to gain a few pounds before a big event, because she knows she’s going to lose the weight while racing. During her ten-day quest, however, she had to rely on strict post-run refueling strategies to keep up.

Immediately after finishing each marathon, Gayter turned to her replacement drink, a milk-based shake that included whey protein, colostrum powder, and a banana. “That drink was probably my most important recovery strategy,” she says. She began each day with an early-morning breakfast, and then had a snack of soup and bread an hour before running. In the evenings, she ate meat, roasted potatoes, gravy, and a medley of vegetables, followed by apple crumble with double cream. Before bed, she drank chocolate milk.

Overall, Gayter burned an average of 3,305 calories a day, including 2,030 per marathon. She was only able to consume 2,036 calories per day. This meant that she lost weight (5.7 pounds), body fat (4.2 pounds), and muscle (0.9 pounds) over the ten days.

“It’s tricky to put back what you take out in running four and a half hours a day,” says Berger. “Given that Sharon consumed so little during her runs, I think she did amazingly well.”

Cultivate Consistency and Focus

Berger credits a consistent daily structure as essential to Gayter’s success. “One thing that proved crucial is she had a daily plan, but she remained flexible as needed,” Berger says. “When you follow the same successful procedures, you can exert more control over anything that might go wrong.”

To decrease stress, each day’s marathon started purposefully late, at 11 A.M., allowing Gayter to get in optimal sleep and have time for breakfast and a pre-run snack. She slept an average of 8 hours 20 minutes per night, with the longest night’s sleep—9 hours 47 minutes—on day seven, and the shortest—6 hours 50 minutes—on day four.

Gayter was particularly consistent in maintaining her post-marathon recovery plan over the ten days. “She was sipping her recovery drink even as I was doing the post-run tests, and then she had a massage,” says Berger.

She also didn’t try to distract herself from the long daily efforts. During her almost 44 hours of treadmill running, she didn’t need to watch TV or listen to music or audiobooks. “I am mentally strong, and I can focus on the job at hand,” she says. “Music and people talking to me are a distraction. My mind works in numbers. I focused mainly on my pace and milestones, like every kilometer or ten kilometers.”

How many more days could Gayter have continued running marathons at the same pace? That’s impossible to say, but both she and Berger made the same estimate—five more days. “I didn’t want to go any faster, because I would have risked more nausea and perhaps have missed the record,” she says. “But I had plenty in reserve.”

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Sometime in the next few days, 40-year-old ultrarunner Camille Herron will become the youngest woman on record to log 100,000 miles in her running career. While there are no official records for such achievements, several sites, including , keep honor-system accounts. And it’s hard to doubt her accuracy.

Herron, who lives in Oklahoma, began tallying her miles on note cards and wall calendars as a teenager in 1995, then switched to more precise methods in 2002, often recording small fractions of a mile. Since 2007, she has averaged 5,114.97 miles per year, or about 98 miles per week. In her biggest year, 2011, she hit 5,848.48 miles.

You could easily mistake Herron for a fun runner rather than one of the planet’s best ultramarathoners. After all, she’s been known to consume and holds an for the fastest women’s marathon run in a superhero costume (Spiderwoman). But she’s also qualified for three U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials and holds several ultra world records, including the longest distance covered in 24 hours, both on the road (167.842 miles) and on the track (162.919 miles).

And Herron has even bigger plans. There’s almost no distance that doesn’t intrigue her, and she hopes to beat a few men’s records along the way. “I’m just tapping into what naturally suits women,” she says, citing a growing body of evidence that women may have metabolic and psychological advantages over men at ultra distances.

To celebrate her 100,000th mile, she and her shoe sponsor, Hoka, are planning an . We recently spoke with Herron about her injury-prevention routine, high-mileage training, fueling strategies, and future goals.

șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: How do you stave off injury when you run so much?
Herron: I learned the hard way. I grew nine inches in high school and had seven stress fractures from ages 16 to 19. The problem was, I had the mentality that I had to push every day. No one talked about easy runs or recovery. Everything changed in 2001 when I met Conor Holt, my husband-to-be. I saw how dedicated he was, but also that he took his easy days easy. He taught me how to live and train better.

After 2003, I ditched my orthotics and began training in racing flats, or sometimes barefoot on grass. This helped me develop the foot and leg strength I was lacking. I still prefer lighter shoes and usually train in my . I also became a master at reading my body. I take care of any niggles ASAP. I use massage tools and get massages from Conor. I stopped static stretching 20 years ago, but I get mobility from doing drills and strides twice a week.

High-mileage runners sometimes develop health issues like overtraining syndrome. How have you avoided this?
I think diet is important. I grew up on a wholesome southern comfort-food diet: We’d eat fried catfish and seafood, fried chicken, and homemade French fries. We had fresh bread with butter, and desserts like pies, cakes, and homemade vanilla ice cream. I drank a glass of milk at every meal, and we had doughnuts on Sunday mornings.

These days, I eat all the food groups six or seven times a day and always eat breakfast before runs—sometimes two breakfasts! I’ve never done . I don’t take any prescription drugs or NSAIDs [nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs]. I haven’t had a recent bone-density test, but my values were above average in college and after.

I focus on taking care of all the little things: sleep, nutrition, hydration, and managing stress. In the past year, I learned from an InsideTracker test that I had high iron, with low magnesium and B12. I’ve been working with a dietitian to correct those issues. I used to drink microbrew beer with dinner but had to give up alcohol because it enhances iron absorption.

