22 year old first time marathoner wins New Jersey Marathon in 2:23:56.... in basketball shorts and shirtless.

You can see he was wearing a bib, his technique is somehow unorthodox and that he had been followed.

nof wrote:

You can see he was wearing a bib, his technique is somehow unorthodox and that he had been followed.

I would characterize his running style as "lazy loper". Looks like he is just out for a morning wake-up run.

Thought the runner was a girl/woman... wasn’t sure how else a 2:24 was noteworthy...

Why do we care wrote:

... wasn’t sure how a 2:24 was noteworthy...

I know! We all need to step up. The marathon is so easy, there's no excuse not to run under 2:20. Or at least 2:30.

Hi, all. I've just scanned through this thread pretty quick - so, apologize if I overlook any previous comments.

First, Leif definitely ran the full course, and it wasn't short. I see in my own results that the athlink splits have been adjusted - I think, actually, they are still a little fast (I was 4th... and I'm pretty sure I was more like 5 pace, low 6 last 5k... I'm not very good at the 20s, as hard as I try...) but certainly they are closer to reality than they were before. Also, I'm a tangent person and my GPS had 26.5, so course was definitely right on.

To put it simply, the first 16 miles of this course are fast if you have a good temp, which we've had last two years I've run it, but the last 8 are really tough due to punishing oceans winds. On top of that, you get up on the boardwalk, which this year was slick from rain.

As far as I can tell no one has ever won this race in under 2:28. Thus I was surprised when, while prepping this year, a buddy of mine in graduate school at Princeton shared some interesting intel that Leif, a running club teammate of his, was actually going to go for the men’s trials B standard. Leif, I found out, was not a post collegiate sub elite dreamer, but about to graduate college. He was a good high school runner in Idaho who has competed for the college club team and, as others have noted, has some decent results - though nothing trials worthy - and has never run a half let alone a full.

My initial reaction, I’ll admit, was a little dismissive, though I was impressed by his training: he had done a marathon training run in 2:32, a 20 miler averaging 5:23, and numerous similar efforts. His training was specific, at least. Still, it was hard to question how much of a race-day bump he would get— or, for that matter, to ignore the voice in me saying he would inevitably experience the humility of the marathon, as everyone is always talking about. Generally the consensus view is to run your first more conservatively - to learn and experience it, right? I’m sure if he had developed in the traditional college system, he would have been talked out of this somehow. Instead, this kid showed up on a 50 degree overcast drizzly day, shirtless, with a bib attached to the back of long shorts, and just went out and hammered like he had been doing around Princeton in recent months ...

He slowed last 10k (the wind was really whipping) but still debuted, at 22, with a 2:23. I talked to him for a couple minutes after, congratulated him, told him he can definitely hit the standard on a faster course when he’s not running alone. I suggested he go to CIM, to which he responded, "Whats' that?"

I think this kid is just trying to get to graduation in early June at this point.

It just goes to show: what do you really gain from learning how hard the marathon is? Confidence and believing in yourself are so important. He refused to let negative thoughts get into his head and went out to try and build on what he had been doing in training.

[other notes on men's race... kudos to Tyler Lyons for coming back after a 2:35 at Boston to run an even split PR of 2:28:58 for second. He pulled away after halfway with a lot of confidence. And Stu Haynes, a master, came back on me and totally rolled me the last 10k. We had a big chase back for a lot of the race, and it was a really fun day to be out there competing -- for no prize money -- on the jersey shore.]

AndyDufresne2 wrote:

Looks like he ran 26.2 in training 3 weeks ago on a Tuesday (Averaged 5:50)

Was it all on the track?

Sorry for some of typos in last post -- in particular, it's Tyler Lyon, not Lyons.

Great post -- thanks for the inside info.

His bib was on his rump.

rgm wrote:

https://www.athlinks.com/event/5179/results/Event/636354/Results

Crazy result. He was even fast through the half at 1:10. Can't seem to find any more results on this kid besides some pretty average high school times in Idaho. Anyone know more?

A 2:23 by a half-a$$ amateur runner would not raise eyebrows in the 70s. Modern runners are so easy to impress now.

blort wrote:

vivalarepublica wrote:

Holy crap. Get this kid a coach. That's super impressive. Pretty sure a whole host of post collegiates in my area would love to have that time.

Showing my age here...

2:24 is a decent time, but it's not all that super impressive. A 15:00 5k runner should be able to run around 2:24.

The fact that many 13:10 runners today can only run 2:14 is what I find bizarre.

I know it's not the 1980s anymore, but many decent DI runners with much faster times at the shorter distances don't debut with this kind of time. Training for and running the marathon is a totally different category than the 5k.

What's impressive is that he did it in his first marathon without competitive collegiate running experience, without a semblance of a structured training plan, in basketball shorts, and hammered from the beginning and still hung on for a decent time.

This kid is a raw marathon talent. Period. Now get him a spot in a Memorial Day weekend marathon or Grandma's, and we got ourselves a Kawauchi on our hands!

Well, in the 80s maybe. In general I think there is a lot of truth and untruth to this point. And we’re still talking about a very narrow window of US distance running when there was the depth that Japanese marathoning has today- certainly not an entire decade.

c7runner7 wrote:

I love this dude’s ‘training’. It’s not really ‘training’ since there’s not much of a structure but he just goes out and runs... and seems to run fairly hard just for the fun of it (multiple marathon long runs and 20+ mile long runs at sub 5:30 pace). If you’re not truly elite (running sub 2:12), you might as well just do training that’s fun for you. If that includes some hard days and at least decent mileage you’ll probably end up running within a few percent of your max potential performance anyways.

Could not agree more! This is how I have trained after college. Just went out and ran as hard as felt good every day. Got me a 2:22 marathon, some chances to run in big races with travel paid for, and lots of fun memories. I have kids now, but can still slide back into sub sixes for 7-10 miles a day when the urge to start training strikes.

nof wrote:

Race footage

https://www.instagram.com/p/BiKO924AYFZ/

Everyone is missing the real story, which is the instagram account owner (and I assume his wife) looking good at 64

W T F ? 64???!!

impressive wrote:

nof wrote:

Race footage

https://www.instagram.com/p/BiKO924AYFZ/

Everyone is missing the real story, which is the instagram account owner (and I assume his wife) looking good at 64

Great time for a debut, funky for but if it works go with it (it clearly works),

But really do you see that guy? And his wife? Over 60 years? That is by far the most impressive feat on this thread, wtf

The NY Times and WA Post are especially awful when it comes to printing complete garbage and wholesale fabrications.

Is this report true? The timings seems odd

one a-hole post deserves another wrote:

Mad Bro wrote:

"Leif Fredericks, of Garden City, Idaho, managed to finish his first ever 26 mile marathon with a time of 2:23:56".

Are you serious here with this quote. The writer of this article clearly knows nothing about running. A marathon is 26.2 miles. All marathons are 26.2 mile

Are you serious here with this quote? You clearly know nothing about running. All marathons are 26.21875 miles long. 26.2 miles will leave you 33 yards short of full marathon distance. Your post leads the reader to believe that there are marathons that are 26.2 miles long.

We need better representation of our sport.

And yes, before you ask. I am mad bro!

Are you serious here with this quote? You clearly know nothing about running. All marathons are 26 miles 385 yards long. That implies a precision of +/- 1 yard.

26.21875 miles implies an a precision of +/- .00001 miles, which is approximately 1/57th of a yard. Not the same thing. Your post leaves the reader to believe that there are marathon courses measured to a precision of 1/57th of a yard.

We need better representation of our sport.

And yes, before you ask. I am mad bro!