The Steamtown course, when you look at the elevation on the course map, is down-hill from start to mile 22 but when you run it, that is not the case, yes the first 8 miles are down-hill and fast if you go with it, then you have a few rolling hills. Then from 14 to 22 is flat with some small hills, but from there on home is when the course becomes tough. The last four miles are rolling and the last mile is by far the toughest mile on the course. Boston may have Heartbreak Hill but when you turn onto Washington Street with just a mile to go and all you see is a hill in front of you for at least 800 meters, if not more, it can take the wind out of your sails very quickly.
So, as for Shannon, I started working with Shannon after she ran a 3:10.26 in Boston in April. We set a goal of sub 3 hours. When you consider Shannon’s background before Boston were she was told she did not need to do more than 16 miles for a long run and never did speed work you would wonder how she finished Boston, never mind run 3:10.
May 18th we started our base training for a fall marathon; the first week total was 34 miles. We built the weekly mileage over the next few months to a high of 65 miles. We also increased the weekly long run from 14 miles all the way up to 22 miles. By Steamtown Shannon had done 8 runs of 20 miles or more, which was a big change for her as her former coach did not have her going longer then 16mls for Boston, hence the reason for changing coaches. One of the problems we ran into was trying to do workouts in the last five weeks, with Shannon’s crazy work hours which she had no control over, we often had to move workouts or change them so she could do them on a treadmill.
Shannon is a coach’s dream athlete, communicates and works very hard. With Shannon’s busy work schedule it is hard some days even to get a run in but this is where her great communication skills come in to play. Shannon, for the most part, is able to give her work and travel schedule before I make out the week’s schedule; but we all know that schedule can change. She often runs on her own in the early hours or has gotten on a treadmill in a hotel somewhere in the US. Either way, within minutes of her finishing a run or workout I will get either a text or an email to let me know how it went.
Shannon only started running in September of 2007 and ran her first marathon in 2009, and finished in a time of 3:37. So in just over two years she has dropped her time by 35 minutes and as all athletes know the faster you run, the harder the PRs are to come by.
Back to Steamtown, we departed early Saturday morning from Greensboro and arrived in Scranton at 2:30 in the afternoon, checked into the hotel and then headed to the expo to pick up our numbers. Then it was back to the hotel to relax for an hour before we went for a 3 mile jog. Then off to dinner and an early night as we had planned to leave the hotel at 6am to catch a bus to the start. We arrived at the start and went into the gym to relax for a while.
We had planned to go for a short jog at 7:30, so Shannon went to use the rest room and as she returned she informed me of the time from last year. I already knew but had not said anything as I did not want to stress her out or put that pressure on her, because if we ran our goal time she would finish top five.
So I reminder her “let’s just stick to the goal” and if we are top five then that is a bonus. So we made our way to the start line and at 8am, with the firing of the canon, the race began. The first half mile was flat for the most part but then we made a right turn and the downhill started. We descended 244 feet in the next 400 meters, then after the first mile which we went through in 6:25 the course leveled out with a small hill. By mile 2(6:38) all I heard from Shannon was she need to make a pit stop, so we get to the first water station Shannon makes her porta pot stop (which we discovered later only took 17 seconds) mile 3 (6:35). Then the long downhill stretch started and the next few miles we went 6:21, 6:25, 6:26. After this the course started to level out and we started to run closer to goal pace which was 6:53. The first 7-8 miles it was hard to run slowly with the downhill.
We reached ½ ways in 1:27.50 and now Shannon was in 5th place; this was faster than Shannon had ever even run for a ½ marathon. I asked Shannon how she was feeling, she replied she was doing ok but asked could we back the pace off a little. So over the next few miles we backed off to around 7 minute pace.
Then by mile 18 I could see the 4th place woman but did not say anything to Shannon, by mile 19 Shannon could see her too as the gap was less than a hundred meters behind her. By mile 20, Shannon was now in 4th place and again I could see the 3rd place runner. This time I did point her out to Shannon as I knew she was begin to find going tough and now we were hitting the hard part of the course. By mile 22 Shannon was now 3rd but this was also were the hills started. Over the next three miles the course was rolling with two nice climbs between 23 and 24 miles. As we reached the first Shannon made the comment to me “are those people walking up this little hill”.
As we reached 25 miles we made a right turn unto Washington Street, and as we turned the corner all I could see was a hill that looked like it was not going to end, that 244 feet we dropped in the first mile it looked like we had to run back up in the last mile. We crested the hill and had about 400 meter to the finish.