The longer the race distance, the more important a runner’s fueling strategy. What’s yours?
I follow what the science supports, which is taking in 60 to 90 grams of carbohydrates—glucose and fructose—per hour. I take a gel with water every 30 minutes and sip on a sports drink in between. I use the nutrition timer on my Coros watch as a reminder to take fuel. If I feel I need more calories, I switch up my sports drink to Maurten 320. More recently I’ve been using mineral drops in my water and various additional electrolytes. As the distance gets longer, I may want solid foods—fruit and potatoes have worked well. For multiday races, I consume more whole foods.

You’ve run in three Olympic Marathon Trials, set world records, and won races outright. What has been your biggest thrill?
Winning the in South Africa in 2017 was the biggest thrill of my life! I feel like the whole year leading up to it could be a movie. Then I had a partial tear of the medial collateral ligament in my knee ten weeks before race day. In eight weeks of training, I could only do two hard hill sessions and one 20-mile long run—that’s it. Yet there was never a doubt in my mind that it was my destiny to win, and I ran with my heart [finishing with a time of 6:27:35]. The Comrades win means the world to me. It shows that anything is possible.

What do you think about during ultras?
I think about how I feel—my energy, how my muscles feel, how my feet feel, and maintaining an effort that feels sustainable to the finish. I throw in brief pickups during races to change the muscle usage and keep the legs turning over. I’ll also monitor my heart rate and aim for maybe 80 percent of heart-rate max in a 50 mile or 100K, 75 percent for 100 miles, and 65 to 70 percent for 24 hours.

I’m naturally the type of person who can tune out pain and fatigue and push myself to a near-death experience. Sometimes I’ve imagined myself as an animal chasing prey or as the prey being chased by other animals.

I have some favorite cue words, like spring, stay light, be patient, lift your knees, and drive your arms. And favorite phrases, too: “Let the magic come,” “Be a marble in a groove,” “Suck it up, buttercup,” “Take the bull by the horns,” “Time to go beast mode.”

I also like to cheer on other runners and slap high fives. It boosts your spirits when you cheer for others. I try to use the positive energy around me to help propel me forward.

Some people think women have more natural endurance than men in ultras. What’s your opinion?
I believe it. In my first 100K, I caught a few men—guys who were much faster marathoners than me. When I catch men, they usually look exhausted, while I’m just cruising along.

Lately, I’ve been paying less attention to the men and just running my own pace. It’s been working really well. I believe women pace better and more evenly than men, and there’s science to support this. It might be that we can burn fat better or that estrogen preserves our muscles.

You’re now 40 years old and on the cusp of 100,000 miles of running. What’s next?
I devoted the first part of my career to winning the most competitive and prestigious road ultras and to setting world records. I still have other road ultras on my bucket list: the , the , and the . Then I’d like to master the trails. I want to be the first to win the ultra triple crown: Comrades, Western States, and UTMB. In time I’ll take on the extreme challenges—Big’s Backyard Ultra, the Barkley Marathons, the Sri Chinmoy 3,100-mile race—and FKTs, like maybe a transcontinental run. I believe I can achieve everything I set my mind to.

The post Camille Herron Will Run Her 100,000th Mile This Week appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Late last October, U.S. ultramarathon legend Bernd Heinrich, now 81, made a quiet trip to Chicago to reprise one of the greatest performances in American running history. Forty years ago, in October 1981, Heinrich entered the American Medical Joggers Association Chicago 100K, a multi-loop lakefront course. At the time, he was still unknown—his ultra prowess, zoology fieldwork, and naturalist writings have only made him something of a fabled character in running circles over the past few decades.

Chicago was Heinrich’s first attempt at the 62.2-mile distance, and he emerged with the still standing American masters record of 6:38:21. That amounts to covering two marathons plus ten miles at an average pace of 6:24 per mile. The current American open record, y, is 6:27:44—only 11 minutes faster than Heinrich’s mark.

Heinrich’s 100K record didn’t come easily. Reflecting on the effort in his 2001 classic , he wrote of the final stretch: “The universe is contracting, constricting. I’ve run several times around the globe for this opportunity, and I could still miss it by a second. If I don’t run the next 100 yards as fast as possible, I will later experience a pain greater and longer-lasting than what I feel now.”

Over the next four decades, Heinrich ran a handful of other impressive ultras. But his focus was fixed on establishing his academic career, primarily at the University of Vermont, where he is a professor emeritus in the biology department. He got married several times, fathered four children, and published more than a dozen books that are revered by professional and amateur naturalists alike.

Heinrich’s most recent book, , was supposed to describe and dissect another ultra race that would more or less replicate his 1981 Chicago 100K. He wanted to explore how aging had changed him. But when COVID-19 erased most events in 2020, he chose to complete the book without his ultramarathon experiment.

That attempt finally happened when he made a last-minute entry into the Chicago Lakefront 50K last October, where he would run half the distance of the 1981 race, at twice the age of his initial feat. But he almost didn’t get there. Exactly a month before the event, while driving his truck, he was hit by a speeding car. While his truck was a “total loss,” Heinrich walked away with an arthritic knee and a dislocated shoulder. Restless in his cabin after a week, he slowly began jogging, eventually working his way up to 15 miles without concerning pain. Chicago was back on the table. “You only come around here once on the path of your life,” he says. “I believed it would be so precious to me to do the race in Chicago.”

