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

Rupp is looking at her like he's seen a ghost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKVJUIa_xBI

There was no mention of sickness in her buildup but, if there was, she should have dropped, come back in a month, and run another marathon, i.e., Rupp and Prague. If there wasn't illness then she should wait until Spring.

Given that she didn't drop, they should point to a Spring race (not necessarily a marathon and definitely not London). Maybe Boston or something lower key where she could be close to the lead pack.

Rupp: This woman is really, really delusional.

He was in disbelief. His look said it all.

Good to see Rupp relaxed, though.

Go to 2:11 in that video and look at her form early in the race. What is she doing with her right arm? It's like she's got someone in a headlock with her left arm, and she's just punching him in the back of the head with her right arm for 26.2 miles. That can't be good.

It's kind of ridiculous and an insult to Rupp that he had to share the stage with this side show. It would have been like having Martin Lei share the stage with Lance Armstrong or Dean Karnazes after the 2007 NYCM.

Stopcecil! wrote:

For all the people who say we are sexist for not like Gwen, ask yourself: How much does Kipchoge talk? Rupp? Mo? Hastings? Flanagan? Huddle? People who have proven themselves in the sport time and time again. Yeah they set lofty goals, but they show that those goals are reasonable. Very realistic and obtainable with the right training. Most of those people just talk about having good training and staying injury free. They show a bit more humility.

Which makes them boring to follow. They're bland and non-committal in the public eye, saying things like "I'd be happy to run a PR." That's only interesting if your name is Kipchoge. Gwen has made herself interesting by having a goal (not a prediction) of winning Olympic gold in the marathon. People are interested in following her on youtube/instagram etc to see how/if she gets from being a triathlete and 2:40 marathoner to being on the US team for Tokyo and fast enough (under 2:20) to win gold.

Was she this controversial when she was running tris? Was she as active supporting her brand on social media, etc?

It was a week-long trip with an infant, friend. Not everything in those suitcases were "cute" clothes.

The weirdest thing is she brought the ridicule onto all this totally by herself. Saying you want to win gold in the Olympic Marathon is so disrespectful to this entire sport. I mean lets look at all the women who do NOT have Olympic Marathon Gold: Deena Kastor, Paula Radcliffe, the likes of Flanagan & Cragg. So its ovious people are not happy you tell them you are better than these legends of their sport with zero proof to back it up. She put up a target on her back for ZERO reason. It's really baffling to think of

Seriously? Why do you think athletes train so hard? Because they want to win THE GOLD medal. Not silver, not bronze. An athlete’s goal is to be the best. That’s what motivates them. Is it always realistic? No. Gwen Jorgensen just said out loud what all other elite marathoners dream of. I love following her journey (though I wish she would eat more ice cream).

Querfeldein wrote:

tobefair wrote:

Even Bekele, the greatest distance runner in history, has been plagued with difficulties in the marathon--but remember, he finally got the dice to roll well and put together a 2:03:03 run.

Bekele won his debut marathon in 2:05:04, setting a course record. He's a really bad example, as his marathon debut was one of the best in history.

However, at that time, Bekele had many years of high mileage training - Jorgensen has not. It's very possible that she will still improve substantially with another year of training, but it's also possible that she won't. She seems determined to find that out, however, and why wouldn't she?

I concede your point is good.

Silkeeeeeee wrote:

Seriously? Why do you think athletes train so hard? Because they want to win THE GOLD medal. Not silver, not bronze. An athlete’s goal is to be the best. That’s what motivates them. Is it always realistic? No. Gwen Jorgensen just said out loud what all other elite marathoners dream of. I love following her journey (though I wish she would eat more ice cream).

Gwen Jorgensen is an elite marathoner?

Silkeeeeeee wrote:

Seriously? Why do you think athletes train so hard? Because they want to win THE GOLD medal. Not silver, not bronze. An athlete’s goal is to be the best. That’s what motivates them. Is it always realistic? No. Gwen Jorgensen just said out loud what all other elite marathoners dream of. I love following her journey (though I wish she would eat more ice cream).

I obviously get that. I am also not a Gwen hater I followed quite a bit of her videos and she comes off as a pretty nice person. I am just saying that putting out this whole transformation based on the "I want gold" foundation was shot too high. And if you shoot too high you fall very deep. And that is precisely what happened. And that is also why she took it down from her twitter page.

