Film Rep wrote:
fhdhfghdfhg wrote:
can't read due to paywall but my first thought was how did he, as a resident, get the money to do all these marathons? It can't be cheap-entry fees, lodging, food, flights.
Article says that his wife has a senior position in the marketing dept at Under Armour
That certainly helps!
bostonglobe.com wrote:
The dates started aligning like stars, but Jordan Tropf didn’t notice the once-in-a-lifetime constellation of marathons forming until about a month and a half ago.
The unusual circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic left marquee races, including the Boston Marathon, in limbo. After postponing last year’s race, the Boston Athletic Association announced plans to reschedule for Oct. 11. Moving the spring race to the fall put it in the same time frame as another of the six World Marathon Majors — Chicago, slated for Oct. 10.
Tropf already had plans for the fall. He wanted to cross the Marathon des Sables, a six-day ultramarathon through Morocco, off his running bucket list.
But his wife, Hannah, a senior sports marketing specialist for running at Under Armour, noticed one more coincidence. Jordan and Hannah live in Silver Spring, Md., and the Baltimore Running Festival was right in their backyard, set for Oct. 9.
“We joked for a few weeks once we realized the change of dates, that we had three major marathons in three days, and that it would be not only a whirlwind for someone racing those three, but just from a work standpoint getting to all three,” Hannah said.
Hannah couldn’t help being curious. She knew her husband.
“Nothing ever surprises me anymore with Jordan,” Hannah said. “He’s always up for a good challenge.”
Hannah threw out the question. Jordan couldn’t contain himself.
“That sounds like the coolest thing ever.”
“That’s when I knew we were going to have to find a way that he could do all three,” Hannah said.
“We realized that really there’s the perfect storm this fall. That’s kind of what set this whole thing in motion. This is like the American trifecta,” Tropf said. “I couldn’t imagine a better series of races. Boston, mostly because it’s personal, but Chicago and Boston back-to-back is unreal.
“I’m always looking for that opportunity to push myself, and this was it. These are my three favorite races of all time.”
“The big thing for Jordan is he doesn’t do things for attention or public perception or anything,” Hannah said. “I think what really drives him is, ‘What can I try that’s different, something I’ve never done before and that challenges me in a new way?’ ”
Getting through all three races will be as much a feat of logistics as it will be a feat of athleticism.
“At every step of the way, there’s a chance that this thing may fall flat on its face,” Tropf said.
His schedule will be packed tightly, getting from airports to race centers. Gaining an hour traveling from Baltimore to Chicago, then losing it going from Chicago to Boston. The normal race experience with pre-dinners and rest will be replaced with to-go meals in a hotel room.
“Really, what the schedule looks like is running the race each day, an hour or two to get some food, get recovered, and then we’re headed to the airport,” Hannah said. “Get to the airport, fly to the next city, get in pretty late, get set up for the next day and do it all again. So there’s not much downtime.”
“Somehow it kind of just all fell into place,” Tropf said. “Now with this, there’s not a ton of room for error. Like if that Southwest flight is delayed by an hour, we’re going to be in an interesting situation.”
The novelty was one thing, but Tropf set a target time of 2 hours, 30 minutes in each marathon to push himself.
“What I wanted to do was set a goal,” he said. “I’m a really goal-oriented person, so 2:30′s really ambitious as hell. But if we hit it, that’s amazing. If we don’t, if we’re going for that, we’re not really going to stray too far in the weeds. Really for me, I want to hit these as fast as I can. That’s what that 2:30 means to me.”
He started training later than normal because he didn’t settle on running all three until July, but he was already preparing for the run in Morocco.
“This was a total experiment for me,” Tropf said. “Training for this has been the best training I’ve ever done for running, but it’s been very high-volume.”
The closest thing Tropf has done to three races in three days was in 2019 when he ran the Boston Marathon and the Big Sur Marathon in one week.
“It’s hard to train for something that’s a week apart,” Tropf said. “How the running schedule works, you do all your training, and then the last week or two before the race, you taper, you take your miles way down and let your body recover and get ready for a really hard effort.
“So what you do is you taper, you hit this race and then that next week you’re like, ‘What do I do now?’ ”
“My whole approach to running is pretty laid back,” he said. “Nothing has to be perfect, you just have to make the best of every circumstance. That approach, for me, has really allowed me to have a lot of fun and do OK no matter what.”