On a cold, blustery morning, Heinrich averaged 12:03 per mile for the 31.1-mile distance, finishing in 6:14:28. And while his return race didn’t set any new records, he did win the 70+ division. (Ten days later, he suffered a loss of balance and was admitted to a hospital, where it was discovered that he’d incurred a brain injury from the September accident. After two brain surgeries and a long convalescence, he appears to be doing well.)

From his backwoods cabin in Maine, Heinrich spoke with us about his entry into ultrarunning, why he wanted to repeat his 1981 effort with a 50K, how he’s approached running in his older years, and what he visualizes for the future.

șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Why did you decide to start running ultramarathons in the first place?
Heinrich: I’d run some marathons and noticed I did most of my passing near or at the end of the race. This was especially true for my fast-finish win in the 1979 San Francisco Marathon. That made me think I had untapped potential at long distances. I had recently passed 40 and did not want to grow old believing I might never achieve my full potential.

Why, in 2021, did you decide to more or less repeat what you’d done 40 years earlier?
I was curious about what would happen. As a comparative biologist, you’re always looking at animals to see how they adapt. With human runners, there are population trends in performances over time, but you don’t know if runners are getting slower from too little running, or too much, or why. I had always run, though different amounts at different times, and the Chicago 50K presented an opportunity for this “rat” to race another ultramarathon on essentially the same course where I had run my lifetime best race 40 years earlier. I felt I had to do it.

How was your training different from 40 years ago?
It was very different. I simply was not mentally, nor likely physically, able to do the same training. But that itself was part of the experiment. I did some running last summer at the same perceived effort as 1981. And I was hoping to be better prepared. Then, just when I got rolling a bit, everything was thrown off track by the car accident. At that point, I thought, OK, if I can do it now, the satisfaction will be all the sweeter. I only had to adjust my goals. It was no longer an experiment to see how fast I could run at my best, but what might be my best on low mileage.

How was the experience of actually running the 50K?
I knew my limits. I knew I had not trained nearly enough. And with a very swift wind sweeping in off the lake, I adapted the goal to just trying to run the whole thing and finish. When I found myself working hard in the middle, I knew the rest would be tough—and it was. In 1981, there were times during the last half of the race when I felt like I was flying. Not this time. I had to struggle to finish without walking.

What was the most training you did back in your peak years?
There were a couple of times when I aimed for 200 miles in a week and made it. After that, I decided to run maybe 100 to 150 miles a week and not get overtrained—at least not after just a few weeks. I never planned to run another ultra after the Chicago 100K in 1981. I needed to be able to see an end point to my ultras in order to proceed to the start and give it my all. Afterward I launched into the most productive and important years of my scientific career. The work I did was terribly exciting, for me at least, and also very physically taxing—from the high Arctic to the equator to the ravens. I had little time to run. Research is not like an ultra. You can’t just stop in the middle. If you do, you have nothing at all.

What did you learn through your years of ultrarunning?
Gosh, I’m not sure about that one. I ran so few races. I hesitate to say I learned much about anything. All my big races were different, but it didn’t seem to make a big difference in how I prepared. Maybe I learned that cranberry juice is the best fuel for me. I also learned that you need the fuel. My worst race was the , where I really screwed up because I didn’t stop to eat or drink. One minute I was running smoothly and felt that I could go on forever. Then boom! It was over. My body was just like a car that had run out of gas. I had to drop out.

It doesn’t seem that you’ve had many injuries during your career. More accidents than injuries.
Yes, that’s right. I’ve mostly been injured by freak accidents like chopping wood, chasing deer through the forest, or the recent car accident. In California, during my very stressful academic years, I had a long spate of living with extremely painful joints. There were at least three times when I was told that I should seek a profession that didn’t require as much physical exercise. But I was never injured by running. Running always seemed to cure me. Actually, I’m sure I had some injuries while running. They must have been minor, because I seem to have forgotten them.

Now that you’re in your eighties, what’s your view on aging and running?
Well, it’s clear that slowing down with age is not just speculation, it’s a biological reality. I’m sure there are ways to minimize it, just as there are ways to accelerate it. I think it’s largely a matter of use versus abuse, and where the tipping points are. For me it’s best to regularly engage in some sort of consistent running. For the greatest benefit, I need different distances, speeds, terrain, and scenery. I like to go by feel. Does it feel good? Then fine. Or does it feel killing? Then be careful, because maybe it is. I feel that my lifetime miles—70,000 or whatever they are—have not hurt me one bit yet. Not mentally, not physically. The mental controls the physical, anyway. There aren’t two halves; there’s only one whole. Biologically, if you don’t use a muscle or a neuron, it atrophies. Sometimes that use might even involve discomfort, which is normal and natural.

You’ve said you motivated yourself in the Chicago 100K in 1981 by repeating some lines from the : Cause I’ve been running a long time / On this traveling ground / Wishing hard to be free
. / I’ve done all one man can do. What did those words mean to you?
I felt that he was metaphorically, and in large part literally, singing about my life. He was talking about how utterly precious life is and also how it can be random at times. And so we should regard our opportunities as joyous events that are meant to be embraced fully. Because that’s what they are.

