Yours truly and several hundred other runners, including many of the usual suspects I know and love (well, like quite a lot, let's not get carried away), shall toe the line this morning in the frozen tundra of Manasquan, New Jersey.
Today is the annual Mid-Winter Beach Run. The good news is that gun time for this morning's sprint along street and sand is 11:00 o'clock. The bad news? The high temperature today in Manasquan is forecast to be 32 degrees with wind blowing off the ocean at eight to ten miles per hour. At least it is a dry absence of heat.
Two weeks from today, the 2020 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials will take place in Atlanta, Georgia. The top three male finishers and the top three female finishers will represent the United States as the 2020 Summer Olympics. Among the men competing for a spot on the U.S. Olympic team is Jim Walmsley of Flagstaff, Arizona. The Olympic Trials shall be his first attempt at this distance.
Walmsley's chances shall not rise and fall on his ability to cover the distance but, instead, whether he can do so at a speed comparable to the favorites in the field. You see, Jim Walmsley is an ultra-marathoner. In June, 2019, he set a new record in winning the Western States, a 100-mile trail race in California, in 14 hours, 9 minutes, and 28 seconds, which is a per mile pace of roughly eight and one-half minutes.
He is quite a fascinating character with a training schedule, the reading of which exhausted me. Whether he will be able to secure a podium finish I would not pretend to know. The smart money, whatever that is, suggests that he shall not. I suspect that Jim Walmsley gives not one damn about the smart money and its betting preferences.
I, for one, am rooting for him to do it.
-AK
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