Tropf is ready for the challenge and the experience, knowing how rare both are.
“These are the premier races in the United States,” Tropf said. “And to end at Boston, it honestly doesn’t get any better than this. This is a fantasy for me.”
Thank you for the article.
I admire that man's determination, although it helps having a supportive (and rich!) spouse.
I think 2:30 is too ambitious, but more power to him. With travel stress, etc. (at least for me personally) I'd say shoot for 3:00 or better in each marathon, and 2:45 if things go right. If he shoots for 2:30 and winds up running 2:38 it could be a disappointment. You don't want to get injured by accident either by overdoing it.
Narcissists R Us wrote:
There is nothing impressive about running three marathons in three days.
Are you crazy? There is something impressive about running 3 in 3 days and there is something super impressive about racing 3 of them.
I LOVE THIS. I always say we have no turnovers in running so the resutls aren't random enough. Here, I've got zero idea how he'll do and very little idea how Shalane Flanagan will do if she tries to race two jahrd on back to back days. If this happened all the time, I"m sure people would figure out the best way to do it and we would have a good idea of what the results would be.
But we don't know.
But if his pb is just 2:25, he ain't breaking 2:30 in more than 1. I'd actually bet he doesn't do it it any of the three as it's going to be pretty warm here on Sunday and the course isn't flat. But is it possible when the article says 2:30 they mean 2:39.
I'd still love to help though as i don't want him to miss out as he's filling up his own damn water bottle.
Is he going to wear Under Armour shoes? They don't have supershoe yet. When I used to run marathons in light flats, I could barely walk afterwards. I'd recommend a) some sort of super shoe or b) normal trainers.
Ok. I just looked him up on tilastapaja. I take back about him not breaking it once.
Guy is legit and a machine at breaking 2:30. I remember now when he won Baltimore marathon here a few years ago. He's also used to running marathons close together.
In 2017, he ran Chicago Baltimore and NY in the span of a month and broke 2:30 in all 3.
2:29:17 52 Chicago IL 8 Oct
2:29:06 1 Baltimore MD 21 Oct
2:28:44 26 TCS New York NY 5 Nov
In 2018, he broke 2:30 again in Boston.
2:28:43 46 BAA Boston MA 17 Apr
In 2019, he also had 3 sub 2:30s on the year.
2:27:23 60 Boston MA 15 Apr
2:25:23 1 Carmel CA 28 Apr
2:27:43 1 Washington DC 27 Oct
I just can't imagine doing anything the day after a marathon.
800 dude wrote:
fhdhfghdfhg wrote:
can't read due to paywall but my first thought was how did he, as a resident, get the money to do all these marathons? It can't be cheap-entry fees, lodging, food, flights.
Residents aren't destitute. This whole thing won't cost more than a couple of thousand bucks, and that's if he travels in style.
Erm, residents don't do that well. 80 hours/week for usually a starting salary of ~$60k & usually have to live in a decent sized city (high rent, high cost of living) with a ton of student loan debt.
This is an impressive triple for a lot of reasons! Reason #1 being able to get in the training required to get under 2:30.
thisguy wrote:
How the heck does this guy have time to train as an ortho resident? Didn’t think they left the hospital.
He trains at Walter Reed, so they're nowhere near as busy as a big academic hospital like Hopkins.
Doesn’t do anything for publicity? Then don’t put it in the newspaper
Rojo - That 2:25 PR is from Big Sur, which is bananas. I think you need to grade that at least a few minutes (probably more like 5 TBH) harder than the fastest courses. Believe in the Run is hyping it up and no doubt have the hydration for him covered, but that's kind of you! I'm going to make a run to the Safeway in Canton for a case or 2 of bottled water to set up a little water stop somewhere along Linwood (probably at Linwood/Dillon) if you want to say hi. Also, he's going to be wearing a prototype Under Armour supershoe that he's been testing. Maybe it has rockets?!