In Why We Run, you wrote that humans are good distance runners because we can visualize an antelope hunt that won’t be successful until several hours in the future, or a marathon finish line that’s still 20 miles away. What are you now visualizing in your future?
That’s a good question, and of course, I’ve asked it of myself many times. I’m aiming for another 20 years. I’m not thinking specifically about my running right now. There’s so much else occupying me. Everything has its season. My main goal is to stay healthy. I’ll run now and then, on a flexible schedule, and see how it goes. Otherwise, I believe we have to concentrate all our efforts on everything that exists already. I shall do my best to that end, whether we’re talking about humans, chimpanzees, ravens, or bird of paradise plants. We need to protect the whole tightly integrated show on this glorious planet. It is, and will ever be, the only one we have in this universe.

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A massive new analysis of marathon splits and finish times provides us with more information on “hitting the wall” than anything previously published. It also answers some questions we have never thought to ask before.

Ireland’s Barry Smyth became interested in marathon data about five years ago. Since then, he has published a handful of big-data articles analyzing performances and even the training behind performance. He has summarized some of this work in nontechnical articles at . Smyth is director of the Insight Centre for Data Analytics at University College Dublin.

In his new paper, “How recreational marathon runners hit the wall: A large-scale analysis of late-race pacing collapse in the marathon,” Smyth dug into an astonishing 4.1 million marathon performances achieved by 2.7 million different runners from 2005 to 2019. For each performance, he collected every 5K split (8 of them per marathon), plus the final 2.195K split. The paper is

Smyth eventually refined his list of runners to 717,000 unique individuals for whom he could locate multiple marathon performances. This allowed him to draw conclusions about the career arc of individual performances. He managed to collect marathon finish-times that extended backwards and forward nine years from the time of each runner’s personal best marathon.

With all this data, Smyth could have chosen to concentrate on any number of different explorations. In this paper, he focused on: male vs female HTW (hitting the wall) differences, how much time you will lose when you HTW, and when in your career you are most likely to HTW.

A last preliminary note: Smyth established an arbitrary but objective definition for HTW. He took runners’ splits from 25K to the finish, and compared this pace with their splits from 5K to 20K. Runners who slowed by at least 20 percent for at least a 5K distance late in the race were defined as HTW-ers.

Who’s more likely to hit the wall, a male marathoner or a female marathoner?

The guy. No contest. Twenty-eight percent of male runners hit the wall versus just 17 percent of female runners. This data held relatively constant for different ability levels and age-groups.

Women tended to hit the wall slightly sooner than men — at 29.3K vs 29.6K — but their bad patch lasted slightly less distance than the men’s — 9.61K vs 10.7K. This meant that more women recovered from their slow running prior to the finish line than men.

How much time will you lose when you hit the wall?

On average, men lost 31.5 minutes and the women lost 33.2 minutes.

Men slowed more when they hit the wall, suffering a relative slowdown of 40 percent vs 37 percent for women. This was calculated by comparing the runner’s finish time in the given HTW marathon with their best marathon time in recent years.

The time difference is a trivial amount, mostly influenced by the well-established male-female gap in marathon finish times. In Smyth’s data set, men who HTW had an average finish time of 4:37 vs women who averaged 5:07.

When in your marathon career are you most likely to hit the wall?

Both men and women are most likely to hit the wall in the three years prior to their PR effort. This is the point where you are improving, and “going for it,” but maybe haven’t put all the pieces together yet. During this 3-year period, 40% of men are likely to HTW vs 28% of women.

During years 4–9 prior to your PR, the equivalent percentages are lower: 26% (men) and 16% (women). In the three years after your PR, the percentages are 32% (men) and 21% (women). Smyth speculates that we may ease off on the throttle a bit in the years after a PR.

Who suffers most from HTW, fast runners or slower runners?

The answer here is faster runners, which is a bit counterintuitive. You might expect that they have less to lose. However, Smyth’s data shows the opposite. “Faster runners are associated with higher costs when they hit the wall,” he noted in an email. This is both an absolute and relative cost.

Smyth believes this finding is a function of the fact that fast runners have very fast personal records. When they attempt to beat these records, they risk a lot. Also, slower runners may have proportionally slower PRs. They might not have tried as hard in their marathon bests as fast runners did. This means that slower runners may have more margin for error if they mis-pace a marathon.

Here’s a table with data from a few marathons (including the 6 world marathon majors) showing an example of Smyth’s approach:

The Big Picture: Make Better Decisions

In his concluding remarks, Smyth notes that his huge data set allows him to do lots of slicing and dicing.

Yet he cautions that we shouldn’t lose sight of the big picture. The reasons for HTW and the outcomes of HTW are largely similar across all runners: You probably didn’t train enough, you probably didn’t pace the marathon correctly, maybe you didn’t fuel and hydrate properly
 and, as a result, you’re going to pay a price — a steep price.

“Runners and coaches have the potential to impose some level of control on whether a runner will hit the wall by focusing on making better decisions,” he writes. He adds that these better decisions could be especially helpful to male runners and to all marathoners who are chasing a personal record.

The post How Much Will Hitting the Wall Hurt Your Marathon Time? appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Last fall, four-time Olympian and marathon great Shalane Flanagan came out of retirement to pursue the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of running all six of the in one season. Due to COVID, spring races were rescheduled, so Berlin, London, Chicago, Boston, Tokyo, and New York were held in a seven-week span. Flanagan ran them all in what she called Project Eclipse.

Tracing the arc of Flanagan’s finishes, it’s apparent her project was work of precision engineering. She started strong, rolled through the middle marathons, and ran an impressive best-of-six 2:33:32 in the capstone New York City Marathon. She initially hoped to complete the six marathons with an average time of under three hours—and she did handily, with a final average of 2:38:30.

