First marathon Ridge to Bridge Oct 22 in Morganton NC, finishing in a time of 2:48.05 over a 9 minute PR and third place overall. Second marathon ING New York Nov. 6, finishing in a time of 3:02.53.
I first started to work with Shannon in January of 2011, for the Cherry Blossom 10 miler in DC. On the day things were going great until about 7mls when he got sick but finished in 59:21 which was about 3minutes slower than we were hoping for. Now the first time I met Shannon is a different story, it was a Sunday morning run at the Salem Lake. I was there to run with Molly and Caitlin when this guy came over and asked if he could run with us, I said sure as long as you can stay with us. So when we were ready to start there was no sign of the guy so we started. At the two mile mark I saw him running and we passed him.
It was about two months later when I was at the lake again but this time with a group of guys that I trained with when I saw the guy again, but this time he was with the guys (it had been a few months since I had run with them) so he introduced himself as Shannon Scott. He asked me if I remembered the morning that he wanted to run with me I answered yes and asked why he did not wait. Shannon response was “well I thought you were an asshole when you said you can if you can stay with us but when you passed me at two miles I understood what you meant”.
Back then Shannon was just getting back into running; he had just gotten home from his second tour in Iraq and was a big guy for a runner - he weighed about 220lb. Shannon is not new to the sport, he ran track in College. His event back then was the 400 for which he ran 48 seconds. Shannon is not just a runner he also a cycles and is a triathlete.
Shannon has done Ironman St. George in Utah which is rated as one of the hardest Ironman courses in the world, in which he finished in 13h 26m 38s. In the last few months he has started to concentrate more on just running hence running two marathons in 15 days (yes as the coach it was crazy).
So back to Ridge to Bridge, Shannon’s fastest time was on this course, he had run it in 2010 and finished 8th in a time of 2:57.45. His time this year 2.48.05, that’s 9 minutes and 40 seconds faster and moved him up to third overall. This time could have been faster, I biked beside and sometime behind, as part of the course was so steep I was having a hard time keeping the bike upright as the back wheel was skidding out from under me on the gravel, but at 5 miles in I asked how he was doing and his response was ok but my right quad is sore, not something I wanted to hear as the next 10 miles were all downhill and some of the downhill was steep. So Shannon backed off the pace a little and the fourth place runner caught up to him.
This was great for Shannon, because as anyone that knows Shannon knows, he will talk your ear off, so the chatter started and the miles passed. At 18 miles I handed Shannon his water bottle and told him “it time to shut up and start running” which he did, within the next ½ mile he was in 3rd place and going away from 4th, over the next few miles he continued to run 6.30s.
We found out later it was not this quad but his IT band that was the problem. So we have 14 days to get ready for New York. Well the original plan was to pace his friend Jeff who was going for a Boston qualifier time of 3:25. That went out the window when we found out that they both were starting in different area and would not meet until about mile 5, in New York that would be like trying to find a needle in a hay stack.
So the plan changed; Shannon wanted to see if he could come back and go faster than Ridge to Bridge, not smart but he seemed to have recovered well and as we both knew he could have gone faster, we agreed to try and see. This time I followed Shannon on the computer. The opening few miles seemed to be going great but then the pace started to slow. He had started out on 2:46 pace and maintained this until about mile 7 then the pace started to slip to 2:47-2:48 and then around 22 miles it was 2:59, with the hard part of the course to come in Central Park. He finished with a 3:02.53. So when we talked later in the day he told me that his lower back had tightened up from all the sitting around before the start.
Even with this not a bad time, 15 days after running a big PR, but don’t be surprised, its not the first time he has done something this crazy, last year after running his Ironman he ran a marathon within two week of it, what can I say he’s a Marine.
Semper Fi, Shannon!
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