2020 Olympic Marathon Trials

If you follow the sport of running at all, you know how huge the 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials were!  Although the Trials have been televised for as long as I can remember, I believe the material published about them was exponentially higher this year than ever before - podcasts, newsletters, blog posts, online articles, etc.  I read and listened to so much of it that I am not even going to try to post links to content here (you can find a lot in the Fast Women newsletter, particularly issues 60 and 61).

The Trials really illustrated how unpredictable the marathon is!  I consumed a lot of content prior to the event, and only one of the six runners who made the team was expected to (Rupp on the men's side).  I admittedly paid much more attention to the women's race, and although the top 3 women (Tuliamunk, Seidel, and Kipyego) were occasionally in the conversation, they were not favorites.  It was an exciting race to watch, and I'm not going to recap it beyond that, and I also doubt that anyone who is reading this blog didn't watch it (but if you didn't, go watch it now!) and hasn't already read and heard multiple recaps.

With so many strong female distance runners in the country right now, it wasn't necessarily surprising to see who made the team, but it was surprising to see who did not.  It's too bad we cannot sent 20 women to the Olympics.  I think Seidel making team really shows that sometimes ignorance can truly be bliss and not having specific expectations can be super helpful; while I am sure she trained extraordinarily hard, it was her first marathon so unlike the other women she didn't know quite what she was in for, and sometimes that is a good thing (a handful of pros and elites run amazing debuts that end up as long-standing PRs for this reason).

What really got me was thinking about those who didn't make the team.  4th place at the Trials has to be hard to swallow - so close, yet so far.  There were so many women who had a legitimate shot at making the team who didn't finish in the top 3.  I thought about them training so hard for so long for that one day.  I thought about the heartbreak of being unable to try again for 4 years after pouring themselves into this pursuit.  I wanted them all to make it!

Women's lead pack

I watched the event with a couple of my running buddies.  We yelled at the television as women dropped off the lead pack.  "She is so fit!"  "She trained so hard!"  "What is happening?!"  We hopelessly refreshed the leader-board and tracking functions on the race app.  It was hard not to cry along with the Naz Elite crew as Taylor and Bruce hugged Tuliamuk after the race.  The marathon can be so unpredictable, and this race really goes to show that just because you're fit enough to run a certain time or to run faster than certain people doesn't mean you will on race day.  The marathon is so alluring, but it can also break your heart so hard.

I recorded with Matt Chittim for the Road to the Olympic Trials podcast a few days before the Trials (I'll provide a link when the episode is released), and he asked how I was feeling about the Trials.  I answered honestly at that time:  that I was just excited about the amazing time in U.S. marathoning and looking forward to watching!  I wasn't at all upset about not being there, as there are more important things in life.  But then the day before the Trials it really hit me; I didn't expect to have trouble coping like I did.  Although my perspective on the OTQ really changed after losing my brother, it was still a goal that I'd worked towards and thought about daily for about 2.5 years.  Society says that if we focus, work hard, and think positively, we will accomplish our goals - but I did all of those things yet I couldn't snag a 2020 OTQ.  It all kind of hit me - I poured my heart into the pursuit yet came up short, and not being there stung.

Although on a much different level, that's why my heart broke so much for the women who didn't make the team.  There were so many women who would have represented our country well in Tokyo, but only the 3 who ran the best on the day can go; everyone else came up short.

I loved seeing the joy in the women who ran towards the back of the pack - happy to be there and celebrating with a 26.2 mile victory lap!  There were around 450 women who started that race - that's 450 amazing stories.  I loved tracking runners I'd met in the past couple of years who qualified - some had the race of their life, others struggled, but all embraced the experience.  The enthusiasm in the environment was contagious and it was clear that Atlanta did a fantastic job with the event, even though the course was difficult.  Finally, I loved that the Trials were held on Leap Day, since like the Trials, it only happens every 4 years!

Cheers to 2024!