From the outside, it seems obvious that she had a perfect plan and followed it to a T. But ask Flanagan how it went, and she’ll tell you quite the opposite. She didn’t train well, she felt the endeavor was “in serious jeopardy” midway, she had to hone her fueling and recovery skills, and she needed help from family, friends—and even regular blood testing.

Flanagan succeeded, she believes, not because she was super fit, but because she anticipated the stumbling blocks and knew how to hurdle them. “I was nervous at the beginning, because I wasn’t sure I was ready,” she says. “I made it to the end because I was as proactive and preemptive as I could be.”

Flanagan doesn’t pretend she’s just like everyone else. No, she’s still an Olympic silver medalist (for the 10,000 meters in 2008), a New York City Marathon winner (2017), and a hardened veteran with two decades of world-class competitive efforts. That said, life has a different tint now: she’s 40, with a year-old son, a coaching job, and plenty of promotional work to do for Nike and her . “My days are very full, and they are no longer focused on my own training,” she says. “My athletes are my priority, and I’m pulled in a lot of directions.”

In a recent interview via Zoom, Flanagan talked about the obstacles, the scares, and her eventual success in her quest. (The event was hosted by , an athlete-centered blood-testing company that has and provided her with regular biometric checks throughout Project Eclipse.)

Here’s how she did it, and how you can follow in her footsteps.

Find Your Purpose

Sure, Shalane Flanagan is a famous global athlete with books, endorsements, and more, but that doesn’t mean she lives in Camelot. She had surgery on both knees in 2019, hoping mostly for a return to pain-free running in 2020. The surgeries went well enough, but 2020 wasn’t a smooth year for anyone. While she and her husband were thrilled to adopt an infant boy, Jack, that April, child-rearing brings plenty of new stress and strain.

This summer was intense, with the for track and field in late June and the in Tokyo a month later. As a coach to Nike’s Bowerman Track Club runners, Flanagan had a hectic and anxious time of it. She began looking for a personally energizing effort, and was intrigued when she discovered that the six World Marathon Majors were returning to in-person races in a short, seven-week period.

She felt a strong pull to return to the running arena as a participant. “I needed a crazy adventure to reset my mental health and to reconnect with running—my best friend for so long,” she says.

Set a Slightly Audacious Goal

A goal is different from a purpose. The first is an introspective, high-level mission; the second, more nitty-gritty. What are you going to do, and when?

Goals should be a bit grandiose but also achievable. Flanagan had spent years running 20-milers almost every weekend. There had been few since retirement, but her long-run bank account was full. She decided to travel to and race all six majors, on three continents, and aim to complete each in under three hours.

Plus, she had a secret motivation. Flanagan knew she had a shot at an unbeatable world record. “I realized the majors would never again come so close to each other,” she says. “I love geeking out over stuff like that and thinking about what I’d have to do to handle it all.” Not that the personally-contrived record would ever be recognized. But that’s the beauty of goal setting. You can invent and chase whatever mark you want

Build a 360-Degree Support System

“I knew I couldn’t finish Project Eclipse without a big support team,” Flanagan says. So she assembled one. It included babysitting assistance, training and racing partners, plenty of sleep and recovery time, cooking and nutrition assistance in her own kitchen, and blood-level monitoring from InsideTracker.

She credits running partner Carrie Dimoff, who ran a 2:29:33 at the California International Marathon on December 5, with helping her through much of the training. She also had pacing partners in all but one of her marathons. At Boston she ran with former Bowerman elite athlete Andy Bumbalough, who has a marathon PR of 2:10:56. She submitted blood work in mid-August to establish a baseline and then had three more blood tests between her second marathon (London) and her last one (New York), offering insights on her muscle, bone and brain-health, recovery, and oxygen-transport systems, all of which .

“It was maybe the highlight of my running career to share Project Eclipse with so many friends and supporters,” Flanagan says. “It was the adventure of a lifetime.”

Accept Altered Plans

Flanagan never had a long-range plan to run the six marathon majors. In fact, she didn’t even announce her goal until mid-September. By then she had already missed several months of what should have been her training-buildup period—June, July, and August.

She spent most of that time attending to her Bowerman Track Club runners at the Olympic Trials and the Tokyo Olympics. “At the Trials, I got in occasional 30-minute runs some days and nothing at all on other days,” she says. “It wasn’t much, but I told myself that at least I had been spending a lot of time on my feet.”

Tokyo was worse, with its infamous midsummer humidity and strict COVID protocols. While Flanagan managed one ten-mile run during the Games, she spent hours each day walking between various Olympic venues. Not the best preparation for six marathons, but “I called it my ‘poor man’s altitude training,’” she says.

Manage the Red Flags

The first InsideTracker blood result, in mid-August, revealed that Flanagan’s vitamin B12 level was “suboptimal,” in the words of nutrition consultant Stevie Lyn Smith. She advised Flanagan to start on a B12 supplement while also eating more B12 foods like organ meats, fish, dairy, and eggs. Smith also suggested a vitamin D supplement and an iron supplement. She believes in food first, then treating known deficiencies with specific supplements, not scattershot multivitamins.

After a solid first marathon in Berlin, Flanagan ran into trouble in London. She didn’t like the unfamiliar food options, which bothered her stomach and probably led to underfueling. Jack, who was traveling with her, came down with a cold and passed it along. Flanagan started too fast (a rookie mistake) and had to stop and walk for the first time in her racing career. As a result, she ran the second half five minutes slower than the first, feeling terrible all the way.

