Sara Hall thinks running 2:17 in the marathon might be possible, and says she has some "secret weapons" in training

5x18 baby!

Why do people downvote Rojo?! Nothing about what he posted merits a downvote.

We ❤️ you Rojo

"secret weapons"? OK...Not a good optic there.

I'll give you one free outside the box training idea (from a fellow outside-the-boxer).

ROWING

I first used this just out of college...it is one of the most aerobic activities there is and with the monitor right there in your face it is easy to maintain/control your power output.

Most runners are skinny and lack power so getting a good workout from an indoor rower won't happen over night...but if you stick with it - it it will happen.

It is a great way to get a good workout without pounding the legs. At one point in my training i would run a hard workout one day and row the next day (with 0 or very little running). This allowed me to get more quality training and not be tired.

When i first started i was just trying to row at 2:00 per 500 meters. Most days i would just go 10 minutes. and that was a pretty good workout. you get better from there.

It's just a natural reflex. Sorry we can't do anything about it.

She did say “outside the box” twice. When she races, hopefully she’ll put on her game face and bring her A-game.

Cool

Possible for others but not for her.

My first thought was also some form of cross training. Training methods haven't reached their end form, and will continue to evolve. We know from other sports like cycling, skiing, and speed skating that athletes continue to benefit from a high volume of easy training, so they train in the 25-30+ hour per week range vs runners in the less than 15 hour range. See the thread last month on the unique training of the Olympic speed skater that trained huge hours on the bike and then set world records speed skating.

Already, some runners do add easy training hours by adding lower impact activities. Rupp is famous for adding hours by running on the lower-impact Alter-G. In really old LR threads (when Japanese women were winning Olympic marathons and medaling in the World Championships frequently), people frequently noticed that Japanese runners training in Boulder were doing a lot of extra hours walking. Allie Ostrander always got into great shape coming out of injury training mostly on a stationary bike or elliptical.

You could argue that the best runners in the world don't cross train, but that would likely be because their top competition isn't doing it - yet. In the future, it may (or may not) prove to be a necessary step to keep up with the competition.

Just speculating, but I think walking, maybe particularly up steep hills/mountains, could potentially be a great form of cross training.

Here’s another cliche: there are no secrets.

Sara Hall’s best bet is to get in a no-pressure race with perfect weather. In other words, anything other than a WMM.

Her juiced-to-the-max husband has tacitly admitted to taking varying amounts of legal, grey-area, and banned substances for years, and she just happened to show significant performance and recovery improvements in the years since those chemical experiments started.

So yep, probably just more miles on the AlterG or more yards on the rower.

I suppose I can understand why she doesn’t want to share her training techniques while she’s still competing, but I hope she shares once she’s retired, either publicly in a book or privately with other American training groups. If top American runners and coaches want to elevate American distance running, I would hope they would exchange ideas with one another. This is common practice in other sports such as football.

Lucifer?

"But I feel like those things are really what has allowed me to have the realistic jump I had in Berlin"

Is it me or is the word realistic in the above quote unnecessary? Is it a Freudian slip?

Double threshold sessions?

It is interesting, but maybe she was thinking of the shoes and knowing deep down that she didn't gain more fitness, she gained more technology. Not sure why, but I don't think Ryan doped as a runner and I don't think his wife would either. If I recall, he retired specifically because he didn't want a TUE for TRT, right? That's pretty noble if true.

My guess is Jumping Jacks. Regardless, not bad for a lady with 4 kids