This is how you should celebrate a marathon (video). 14:54 guy who couldn't make DIII nats runs 2:16 marathon!!

Alex, that's a great post here and even greater post on reddit. I lovedthe "warrior scream." One of my most vivid running memories came in a workout.

On January 1, 2000. I skipped all of the NYE festitivies to try to make the Trials. I was doing a 15 miler at marathon pace hoping to make the Trials in a few weeks. I was so pumped to be hitting my splits that I screamed out mid-workout at John Kellogg, "I am a warrior." He too was a guy I'd known since like 8th or 9th grade. Sadly my 2:16 is still my fantasy.

The only thing that's bad about this is 2:16 is it clearly came on a short course. ;)

I hate to admit it but one of my favorite sayings about running, "If it seems too good to be true, it is" so the skeptic side of me was thinking for a while as I was reading this, "Wait a minute, this was run on some obscure course? Was it short?"

But the fact it was a loop makes me feel better.

You need to break 2:15:00 however or when Comrades or something to make me 100% convinced it was legit.

Keep up the good work.

Congrats.

Alex, email me. I may see if the guys will let me have you on our bonus Friday podcast.

Did I miss something? How was this a short course? His watch claimed 26.3 miles.

I have sent you an email. Thank you for the response.

That's a great story, and I understand your skepticism, haha. If it helps at all here is the USATF certification for the course:

It was also run as a half marathon back in November where I ran 65:34

What I will not deny is that it is a remarkably flat and fast course. The race director also had marked arrows on the turns so that we could run the tangents as perfectly as possible. I doubt there were many things I could have done to even take another ten seconds off of the time I ran that day! Regardless, I imagine I'll have more opportunities at more "established" courses to run fast ;)

hemorrhoid wrote:

Did I miss something? How was this a short course? His watch claimed 26.3 miles.

I imagine it may have been a bit of light humor, akin to the "Boston track is short" meme. Regardless I dug up some sources :)

Alex, your college PRs are almost exactly in line with mine, but you whooped my butt in the marathon. Great run.

I am an old man now at 42, and I wish I'd have given the marathon more of my focus in my 20s.

Congratulations and keep training hard. Watching that video was extremely inspiring and it made me feel proud for your father.

Another point to keep in mind here is that to state that a 14:54 guy ran 2:16 is a tad misleading. This guy ran 8:26 which is probably worth at least 14:40 and he seems to get better in the longer distances so for sure he was capable of running faster than 14:54 in college. It does not detract from the story but my guess is that Alex is fairly light on his feet and efficient plus the shoes and maybe he is made for the marathon. However I would work on running sub 30 if you want to begin to think about 2:14 or faster.

skruB wrote:

hemorrhoid wrote:

Did I miss something? How was this a short course? His watch claimed 26.3 miles.

I imagine it may have been a bit of light humor, akin to the "Boston track is short" meme. Regardless I dug up some sources :)

Self-defecating wit....

And this, boys and girls, is why we run well past the time will we win races, have trolls question our successes and we have to look waaaay down the finishers list to find our names. Just the pure fun of seeing how much we can challenge ourselves and perform.

skruB wrote:

hemorrhoid wrote:

Did I miss something? How was this a short course? His watch claimed 26.3 miles.

I imagine it may have been a bit of light humor, akin to the "Boston track is short" meme. Regardless I dug up some sources :)

How was it funny?

I like this skrub guy. Great race report, congrats!

so a solid, very respectable vdot 71 (perfect vdot 71 actually) puts on +3 vdot alphaflys and runs a vdot 74, interesting

guess Bromka would have had those 2 seconds for OTQ if he had just worn the alpha protos at CIM, also a 15 minute D3 if I remember correctly

does this mean the 2024 OTQ is also going to be -7 minutes like the BQ

I see a lot of really fast men in local races here in the UK running low 14s and never getting any credit. Crazy to think how fast you have to be just to get a bite.

This story is awesome. The marathon time isn't super surprising tho. Generally an OTQ requires 14:40s/sub-31:00. His 5k is maybe a touch off but his 3k/10k are both strong. Just shows why more people need to put in the miles and keep running if they can get into sub-15/sub-31 territory. Some of those guys will be able to churn out strong marathons. Clearly he's one of those endurance guys with 32 miles @ sub-5:45 pace just a few weeks ago.

Love the reaction. Need more personality in this sport.

McKirdy is a weird commie

ALEX IS A MF LEGEND YALL DON'T SLEEP ON THE KID BIG THINGS COMING KEEP THE MF DREAM ALIVE

Rojo - Was this time fast enough to deserve prize money?

quickytug wrote:

Rojo - Was this time fast enough to deserve prize money?

And how much can be ascribed to the shoes? What would this time have been in 2014 shoes?

Rojo, It would be good if you could establish a "reaction" seminar to be held before all the major marathons. Attendance by the elites would be mandatory. You could play the role as the "winner." Set up a simulated finish line. You'd bust the tape several times, exhibiting different options, with all of them showing the proper amount of exaltation. It would be good if you brought "spectators" also. People you could engage with, chest bump, scream at, etc.

*exultation