Her post-London blood test revealed dramatically higher liver- and muscle-breakdown markers, along with increased inflammation and an increase in white blood cells. “I thought the whole project was in jeopardy,” she says. “I felt really fatigued, and the blood results told me it wasn’t just in my head. I knew I had to make a big reassessment.”

When in Doubt, Go Back to Basics

Flanagan had hit a slippery slope. With four marathons to go, she realized she might spiral even farther downward. But she didn’t want to stop; instead, she chose to refocus. “I wasn’t going to give up,” she says. “I decided to plan for the worst and hope for the best.”

She made significant changes to her training, traveling, and fueling. She left Jack at home for the back-to-back, Sunday-Monday Chicago-Boston double, took an ice bath between the two races, and recruited a friend, Natalie Bickford, to her kitchen to help prepare and freeze some favorite high-nutrition foods from her cookbooks. These included Bolognese sauce, turkey meatballs, beef and lentil minestrone, turmeric-coconut curry sauce, dark chocolate and banana muffins, and buckwheat-chocolate-molasses cookies. She consumed these at home and also carried several travel-ready freezer bags with her on the road.

As a veteran runner and cookbook author, Flanagan didn’t need to stretch for new tricks. She simply had to concentrate on what she already knew.

Just This Once, Don’t Listen to Your Body

Flanagan did change one key practice. She had long known about the “glycogen replacement window’’—that 30-to-60-minute period after a hard run when leg muscles are primed to absorb and store carbohydrates. But a runner might also feel sweaty, tired, and perhaps queasy during that time. “You’re not necessarily hungry,” Flanagan says. “It’s easy to tell yourself it can’t make a very big difference.”

Her nutrition consultant encouraged her to think otherwise. “I tell runners this is a time to make a ‘business meeting’ with their fuel,” Smith says. “You might not have any appetite, but you need to put the fueling session into your calendar like any other meeting.”

Flanagan tried this and felt stronger for the effort. “I think I might have been underfueled for much of my career,” she says. “This is definitely something I’m going to emphasize with my athletes going forward.”

Aim to Thrive, Not Just Survive

After Boston, Flanagan’s blood work looked much better—all the muscle-breakdown and inflammation markers had dropped down nicely, and she felt better, too. It didn’t hurt that she only had Tokyo and New York to go, with nearly three weeks between them. After racing Tokyo virtually with friends around her Oregon neighborhood—given that the race was canceled due to a COVID-19 surge—she started planning for a strong finish.

“I wanted New York to be the exclamation point at the end of Project Eclipse,” she says. “I wanted to show that I could not just survive, that I could actually thrive.”

She did. She ran the first half of New York in 1:17:08, and the second half in 1:16:24, for a total time of 2:33:32. That placed her second overall in the 40-to-44 age group and a decisive first among those who had run the five previous majors this year (so far no other is known).

Dare to Have Fun

Flanagan considers herself a realist. She knows every day can’t be a peak experience, and she’d be happy not to relive the London Marathon again. But she says she had more fun with Project Eclipse, particularly its 360-degree support system, than she did while competing in her earlier days. “As an elite runner, you carry around such high expectations and concerns about your self-worth that it can be hard to enjoy the joy of the process,” she says.

Project Eclipse proved far different. For one thing, she learned that many runners actually talk to each other during their marathons. Different runners introduced themselves to Flanagan en route, commenting that her son was really cute, that they were “teammates” who were also wearing Bowerman Track Club singlets, that they were carrying “energy bites” from her cookbook (and offering to share), and inviting her on a ski vacation in Sweden.

“I’m a social runner, but elites don’t have conversations like this during marathons,” Flanagan noted. “It was a very different and fun experience.”

In fact, she misses it now. “Project Eclipse gave me an appreciation for being healthy and joining other runners at large races. It was a cool 42 days, and I’m sad that it’s over. I hope everyone else attempts something that makes them feel so fully alive.”

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For marathoners, every Boston is special. But the 125th Boston Marathon that will be run on Monday, October 11, is destined to be among the top three historically significant races in the event’s long history. Boston in the fall will take its place alongside the 100th Boston in 1996, and Boston Strong, the post-bombings running in 2014. All three are characterized by a potent brew of nervous uncertainty and wild celebration.

Boston in October

Monday, October 11, 2021

Monday’s race will be the first Boston held in the autumn, due of course to COVID-19 cancellations the past two Aprils. Prior to 2020, the Boston Marathon had been run continuously every April since 1897, although the 1918 race consisted only of a military relay over the course.

October, obviously, has many differences from April. “This will be the first Boston where runners won’t see forsythia or blooming daffodils,” notes Tom Derderian, Boston historian and book author. “Instead they should be greeted by colorful leaves in the trees, and perhaps some shade on the road.”

A COVID-influenced Boston Marathon in October means that the field size has been reduced by about 30 percent to 20,000 starters. Another way of putting it: Ten thousand runners who for Boston this year found out to their disappointment that quite the opposite was true. Of course, it’s hard to complain when race organizers are trying to limit a pandemic’s spread.

The 20,000 runners still headed to Boston will have to produce a vaccination card or pass an onsite COVID-19 test. As a result, the marathon has an unexpected new partner: Quest, the medical diagnostics company.

Boston will have its usual , including a number of former winners. But, frankly, at all the big fall marathons, the return to mass participation is a bigger story than the racing.

