Happiest 4th place finisher at the trials in a long time. So happy for her. Beating so so many full-time pros is impressive. But I think living in Phoenix helped her because she is heat adapted.
Jessica McClain, a 41-year-old U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier from Phoenix, made history Tuesday by becoming the first woman to win the overall competition in the Crown City Classic 12K race in Coronado.
Even if she doesn’t get a sponsor again, she’ll be fine. She works in advertising and makes decent money. IMO if you have a great job, making good money and have some flexibility to fit in training, that’s worth more than the sponsored scraping for scraps hustle.
Agreed, she was a full time pro and has had more success training while working full time. Maybe if she could reduce her hours or something to make training a little easier, sure, but this was a massive success and sometimes changing everything around after success is a bad idea.
Ironic the Brooks tagline is run happy - but Jess might have been happier home, married, living her best life working full-time and running around that.
I don't know her personally - my understanding is Brooks was such a dumpster fire when she was there. I think now they only survive on the back of Josh Kerr's achievements. I like Isaiah Harris, but feel like he's never reached his full potential under Danny.
I think living in Phoenix helped her because she is heat adapted.
Phoenix heat is not the same as Florida heat the same way the Colorado cold is not the same as New Hampshire cold.
it also hasn't been hot in phoenix for like 3 months. You lose heat adaptation at about the same rate you lose altitude adaptation. Which is like 3 to 4 weeks tops
This is not Danny’s fault. He is a solid mid distance coach. A 10k to Marathoner has no business signing with the Beasts who are an 800-1500 group. I had this discussion last year when they were pursuing a 10k national champ.