Gwen Jorgensen 2:36:23 - where does she go from here?

I have been following her youtube videos and she just looks depleted all the time. She really needs to get a unbiased nutritionist other than her husband to look at what she is missing.

Compare her running form and body from RIO/Triathlon days to now and she looks almost anorexic. I wonder what she changed diet wise.

bladerunner wrote:

She totally dominated tri for 2 years. In a sport where no one won more than 2 or 3 races in a row, she went undefeated for an entire season....It was a great story: An ex collegiate athlete now C.P.A. gets talked into trying triathlon.

This story is key to solving Gwen's Quandary: How can I give up tri and keep my brand going. To pull this off, she clearly needed a good story. "I got tired of winning and wanted to try something new," isn't very compelling. So she took her old story -- Outsider accepts challenge, tries new sport, turns out to be a natural and dominates -- and repurposed it. She replaced tri with marathon, and voila, she had her new brand -- Double Gold: Gwen's doing it again!

The beauty of this story is that it gives her cover as she ramps up in the marathon. She can explain away any hiccups/rough patches by pointing out that it took a while to dominate the tri. The downside is that this story only sells if she's a natural at the 'thon. Unfortunately, it's starting to look as if she isn't.

Who knows whether Gwen herself believes the "Double Gold!" story, or if it's all hype. But given how successful she was in tri, it's hard to see how she could have left tri and kept her brand up without telling this story, or something like it.

Sorry Wejo, like every Lance Armstrong thread of the past 5 years this is a forced narrative aka trolling. Jorgensen is no more relevant in the sport than any other 2:35-2:40 woman. Move on.

This is very very bad . I would , however, try a Spring ‘thon , but making Olympics looks a stretch

Sarah Huckleberry wrote:

She has won Olympic Gold. She should do whatever she wants to do.

Agree. It's all gravy now; she should do what she gets the most satisfaction with.

She's doing better at running than Alan Webb did going to the tri...

My bet is she takes a little time to recover and then immediately starts with a build up for Tokyo, try to get some more actual marathon experience. I dont think she'll ever break 2:30, but I bet she gives another couple a shot before 2020.

48yroldrunna wrote:

Not saying it's not total BS, but Gwen did say she had a fever all week and felt bad from the start of the race.

All week? What does she have, typhoid?

Obviously she did bad because she is too skinny. She needs to add some weight to her frame and start doing heavy compound movements. Getting sick like she was is a sign of being underweight.

Does anyone know what she was paid for her Chicago appearance? I would imagine her asking price will have to go lower for her next marathon.

djass wrote:

48yroldrunna wrote:

Not saying it's not total BS, but Gwen did say she had a fever all week and felt bad from the start of the race.

All week? What does she have, typhoid?

Cerebral tuberculosis. Which explains original announcement

I think this was a good step forward for her. The marathon owes nothing to anybody. This is an experience that seems negative in the moment but will show her potentially what she needs to work on going forward. I still think it'll take 2-3 marathon cycles for the mileage to really catch up and benefit her. Anyone here who has ever gone from 40mpw to 100+ in a few months, while including long fast workouts and totally knocked everything out of the park? She at least got the A standard today.

bloviating wrote:

The marathon or the Ironman would provide the curiosity of how an Olympic gold medalist would do but both were pretty unrealistic.

Jan Frodeni, former Olympic Triathlon champion, has already won Kona twice. The intrigue is in the marathon, or in track racing.

I guess where Jorgensen goes from here will depend on whether she can find reasons for why today's race went poorly, or whether she's convinced herself that this is her ceiling. She has the luxury of choosing her own path forward.

John Utah wrote:

Scorpion_runner wrote:

Where does she go from here?

Home!

Delusional talk about being in 2:19 shape, just a total disrespect to the sport. Now, hopefully, people will see what a poser she is.

We don't play that crap in running. .Your running should do the talking and not your mouth!. So far her running is mute.

So many folks here are so sensitive and delicate. So salty by someone setting a big goal. Interesting psychology at play here.

Johny boy, you are the greatest simpleton. I've been keeping my eye on you and I found a recurring theme. You have no original ideas. And when people disagree with you you attack their personnel character and vanish behind a smokebomb like Batman.

It's not gwens big goals that upset everyone, it's that they're unrealistic and unachievable. If she had said her goal was to break 230 and hopefully make the team there wouldn't be so much ridicule.

Maybe it was the hubris of coming off an Olympic gold but she really overextended herself. Kipchoge didn't try to break two hours in Berlin, he was aiming at the world record. There is a certain order to things.

The anger is coming from people who understand the sport and recognize this stunt as a sensationalist marketing gimmick. We are angry that people are stupid enough to entertain this gimmick as possible

I am sorry it did not work out better for her. While long course triathletes run marathons not super far off from what they can do in a stand alone marathon, but the gap is certainly more than a few minutes. When I used to run only, I would have thought that 70 degrees is crazy for a marathon, in an ironman when the forecast is 80 degrees, sunny, I think: that's not to bad. I had ironman that was 93 degrees when I got out on the run course. Anyway, 2:36 in 60 degrees on fresh legs, I doubt that she could run better than 2:50 after 5x min of swim, 4:4x bike in 80 degree plus.

I’m laughing my cute buns off.

Look for my 2:24 in Frankfurt.

forcerunner wrote:

I think this was a good step forward for her. The marathon owes nothing to anybody. This is an experience that seems negative in the moment but will show her potentially what she needs to work on going forward. I still think it'll take 2-3 marathon cycles for the mileage to really catch up and benefit her. Anyone here who has ever gone from 40mpw to 100+ in a few months, while including long fast workouts and totally knocked everything out of the park? She at least got the A standard today.

Let's take the one (and only) positive for Gwen today.

She doesn't have to race at all for 510 days.

She was probably going to skip the fall marathon next year anyway unless she decided to do Berlin or something.

So she can structure her training any way she wants to from now until February 29, 2020. She's officially qualified for the trials, which she hadn't done until today. She doesn't have to worry about a fluke storm at Boston in 2019 causing her to have to complete a half-marathon race that wasn't in her game plan.

So now it's a matter of what is the best long term plan for her for the next 510 days. She can structure her training any way she wants to now.

15:15 indoor 5000m obviously a solid result showing potential-to extrapolate this time to a fast marathon is always hard to do---she has more of a build for track/triathlon anyway-not the smaller compact frame of a marathoner-some people thrive with high milage--not in her case; maybe lower milage and speed-oriented may work for her...good luck with her future endeavours

She had a fever this week I think that gives her run an *

The marathon isn't any other event. You have to be 100% ready to go.

Having said that I'd love to know what they really wanted her to run today. 18 minutes 5ks was slower than I thought she'd do. And she doesn't look to be a natural like Hasay.

Her training log and her coach should have a pretty good idea of what she’s capable of doing in a marathon.

Sometimes a race just doesn’t go the way you’ve planned but for sure her coach should know if she’s capable of running with the top women.

If she’s running her long runs with a big chunk of it at her goal marathon pace on tired legs, she should be able to race at her goal pace for at least 35k...

Anyway, if I were her, I’d stay committed to the marathon for the next couple of years and try to make the team... she needs more time either way.

And I agree that she has absolutely ZERO chance of a marathon gold in the Olympics but I also think she will finish ahead of Hasay in the Olympic trials.