On Monday morning, only the elite races — female and male, wheelchair and open — will start in the usual simultaneous “go” manner. No one else will be placed into waves or corrals. Instead, after their buses reach Hopkinton, runners can visit porta-potties, get a bit of fluid, and stroll the curving three-quarters of a mile to the start beside the Town Green. When you get to the line, you’re good to go. It’s called a “rolling start,” and the computer timing chips are in charge.

The second Monday in October is Indigenous Peoples’ Day — quite different from Patriots Day in April. the Boston Athletic Association for overlooking and overshadowing the Indigenous Peoples’ Day events, and will honor the day in several ways, including a ceremony before the start, and recognizing current and historic indigenous Boston marathoners. The Marathon will honor the memory and family of “Tarzan Brown” of Rhode Island’s Narragansett tribe and a two-time Boston winner (1936 and 1939). And well-known New England runner Patti Catalano Dillon, a three-time Boston runner up and member of the Mi’kmaq nation, will take part in the ceremonies.

The Red Sox always play on Marathon day, but usually, it’s just a meaningless early-season game in April. October brings World Series fever, and the Sox are on the cusp. Sunday afternoon, October 10, they’ll play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the American League Divisional Series. It’s a 3 out of 5 playoff, and if neither team sweeps the first three games, there will be another one Monday evening just a few hours after the late Marathon finishers straggle past Fenway.

There’s an Expo but it seems unlikely runners will tarry for long. Also, no clinics or indoor talks. Instead, race organizers have put together an outdoor by Amazon that will take place all weekend long, beginning with “Opening Ceremonies” Friday night at 6 p.m.

“Our runners have been waiting for more than 900 days to return to Boston, and we couldn’t be more excited to welcome them with open arms,” says Tom Grilk, President and C.E.O. of the Boston Athletic Association. “The 125th Boston Marathon won’t be just a milestone athletic event. It’ll be a symbolic race marking the continued re-opening of society, safely bringing people together to celebrate the triumph and spirit of the marathon.”

Expected Starters: About 20,000

Winners of last in-person Boston, 2019: Lawrence Cherono, 2:07:57; Worknesh Degefa, 2:23:31

Course Records: Geoffrey Mutai, 2:03:02, 2011; Buzunesh Deba, 2:19:59, 2014

The 100th Boston Marathon

Monday, April 15, 1996

Before 1996, the largest Boston Marathon starting field was the 9629 runners who assembled in 1992.

Boston organizers figured more would come for the Centennial, imagining they might see another 10,000. Whew, bad guess. Neither the BAA nor anyone else foresaw what a country full of determined runners could do with a lot of motivation and a year of training.

Everyone knew the 100th Boston would be the greatest marathon in history, and everyone wanted to be a part of it. When the dust and blood and sweat and tears and blisters had settled, more than 38,000 runners squeezed into tiny Hopkinton, with a population then of about 12,000.

Next question: How the heck is this going to work? Runners and journalists alike predicted a logistical disaster. What if the buses got gridlocked on the Mass Pike? What if the runners broke into fisticuffs over a frustratingly slow trek up Main Street to the start line? What if the new-fangled timing chips, a recent road-race innovation, failed to function properly?

Things could definitely have turned sour. Take the weather. In the week prior to the Marathon, 18 inches of wet snow fell, turning Hopkinton High School’s athletic fields (“The Athlete’s Village”) into a gloppy, muddy mess of Woodstock proportions. The day after the Marathon brought torrential rains.

But Monday, April 15, was perfect in every way. Perfect. In every way. The weather: crystal clear, sunny, 55 degrees, great for runners and spectators alike.

And you’ve never seen a better-behaved throng of marathoners. Everyone got the message. This isn’t a competition, folks, it’s a celebration. The journey — the qualifying — yes, that took the best you could give, and then some. But the running itself, that’s pure frosting on the cake.

We didn’t have cell phone cameras in 1996, but remember those disposable cardboard box cameras? We ran with our pockets and hip packs stuffed full of them, wanting to record every scene on that memorable day.

How often do you get to run a Centennial race? Exactly once. So you’d better make the best of it, and come home with as many keepsake photos as possible.

On the elite front, Kenya’s Moses Tanui ended the threepeat streak of his countryman Cosmas Ndeti, while Uta Pippig came from behind to pass Tegla Loroupe in the final miles, notching her third consecutive win.

But mostly, people remembered that the seemingly impossible had proved possible. “The 100th Boston put a small city of runners in a village where once ran only a handful of skinny young men,” notes Derderian. “And masterful logistics proved that such an undertaking could be successful.”

Adds renowned running author Hal Higdon: “Other than the original marathon in Athens in 1896, it was the most important race our sport has ever seen. And it succeeded on such a large scale that it produced an epic change in marathons going forward.”

Starters: 38,708 (previous high, 9629, in1992)

Winners: Moses Tanui, 2:09:15; Uta Pippig, 2:27:12

Boston Strong, Boston Forever

Monday, April 21, 2014

For a day or two after the finish line explosions of 2013, the shock and grief felt excruciating. Marathon runners and media wondered if the sport could survive: Why would anyone run a race on open streets, exposing themselves to potential threats from all sides? (Important note: The Boston bombs were not directed at runners but at local citizens enjoying a public holiday in a public space.)

Then the tide turned. Dramatically. The words “Boston Strong” became a national and international rallying cry. Runners took up the theme in their unique way, vowing not to shrivel and shrink from the Boston Marathon but to return and reclaim it in 2014. It was, after all, the shining, historic symbol of their sport.