For anyone who thinks Jordan is doing this for publicity, he's definitely not. He's as humble of a guy that'll you'll find. The hyping is from Believe in the Run, which is totally fine by me! That's literally their job, so hype away.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CUsS_h_F8P-/
I'm rooting for him and am hoping to find him before this rolling start thing in Boston.
fat guy in a little coat wrote:
Doesn’t do anything for publicity? Then don’t put it in the newspaper
Seriously. With the obligatory picture of him in scrubs, just so you know he's a surgery resident. And the impressive-sounding goal that in actuality he has 0% chance of achieving.
Assuming you aren’t in the medicine so you get a pass. Ortho residents make more in training than most people ever make annually.
https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Orthopedic-Surgery-Resident-Salary
thisguy wrote:
How the heck does this guy have time to train as an ortho resident? Didn’t think they left the hospital.
As a Dr and multiple time marathon winner....albeit smaller marathons not the majors, I can assure you there is plenty of time for marathon training.
607 marathons in 607 days:
The Real Marathon Man – Ricardo Abad Martinez – 607 Consecutive Marathons
Legend has it that following the Battle of Marathon between Athens and Persia in the year 490 BCE, a runner ran nonstop from the place of the battle (Marathon) back to the city of Athens whereupon he declared “Victory!” to the people there gathered and then promptly died of exhaustion. The tale is an inaccurate conflation of historical events, but it did lead to the 26.2-mile marathon race now run regularly around the world. And no one runs marathons like Ricardo Abad Martinez, who completed his 607th marathon on in May of 2012. And that’s consecutive marathons, to be clear: he never once took a day off, and in fact, in some cases completed two 26.2-mile runs on the same day.
https://www.nationofshoes.com/fastest-running-records-in-the-world/
Free_the_thigh wrote:
Terry fox definitely did it to get his picture in the newspaper. That was literally his whole purpose, to raise awareness and fundraise for cancer. Publicity was his goal.
No, he did it to bring awareness for cancer research. He was not trying to draw attention to himself to feed his ego. There was a very serious purpose. Money for cancer research was not abundant at the time; things changed after his run.
fat guy in a little coat wrote:
Doesn’t do anything for publicity? Then don’t put it in the newspaper
Bingo. Whoever wins on Monday will get less publicity than this guy. Just like the guy who crawled across the finish line a couple years ago. Or Dean Karnazes. It is ridiculous to say 'I'm going to run three marathons in a row all under 2:30" if your lifetime best is only 2:25. It's impossible and he knows it. My best last year was 2:59 so I guess I can say, "I'm going to do three marathons in under 3:00" without sounding ridiculous, right? He wouldn't get much attention if he just jogged three marathons in three days. Been done SO many times already it is a non-story.
Shalane Flanagan's lifetime best is 2:21 and she ran only 2:38:32 in Berlin and 2:35:04 in London a week later. This guy is a pure publicity show like Karnazes, Bare, and a thousand others.
Bmore Marathoner wrote:
Rojo - That 2:25 PR is from Big Sur, which is bananas. I think you need to grade that at least a few minutes (probably more like 5 TBH) harder than the fastest courses. Believe in the Run is hyping it up and no doubt have the hydration for him covered, but that's kind of you! I'm going to make a run to the Safeway in Canton for a case or 2 of bottled water to set up a little water stop somewhere along Linwood (probably at Linwood/Dillon) if you want to say hi. Also, he's going to be wearing a prototype Under Armour supershoe that he's been testing. Maybe it has rockets?!
For anyone who thinks Jordan is doing this for publicity, he's definitely not. He's as humble of a guy that'll you'll find. The hyping is from Believe in the Run, which is totally fine by me! That's literally their job, so hype away.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CUsS_h_F8P-/I'm rooting for him and am hoping to find him before this rolling start thing in Boston.
Nice post ... kinda puts a "real" face to the effort. Good luck to him.
Taking a page out of Wardian's book...
This is genius on so many levels. Marketing wife helps hype ortho husband doing a bunch of marathons. Promotes Under Armour brand and people doing consecutive marathons. More business for her now, more business for him when he is doing knee and hip replacements full time.
Haha Iron Mike is actually doing just Chicago and Boston back to back.
If his wife is rich that helps, though; your point is interesting and I get what you are saying.
This guy must have OCD or something, because the mental fatigue of 3 marathons in 3 days, plus all the stress and sleep deprivation of travel would kill most people. It sounds miserable, even if you love running.