Could Atlanta's Hills Lead to an Olympic Trials Upset?

A lot can materialize when you are trying to run 26.2 miles as fast as you can, so it is not often easy to forecast how elite marathons will unfold. (That is, except you are weighing the prospects of a specified invincible Kenyan.) As a rule of thumb, the odds of an upset are better in races that really don’t use pacemakers (i.e. “championship style” activities), and better continue to when circumstances are tricky. Case in level: the 2018 Boston Marathon, exactly where freezing rain and brutal winds decimated the qualified fields and paved the way for Des Linden and Yuki Kawauchi to secure their 1st victories in a Marathon Major. 

While it is continue to also early to forecast what kind of weather conditions we’ll see at the USATF Olympic Staff Trials for the marathon, which are using put in Atlanta on February 29, we currently know just one factor of the race that is guaranteed to make factors interesting: it is heading to be hilly. According to the elevation chart provided by the Atlanta Keep track of Club, the circuit study course will aspect 1,389 ft of uphill operating and 1,382 ft of downhill. That may well sound unimpressive to an ultrarunner like Jim Walmsley (who, rumor has it, was elevated by wolves on Silverton Mountain in Colorado) but for a road marathon it is substantial. For context, the Boston Marathon, whose next 50 % features the popular Newton Hills, has only 924 ft of complete uphill operating, according to the Boston Athletic Association. 

David Monti, who is the editor and publisher of Race Results Weekly and has coated every U.S. Olympic Trials in the marathon because 1996, says that he expects the tricky study course to be a “huge factor” at the 2020 Trials and that he anticipates a “very slow” 1st 5K (i.e. 16:00 for the adult men and 19:00 for the ladies). “Strong, mature, and wise athletes, like Jared Ward, Sara Corridor, Steph Bruce, will undoubtedly advantage from the study course,” Monti notes. “It’s undoubtedly a grinder’s race.”

Ward affirmed that the study course was very likely to favor “grinders” and “experienced runners,” while adding that he is expecting the race to unfold like a “cross region model of a marathon,” exactly where the race basically feels more time than 26.2 miles. 

On the encounter of it, that would also feel to favor a man like Walmsley, who very last 12 months ran a world file in excess of fifty miles. The colossus of the extremely scene has under no circumstances raced a normal marathon, and certified for the Trials by hitting the regular in the 50 % marathon (1:04:00) in Houston very last 12 months. (Walmsley raced a further 50 % marathon in Phoenix very last weekend and clocked 1:02:thirteen, even though it turned out that, owing to a misplaced cone, the study course was close to 313 yards also shorter, according to azcentral.com.) 

To be apparent, the odds of Walmsley ending in the prime a few at the Trials and making the U.S. Olympic group are extremely slim—on par, maybe, with 2016 Olympic triathlon gold medalist Gwen Jorgensen’s said ambition to finally also acquire an Olympic marathon. In fact, in the seething underbelly of the operating neighborhood represented by the LetsRun information boards, any speculation that Walmsley may have an outside shot tends to encourage highest derision. (See: the information board thread from two days in the past titled “Walmsley operates a faux 1:02 50 %, path trolls drop their minds.”)

For his portion, Walmsley doesn’t feel to harbor any illusions about his prospects.

“Do I know it is pretty much extremely hard or a moonshot or likely not heading to materialize? Yeah, certainly,” he advised LetsRun in an job interview very last Might. “But I assume with my ultrarunning qualifications, I do bring in a way to solution the marathon a minor in a different way, specially on a study course like Atlanta, that maybe I have a minor market if the race performs out [a specified way] that I could contend for a spot. But yeah, aspiration massive, swing massive. I really don’t assume there is anything at all to drop there.”

On the women’s facet, the undulating terrain in Atlanta only provides to the intrigue of a race that has several legitimate contenders, but no apparent preferred. The a few ladies who have the speediest PRs in the industry are Jordan Hasay (2:20:57 Chicago, 2017), Amy Cragg, (2:21:forty two Tokyo, 2018) and Sara Corridor (2:22:16 Berlin, 2019), but those instances ended up reached on programs with flat profiles. In conditions of uncooked pace on the road, there may well be no American girl who can now contend with Emily Sisson, but Sisson has only run just one (flat) marathon (albeit in 2:23:08—London 2019—the next-speediest debut by an American girl) and has still to clearly show what she can do on a tricky study course. Provided that the topography in Atlanta is heading to be much more very similar to a study course like New York Town, the race may conclusion up favoring veterans like Linden or Molly Huddle, both of those of whom have run well in NYC in modern many years. 

“I agree with Jared on the cross-region feel—the study course rolls the complete way,” Huddle says. “It reminds me of the NYC marathon study course but without the massive bridge hills.”

Speaking of NYC, maybe Atlanta will see the extensive overdue coronation of Kellyn Taylor, who concluded seventh in New York very last November (2nd American, at the rear of Linden) in 2:26:52—the fifth-speediest time by an American girl on the study course. In modern many years, Taylor, who is a 33 12 months-old mom and competes for the Northern Arizona Elite, has balanced her marathon schooling with getting accredited as a qualified firefighter, a occupation she plans to pursue after her operating career winds down. (At a push meeting very last slide Taylor certain me that she could do “a lot of pull-ups.”) If, as Monti has prognosticated, the Trials study course will favor “strong” runners, Taylor may be a further athlete to observe. 

Ben Rosario, who coaches Taylor and Bruce, advised me in an e mail that the difficult elevation profile essential focused, “course-specific,” planning. He extra, nevertheless, that he didn’t assume that the hills in Atlanta would finally favor just one kind of runner.  

“The fittest athletes will make the group, specified that they are correctly geared up,” Rosario says.

Of study course, you can be the fittest, most well-geared up athlete and continue to race poorly—be it by overextending your self in the early miles, or by underestimating the seriousness of a late-phase move from your competition. That is why, if we want to see a thrilling competition in Atlanta, we should really likely hope that Walmsley and other runners with very little to drop consider a few massive risks. Aspiration massive. Swing massive.