Once again, as in 1996, Marathon organizers found themselves nearly overwhelmed by the demand for spots in their race. Once again, they bent as far as could while striving for runner and spectator safety.

This time we were nearly 36,000 strong in Hopkinton. I had been fortunate enough to run in 1996, and I managed the trick again in 2014. Afterwards, I was forced to amend an oft-repeated claim. For years after the Centennial, I had told anyone who would listen that it was the greatest marathon ever, and likely to remain so for a very long time.

Nope. I was wrong. The 2014 Boston was not bigger than 1996 nor was it necessarily “better.” But I’m absolutely certain it was the most emotional marathon of all time. And what is a marathon, in the end, but an emotional encounter with the distance and yourself?

We may chatter endlessly about legs and lungs and cardiac capacity, but we run marathons with and in our heads. We experience marathons through all our senses — sound, sights, smells, tastes, and more. Something is surely going on outside us. Yet what goes on inside, the way we process these senses, is ever so much more important.

Many of the 2014 runners held signs reading, “We love you Boston.” The spectators, in turn, raised signs saying, “We love you runners.” They were also, by the way, far more numerous and louder and encouraging than any other year.

It was a lovefest, no other name for it. If you were there, you know what I mean. If you weren’t, I’m sorry. Running the 2014 Boston Marathon was the greatest privilege of my long running career.

Everyone felt the force, and none more so than Meb Keflezighi. Though not considered among the top-10 favorites, Meb broke the race wide open midway — What, are you crazy, man? That’s no way to compete over 26 miles — and saved enough for a finish sprint to become the first American winner since Greg Meyer in 1983.

Which it turns out is only half the story. The other half: In the four corners of his race bib, Meb had .

“I just told myself, ‘This is Boston Strong,’ Kefleghizi said later. “I wrote their names big so I could get their strength. To have that inner motivation was huge.”

Yes, indeed. The marathon. It comes from within. And the 2014 Boston was one for the ages.

Starters: 35,671

Winners: Meb Keflezighi, 2:08:37; Buzunesh Deba, 2:19:59

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Sunday morning’s London Marathon featured the usual world-class races in the men’s and women’s open divisions, plus an entirely new global event. After several years of planning (and COVID-19 cancellations), the were contested for the first time, crowning winners in age groups from 40-44 to 80+.

73-year-old American Jeannie Rice attracted much of the attention in the Age Group Championships, which had about 700 entries. To qualify, runners had to from around the globe. The list of qualifying marathons is far larger than the six members of the World Marathon Majors tour and the points are scaled relative to the age group winners’ times.

Pre-race, Rice appeared ready to continue that make her 10 to 15 minutes faster now than she was 10 years ago in her 60s.

In the race, Rice ran aggressively through the first half, leading her 70 to 74 age-group competitors at 13.1 miles in 1:39:57. However, she couldn’t maintain pace the second half, and finished in 3:38:38. “I had a stomach issue and had to stop for a toilet break at 16 miles,” said Rice. “After that, I couldn’t get my pace back.” Rice did, however, retain her world record for the 70-74 division, which stands at 3:24:48.

The division title was won in 3:25:30 by Yuko Gordon, who finished 34th in the 1984 Olympic Marathon and three years later achieved a personal best of 2:38:32. More recently, Gordon ran 3:19:37 two years ago in Berlin when she was 68. Gordon turned 70 last February.

Here’s a look at how Rice has managed to get faster in her 70s.

Jeannie Rice: Hidden talent

Back Story

Born in South Korea, Rice has lived in the U.S. for four decades. She began running at age 35 in 1983, unhappy that she had gained a handful of pounds in the previous year and quickly learned that she had a talent for the marathon. She ran 3:45 after a year and dropped down to 3:16 six months later.

After that, Rice more or less plateaued. She always wanted to break 3 hours in the marathon but never reached that goal. Her marathon PR stands at 3:12. A semi-retired real estate agent who splits her time between Cleveland and southern Florida, she has been self-coached her entire career and has completed more than 120 lifetime marathons.

Getting older and faster

A decade ago, Rice was finishing most of her marathons around 3:40. Since turning 70, she has improved dramatically. In 2018, she ran a world record 3:27:50 at the Chicago Marathon. The next year, she improved to 3:24:48 in Berlin. Last fall she completed the Virtual Boston Marathon in 3:24:59 (September) and the Virtual Chicago a month later in 3:24:15. Rice believes she was in even better shape several months later when she injured her knee stepping in a pothole.

How she did it

Rice is self-coached and says she has been doing basically the same training for decades. She gets her runs in early — as early as 4 a.m. if she has a 20-miler on the schedule — and generally hits 50 to 55 miles a week, with a mix of long runs and shorter, quicker-paced efforts. Before a marathon, she’ll increase to 65 to 70 miles/week for several months.

Rice does her easy-day runs at about 8:30 pace and slows to 8:45–9:00 for the long days. She enters occasional 5Ks for speed work, generally clocking a time in the 21:00s or maybe low 22:00s.

“While my training hasn’t changed much, I do go a little harder and faster than I used to,” she admits. “Also I stay in Florida for a longer time now, which helps a lot with my winter training.”

“I love competition and I’m motivated to run fast and break my personal bests and also age-group records,” she says. “Once I turned 70, I could see it was possible to break records. Now I want to set as many as possible, even though I realize someone will come along after me and run even faster.”

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