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

I wish someone would work with her on improving her running form to increase her running efficiency. When I watch her run she lands her feet with her toes up and she lands on her heels. Her foot when it lands is out in front of her center line and she is putting on the brakes with every stride. The one thing that would make the most difference and improvement is for her to have better running form. Perhaps leaning slightly more forward and landing with her feet underneath her rather than in front of her. I truly wish someone who understands and knows about running form would work with Gwen and help her to improve.

She needs to stop acting like a diva and focus on training. Did you see the picture of her traveling to Chicago? She had more luggage than a Vanderbilt traveling on one of their trains in the 1890s. You don't need 10 suitcases to travel to a marathon to run 2:36. Give me a break and get serious.

Stairs wrote:

I wish someone would work with her on improving her running form to increase her running efficiency. When I watch her run she lands her feet with her toes up and she lands on her heels. Her foot when it lands is out in front of her center line and she is putting on the brakes with every stride. The one thing that would make the most difference and improvement is for her to have better running form. Perhaps leaning slightly more forward and landing with her feet underneath her rather than in front of her. I truly wish someone who understands and knows about running form would work with Gwen and help her to improve.

NOP. Salazar could help her like he did Mary Cain.

PalexiAppas wrote:

5 Pages in and still no one's offered the obvious answer? GREECE.

She did totally destroy the top Greek woman who embarrassingly finished in 2:43:38. But I’ve been told the Greek’s performance was very brave - note however, it does come from a fundamental misunderstanding of what the word brave actually means.

Number one Greek wrote:

PalexiAppas wrote:

5 Pages in and still no one's offered the obvious answer? GREECE.

She did totally destroy the top Greek woman who embarrassingly finished in 2:43:38. But I’ve been told the Greek’s performance was very brave - note however, it does come from a fundamental misunderstanding of what the word brave actually means.

Someone did say Greece on page two.

I’d keep showing up! Run4Fun...

Otherwise, try being not that stubborn and give 10Ks a serious go. Or go back to triathlon and try to Dethrone Daniela Ryff in the Ironman Distance..

She will bounce back from this. Having the flu is not like having the cold, and you can't keep things down so its hard to run a marathon if you're all emaciated, or at least to perform as expected.

Welcome to the real world, Gwen.

IMT is basically a first world sport. East Africans (and athletes from the developing/third world in gen metal) don’t have the resources to train/compete in the tri. So your talent pool is dramatically decreased.

Somehow she thought that her success in the relatively small pond in Olympic tri would translate to the world marathon. Which is delusional, arrogant and naive, all at once.

2:26 on a good day/fast course is probably about her ceiling.

She obviously has the ability to run sub-2:30, she had a bad performance today. Hard to say if it's because of training or the fever or if she's just not suited to the distance. I don't think the book has been written.

waegdsafasdfasdf wrote:

She obviously has the ability to run sub-2:30, she had a bad performance today. Hard to say if it's because of training or the fever or if she's just not suited to the distance. I don't think the book has been written.

Yes, a sub 2:30 woman doing the ironman would be amazing

A sub 2:30 professional marathoner is sad.

wejo wrote:

If you were her what would you do now?

If I were her, I would cut my mileage way down to maybe like 80 per week and stop running on tired legs all the time. Then I'd toss out the 'no more than two marathons a year' nonsense and run CIM at a very relaxed and easy 2:32 pace to build confidence. Then target London for a 2:27-2:28 or so and then Doha for a 2:22-2:25 if possible (if she qualifies). Also add some fun, shorter races in between.

A lot less overtraining and more confidence building and fun may help. On the other hand, maybe she'll be fine the way she's going.

She has time to get her points for Tokyo in the triathlon. She should get her tri ranking up to qualify for the games. And then get a trials qualifier in the 5k or 10k and give it a go. I think she has the same shot in either of those vs the marathon, and this way, she has a sure way to Tokyo in the triathlon. Plus, she could maybe still snag a medal that she wouldnt get in the Marathon.

Honestly, you gotta figure that if 2:32 was "very relaxed and easy" she wouldn't have blown up when running that pace. I hear you with the cold / fever, and maybe that was a big deal. But if Jerry was saying that 2:48:30 pace was the "don't freaking run faster than this" pace, then 2:32 is gonna be hard no matter what.

I think she's capable of more than what we saw today, but I think that the idea that she could run 2:22-2:25 in less than a year is fantastical thinking. Taking the body of evidence we have at longer distances (~71 min PB in half, 31:55 10K, and today) you'd be nuts to think that she looks like she's on the cusp of mid-to-low 2:20s.

I also agree that this silly ‘two thons annually’ isn’t for everyone.

See Sara Hall.

It's a poor result that shows she is much further away than she would have realised... yet she needs to stick at it. You can't switch to a new event and give up after one attempt, even if it turns out to be more difficult than expected!

It was laughable that she thought she was in '2:19 shape'. She will never run 2:19. But she could very well go under 2:25 and this could lead to a pretty good marathon career.

It's her first real marathon. She's been in serious marathon training for what, a year?? She's run one 1/2, a couple of 10ks and now a marathon and we are writing her off as this not being her best distance??

Isn't it kind of unrealistic to think she could knock it out of the park on her first one?

Unlike hasay, huddle, Rupp, and Farah she hasn't spent 5+ years in track building that speed and endurance. The specificity of marathon training takes time.

Tri training isn't the same. It's too soon to reap the benefits.

lucaboden wrote:

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.

100% agree.

She deleted her pinned tweet where she had her goal of winning Olympic Gold in the marathon.

Agree 100%

There are no magic miles.