Rupp is through, Cam Levins is now the best white man to ever do it. 4th in WC with a 3 minute PB after being 786 in world rankings.
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LRC note. We discussed this a lot in our race recap which is about to go up on the HP. Here is what we wrote.
Levins was famous on these boards more than decade ago for running 3 times a day and close to 200mpw and going from a 4:20 HSer to an NCAA legend.
Now he's back baby.
Cam Levins: “This was the race of my life”
Last year at the Olympics, Cam Levins was horrible as he finished 72nd out of 76 in 2:28:43. He came into today ranked 786th in the world with a 2:09:25 personal best, but that 2:09:25 came way back in 2018 in the first marathon he finished. Since then, he'd never broken 2:10.
So to run 2:07:10 today and finish 4th was an incredible turnaround. Levins explained how he did it after the race.
“This was the race of my life. I had a really incredible build up. I learned a lot from the Olympics last year, when I was one of the last finishers. I realized I needed to be better in every conceivable way as an athlete, so everything had gone right. It's probably the first World Championship that I was like, I couldn't have done anything more coming into today. So when I was there late in the game, I was like, I deserve to be here. I want a medal. I'm gonna medal. I just barely missed it but I gave everything I could.”
When asked specifically what he changed between last year and this, Levins said almost everything.
“I'm running more miles than ever, I'm lifting better than ever. I'm taking on harder workouts and doing double workout days as well. Just like anything I could think of I just did more of and tried to do higher quality, and I mean, I still got more quality to gain out of it, but as far as workload goes, I don't think I can do any more than I'm doing right now.”
As for what the mileage was, Cam said, “I've been most weeks 170 to 180 miles – so I'm running lots.”
Back in college, Levins became a messageboard legend as he was known for running A LOT of mileage, up to three times a day. As a member of the Nike Oregon Project, he toned it down but he’s now back to his old ways and it’s paying off.
