Believe it or not, yesterday was the birthday of Gwen Jorgensen's son Stanley.
A year ago, almost none of us thought she was going to transition to the marathon, and she was in the hospital giving birth. Just a reminder of how far she's come even if it hasn't been smooth sailing.
Crazy thing is I think her best performance of the year was her 15:15 indoor 5k in her first race back. She was also 7th at nationals in the 10k, 5th at Peachtree, and then 8th at Beach to Beacon. Her most recent runs haven't been that impressive to me, but she's now training for a fall marathon.
In her latest youtube video she said,
"I'm doing things that aren't going to pay off tomorrow but are going to pay off in future months and years."
She cites how Courtney Frerichs and Shelby Houlihan weren't they wanted to be a few years ago and really blossomed and that gave her confidence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV6TmIpbjjk&feature=youtu.be
My question is she may have a great aerobic engine but can you try and force a result in running? She may not have any other choice with such lofty goals, but personally the best progress for me in running came when I just trained and didn't try and force the result. When running fast, you're trying to teach your body to be as relaxed as possible at faster speeds and if you're constantly pushing it too much I feel it backfires. Or am I looking at this wrong? Shelby and Courtney have certainly put it together this year so she's got a great coach. What Gwen is doing is so different than most of us as they end result (Olympic gold) is already front and center and way, way out there.