If she went out and branded all her online persona as a "tri to marathon transformation" she would get people cheering her on. Look what her hybris has landed herself into. She cracked under pressure and nothing good came from putting such an unrealistic goal out there so publicly.

Raysism wrote:

Even golf doesn't buck that trend. As you can see from this chart, their prime ends around 33, and then it's all downhill from there. Tiger, Watson, and others never won anything of note after age 35. They can still be good for a long time, but every day past 33 the body is going in the wrong direction.

http://golfmajorchampionships.com/byAge

Tiger Woods just won the Tour Championship 2 weeks ago, and would have won the FedEx Cup if Justin Rose didn't birdie the very last hole of that event.

Silkeeeeeee wrote:

Seriously? Why do you think athletes train so hard? Because they want to win THE GOLD medal. Not silver, not bronze. An athlete’s goal is to be the best. That’s what motivates them. Is it always realistic? No. Gwen Jorgensen just said out loud what all other elite marathoners dream of. I love following her journey (though I wish she would eat more ice cream).

And every little boy wants to be an astronaut or rocket scientist, and says it out loud. But every little boy can't do either position without YEARS of training and university schooling.

So her claiming that she is going to go after gold is not the problem, but her claiming she is going to do it in less than 2 years is where the delusion comes about.

She is treating the marathon like it is a magazine. The marathon is a book, long and time consuming, and requires more than one reading to completely understand it.

I think she should contact Matt Lonergan about coaching her. Physically she reminds me a bit of Marla Runyan, and I think she has similar range. Marla won the 5k champs on a number of occasions but only got down to 2:27 in the marathon.

ZidaneValor wrote:

Raysism wrote:

Even golf doesn't buck that trend. As you can see from this chart, their prime ends around 33, and then it's all downhill from there. Tiger, Watson, and others never won anything of note after age 35. They can still be good for a long time, but every day past 33 the body is going in the wrong direction.

http://golfmajorchampionships.com/byAge

Tiger Woods just won the Tour Championship 2 weeks ago, and would have won the FedEx Cup if Justin Rose didn't birdie the very last hole of that event.

That isn't a major. Woods hasn't won a major since 2008 and his best years were even before that. Mickelson won the British Open at 43 but that is rare. Davis Love won a tour event at the age of 50. Nicklaus won the Masters at 46, but he hadn't won a major in 6 years. It's possible, obviously. But most major winners are in their twenties or early 30's.

ZidaneValor wrote:

Raysism wrote:

Even golf doesn't buck that trend. As you can see from this chart, their prime ends around 33, and then it's all downhill from there. Tiger, Watson, and others never won anything of note after age 35. They can still be good for a long time, but every day past 33 the body is going in the wrong direction.

http://golfmajorchampionships.com/byAge

Tiger Woods just won the Tour Championship 2 weeks ago, and would have won the FedEx Cup if Justin Rose didn't birdie the very last hole of that event.

The fed ex cup is not a Major . Tiger's scoring average on Sundays is not good. because he is getting old and gets tired. I won my 18 majors when only 5 countries in the world cared about golf. I also was a heavy smoker for 14 of my 18 majors. i could only run a 27 minute 5k at my athletic best , but who cares , i'm worth 1.3 billion dollars. everyone gets old . not a crime .

She was talking about 2:19 shape as a target. Is there a coach that can get a 50 second per mile improvement over 26 miles at her age?

I haven't followed the Gwen story, so I'm learning about her as a person for the first time in this thread. I gather a lot of people don't much like her because of some of the things she says. Fine. Maybe I wouldn't like her either.

On the topic of her marathon, though, here I have a better formed opinion. The marathon is a cruel mistress, and on race day absolutely everything has to go right in order to race to your capability, and your ultimate capability that day depends on your background (time in the sport, aerobic development, …) and the effectiveness of the marathon build up. If any single thing goes wrong, the day goes to $hit, and this can happen to anyone, novice to elite (although is maybe less likely to happen to an experienced elite runner).

My read of the info in this thread is that there's a better than 50-50 chance she just had a bad day (the positive split, off what should by any reasonable interpretation be a safe pace, confirms this to a large degree). There's no way to guess at real potential when somebody falls apart in the marathon.

My thinking is that, absent of strong evidence to the contrary (i.e. an even split 2:35 in good race conditions), she is most likely a sub-2:30 marathoner. I also think there's no good reason to think she can't improve on that with experience.

First thing she needs to do is shake it off. Second guessing and negativity generally isn't a productive path forward.