This past week, my social media has blown up with memories from two years ago. More specifically, pictures and snippets of my training for, and on race day at, the 2019 Indy Monumental Marathon, where I was targeting a 2:45 Olympic Trials Marathon qualifying time. Depending on my current mood, seeing each one yields a different emotion, the biggest one feeling like, well, a dagger in my side. Ouch.
I get excited and full of pride. Like, "I was targeting something epic." I get mad. Like, "I wasted so much time of my own, and that of my family, for what? Nothing to show." I get mad at my current self. Like, "I was so driven then. Put down the Doritos, and get back at it, will ya?" I want to avoid it. But I also want to relive it. I can't explain it.
Since that day and dropping out at mile five with what an MRI would later reveal to be a calf tear, I've struggled to find a goal as, for lack of a better word, "worthy". It sounds dumb, but attaining that 2:45 Olympic Trials time essentially would have been my Olympics. I had no delusions of grandeur of actually then making the Olympic team. A Trials qualifier felt like the pinnacle for me, as if I would have capped my running career with the ultimate accomplishment.
In some ways, I now feel like a ticking clock. I'm 41 years old, and while I'll always be the first coach to say that age is just a number (side note, a 41-year old not only won, but PR'd by nearly two minutes at Indy this year!), it's more where I'm at in my life with a business and young kids and no patience that oftentimes leaves me feeling depleted. I find myself saying, "Well, what's the difference if I've run a 2:51 or if I run a 2:45 now?" The 2:45, other than lowering my PR, doesn't equate to a Trials qualifier anymore, so does it matter??
This is where I want to make the case for the 2024 Olympic Trials standards...
USATF has yet to announce the new standards, but rumors are swirling that the men's time will become 2:17 or 2:18 and the women's <2:40. ...to which, I feel defeated. Look, I'm a realist; 2:40 ain't in my cards. In 2019, I knew in my heart I could have run that 2:45, but I was stretched THIN (figuratively and literally 😛). Even if my calf had cooperated, it would have been close, and honestly, I don't think I could have trained any harder or better. This was a big part of the excitement actually...it was a goal that was in my realm of possibility, but it certainly by no means was a given.
In any event, I digress. I want something to chase again, but I feel like I don't have anything. And my guess is that a lot of the women (and men!) who had my same OTQ goal are feeling the same way right now. If the standard goes below 2:40, this cuts out about 80% of the field from 2020. There were also a lot of women between 2:45 and 2:50 that just missed the standard too. Why not keep boosting our sport and give them a reason to want to keep dreaming and chasing? Because I know for me, if the standard goes below 2:40, I'm more likely to target Doritos for a modeling gig than to target that. If it were to stay closer to 2:45, mayyybe even 2:43-2:44, I would 100% go for it again.
I'm sure money is a big reason, but for all the money spent on athletes in the Trials race, I would also think the economic boost for the host city has to be pretty stellar. I also understand that qualifying for such an event is, in a way, "exclusive" ... like, it's meant to be a smaller group, the cream of the crop per se... so perhaps the fields shouldn't be that big. But I don't know...as we work harder and accomplish such feats, it almost feels oddly like a punishment or something to have such a drastic drop after the fact. In a way, it makes me a little sad for the sport, and I'd actually be curious to chat with other women or men in my position to see how they're redefining their goals now, or if they even are at all.
Ultimately, at the end of the day, and like I've said a bazillion times, I'll always run, as it's simply what I love to do. ...but to chase and daydream about something so amazing just puts it on a whole other level, and I'm really missing that right now.
Happy chasing!
