Fewer than three that you know of, you mean. Thanks to that Marathon Maniacs stupidness and similar groups, there are lots of people racing or at least finishing far more than three marathons a year -- they just don't run fast enough to get noticed and they don't all blog about it. And a fair # of anorexic ladies who top 100 miles a week without even knowing it. Yes that happens.
Anyway, it does appear that we are talking about the same individual, and the extent to which you are not listening to me makes me suspicious that you are in fact that person or her husband.
Yeah, we can quibble on the definition of "elite" and she certainly calls herself elite but someone who is 15 minutes behind the current top Americans on her very best day and more often more like 20 is, well, like a 2:25 male tops? Closer to 2:30? And it is undeniably wrong that 2:15 for a male is 2:37 for a woman, you just pulled that one out of nothing. That is a 16.3% difference. Even if you throw out P. Radcliffe the top men and women are not close to that far apart.
How is this even relevant? I don't have to race a marathon every month, with some ultras thrown in, to understand that it isn't the best way to max your potential. I agreed that she has a "niche" that she is happy to pursue and I will stress that she most likely knows that she will never run an "A" standard time in the marathon if she messes around with not resting properly and over-racing etc.
Then I can't help you. It's ironic that you talk about people besides her supposedly being over-eager for perfect conditions, because they are not the ones in effect putting asterisks beside half of their races.
These are 4 consecutive marathon entries on her resume...
May 2011 XXX 1st (Warm, very humid, very windy)
March 2011 XXX 1st (Cold rain and headwind)
February 2011 XXX 1st
January 2011 XXX 2nd (very hilly)
These unnecessary "notes" go hand in hand with the flood of excuses on her race reports. Travel was hell, this and that didn't go perfectly etc. Sorry but if she had a coach other than her own husband then I doubt she would get away with that.
This is bull. She started competing in junior high school, won a bunch of state titles in HS, was hurt throughout college (surprise surprise) and got serious again later. She may try to pretend that her path only started post collegiately but anyone who believes that is probably just anxious to believe that they too can go from no exercise in their early 20s to winning small local marathons. That is deceit on her part if you ask me. Just telling the facts and leaving out the BS would be "inspiring" enough for any discerning followers.
Ha. Well, even if this were anything close to the truth it wouldn't matter because it's no more than a silly ad hominem.
I would pretty much bet my life that you are nowhere close to elite, cause if you were you'd have a better grip on all of this. You would know that someone like D. Davila or S. Flanagan or the NOPers or A. Hastings and S. Burla, on and on and on would never slap all of those qualifiers on a running resume. Maybe that is actually the appeal to the masses here...most people are in fact fond of making excuses in running and life and so they like seeing a faster person do the same. I get that.
I wrote "almost three hours" ^^^ If you don't think 2 hrs 45 min is close to three hours I can't really say much more.
Again, I gotta emphasize that what other coaches are recommending and what other athletes do is not in line with the "35 to 50 minute shakeout" idea. I don't think she knows what a shakeout run even is. McMillan says 20 minutes, 30 at most and you yourself cited his article. And you can always find coaches (Scott Simmons may be one) whose training ideas seem to validate a pre-conceived idea.
Or more simply...why is it not more common to see truly elite runners banging out 4 marathons a year much less 6 or more? Clearly they have the $ incentive so if this were reasonable wouldn't some coaches of Africans have figured it out?
The problem here is that the runner in question has a super rosy outlook and (at least in public) puts a big positive spin on everything, if you ignore the excuses anyway, and thanks her sponsors, as she should....so no one calls her on any of this. No one wants to be the "bad guy/gal." If she had the personality of say Teddy Mitchell (thankfully few do) or a bad reputation like 1 or 2 former Hansons runners, the crowds would hav a field day with that blog.