Shannon Scott two marathons in 15 days (crazy)

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 8^th 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 3^rd place and going away from 4^th, 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.

Steamtown Marathon with Shannon McConnell Roof

Well, let me start my saying what a great race; after finishing 14 marathons before this one, I would put this one up there with Boston as a very well planned and organized race. This was one of those last minute races - I had not planned to go the full marathon but as we got closer to race day things changed. I had promised Shannon that I would pace her. The goal was sub 3 hours. Even though we did not get that goal, I am so proud of her.  She did get an 8 minute and 3 second PR and third place female overall.

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 18^th 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 5^th 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 4^th 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 4^th place and again I could see the 3^rd 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 3^rd 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.

We reached the finish in 3 hours 2 minutes and 23 seconds which was an 8 minute and 3 second PR and a 3^rd place female overall. This is the first time for Shannon to ever place in the overall female, but there will be many more.

Mistletoe 5K and Half Marathon Training Program

Produced by 4 Runner Only

You want to run a 5km or Half Marathon, how about the Mistletoe on December 3^rd  , it does not matter if it your first, we will have you ready to run a PR.

What we will offer

·        A 12 week individual designed training program, practices every Tuesday/Thursday and some Saturdays

·        $120 registration fee for the half marathon, which includes your entry to the race.

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·        Technical training shirt

·        Kick off meeting Tuesday  September 6^th at 6pm at 4 Runner Only store

·        Contact

4runnersonly@triad.rr.com

dugganrunner@gmail.com

"I highly recommend this running program for any runner. David's coaching helped me build endurance to run a 10k and improved my 5k finish time by over 3 minutes."
-- Monica Winter

My background

So here it goes!! Born at St. Luke’s Hospital, Kilkenny, Ireland, was the middle child of seven.  Yes got three older brothers and two younger and my little sister.  I do not have a middle name and there is a reason for that, I was baptized right after birth as I was not expected to make it out of the hospital alive (I guess that doctor was wrong).

So fast forward a few years; went to Inistioge National School. I started late. I was 6 before I started school, (was having too much fun on the farm, I was milking cows by the time I was four). From there I went to Thomastown  VS with is much the same as High School in the US.  Only difference is, after three years you take your first exam, then you are meant to go on for another two year and do the leaving cert. I never made it that far, had enough after three years. So makes me ask a lot of questions (explain later).

Got started running when I was in my first year at Thomastown, by this time  two of my older brothers were also going to Thomasown VS and were running cross country. At first I had no interest in running. I was more into soccer but one evening I was watching my brother run around one of the fields on the farm and my late Father challenged me to run ahead of them and see if they could catch me (as always I’m up to a challenge) well neither one of them did catch me if fact I held the gap that I started with. So I was hooked.

So the next step was we joined a running Club in Thomastown and from there we transferred to St Joseph Athletic club, by this time my younger brother also had started to run as well, so now there were four of us. We had our own team and we were unbeatable.

For 13 years in a row we won the County Championship (which would be like a state meet in the US but you had to be over 16 to run in it). For the first 7 years it was a 6-man team and 7 1/2 mile cross country race, but then someone got the bright idea that our club could not be beaten so they reduced it to a 4 man team and shortened the race to a 10k. In fact they made it so much easier for us to win.  So we went on and won it for another 6 years; we lost the race for the first time in 2001, the reason we lost (I believe) I was not able to make it home for the race. I had finished my undergrad and was working on a H1B1 visa which will not allow you to leave the country and get back in.

I started my first training Log December 2^nd 1985 and I am still keeping account of the miles being logged.  One of these days I will add the entire mileage together.

 From my logs some PR’s:

Marathon: 2:32.55 Dublin should have run sub 2:25 but at 17mls I took a drink and by 18 miles I was throwing up

½ Marathon 1:07.47

10k road 30:40

5k road 15:01

The ups and downs of my running so far, well glad to say there are more ups than downs. Before coming to America 1990 was both a good year and a sad year, raced 34 times in the year, my best race was a 3.5 mile race which after the first mile,  was uphill the rest was either flat or downhill I covered the course in 16:31 for the win.

It was a sad year as my Father was killed in a road accident, but later that year he was looking down on us as we made history by going 1-2-3-4 in the county cross country championship.

1993 was marathon pr year. Ran Boston in April for the first time 2:42.46 and then came back in Oct. and ran Dublin in 2:32.55

1995 Came back to Boston for the marathon and in August came back on scholarship to HPU (could look at that either way)

1996 100 Boston Marathon, got my butt in big trouble for running this one (but would do it all over again)

Dec 1999 Graduated College (not bad for a high school dropout)

May 2005 getting my Masters (again not bad for a dropout)

So back to the part of asks questions later. I came to University in the US, with no leaving cert, no SAT or no ACT. How did I pull that one off, I have no idea but graduated with a 3.01 in my undergraduate and a 4.0 in my Masters, not bad.

So looking back on my years as a college athlete, my running was a disappointment. Yes I won races, yes I ran fast times, but did not hit the goals I set for myself. Why?  Well I believe the  reason was poor coaching, this may also have been a good thing, as this is one of the reasons I started to read books (on running). I knew what the coach had me doing was not working, and like all “ good” coaches he was not willing to listen. So after first semester freshman year I started to coach myself. Yes I did show up for team practice but the day’s workout was either already done or I used what was posted as my warm up.

This brings me to my Philosophy of Coaching.

1.       A coach is only as good as the athlete that he is coaching allows him to be. Let me explain, running is a sport and you get out of it as much as you are willing to put into it. 

2.       You are the coach not God, you do not know everything. This is where 90% of coaches fail, just because it works for one does mean it will work for everyone. No two bodies are the same.

3.       Coaching is based on trust, you as the athlete trusting your coach that he/she wants the best for you and not being afraid to talk with him/her if you feel things are not working.  There needs to be an open line of communication.

A New Start

I started to set this up back in December, but between one thing and another never got into the whole idea of blogging. My idea was to blog about coaching and the athletes I work with, back then it was just one, but now it has grown to seven that I work with on a weekly schedule. But first a little history about me.

Was born in Ireland, and lived there until August of 1995 when I took up a full athletic scholarship to High Point University. I am now a US ciziten but still like to call Ireland home and try to get home at least one a year.

My running backround started in the fall of '83 at the age of 16, up until then I played soccer, football and hurling which is the fastest moving game in the world and the toughest. Back then it was just something to do. I would say I started to train hard in the spring of 88 and run alot more races in Ireland from 5k to 10milers and place well in them. In 1992 I ran my first marathon in Dublin finished in 2:39.00. The next one was to be Boston in 93 and had such a good time I came back again in 95 but came and stay in Greensboro for two weeks before the race with my aunt and uncle who worked at High Point University The next thing I knew I was being offered a sholarship to run for them which, believe it not, I turned down three times before I agreed to come.

During my time at High Point University I was conference runner of the year twice in cross country, the university then moved from D2 to D1 and we could not compete at the conference level for two years. So I graduted in 3 and a half years. I volunteered for two years with Bob Davidson and worked with the distance kids, some may say I started the distance program, my first year we recruited Taylor Milne and Tommy Evans. During the track season I coached the winners in all the distance events from 800m to the 10k at Conference. In 2000 the University make a coaching change so I worked in Resident Life for the next four years.

 Then in 2003 I went back to school to get my Masters, again at HPU, in 2004 I started to volunteer with Wake Forest University track and cross country team, then in 2007 was employed full time. During the next three years I worked with some very talented athletes, but again to my misfortune in 2010 the university wanted to make a coaching change, so again I find myself looking and thinking what next.

 So in the mean time I have started to work with athletes that want to improve their fitness or run faster. They range form Molly Nunn who is 8 seconds off the Olympic trials down to people that want to run a 5km.

So the name of my blog "Dugganelites" come from a group that I enjoyed coaching while at Wake Forest, they were a group of walk ons, dare I say it but the head coach had no time for or did not want to make time for. So we use to joke of how it would be nice if some of these walk ons were to start beating scholarship athletes. It was not too long before they started to improve, the first step was to get them to believe in themselves; when you are told you cannot do something for a while you begin to believe you can't.

The first step was to challange them in workouts. I would have them do a workout that they believed they could not do but when they finished it, I would remind them of how easy it was.