Boston Marathon, April 18, 2011 – a day to remember in marathon running history. The winner, Geoffrey Mutai, ran 57 seconds under the then-current world record, stopping the clock at 2:03.02. Mutai had a few factors working in his favour that day. Firstly, there was a strong tailwind of 15-20 miles/hr for much of the race. Secondly, the Boston Marathon course has a subtle elevation drop, this is both a curse and blessing; athletes can run fast, but any resulting records won’t be officially recognised.
The final factor working for Mutai that Monday in April was the early pace set by the American half-marathon record holder, Ryan Hall. Hall went straight to the front that special day. As recalled by Hall:
“I went right to the lead in the first 100 meters and was surprised to look down at my watch after a half mile of running and see that I was on schedule for a 4:26 opening mile. My turnover felt easy and my stride felt smooth, but more than anything I felt at complete mental ease in the front of the race.”
This is the story of Ryan’s 12 week lead-up to this epic 2:04.58 marathon. One would think to pull off such a time, a perfect few months of training in the lead-up would be required. Quite to the contrary, it is amazing how up-and-down this period was. From a lingering ITB injury, to stomach upsets and sickness. However, Hall battled on, resilience and belief aplenty.
Read on to discover all there is to know about this pivotal period in the career of a great American marathoner, Ryan Hall
In this training diary:
- Every session, every run, for 12 weeks leading into the 2011 Boston Marathon.
- A detailed 21 A4 page, 7000 plus word training diary.
- Splits for sessions. Including splits for interval/track sessions as well as splits for tempo runs.
- Comments from Ryan Hall every day about the training, how he was feeling, the pace of easy recovery runs and much more.
- Follow along as Hall battles sickness, fatigue, injury, motivation and self-doubt.
- Never before seen content, training insights & photos from Ryan Hall.
____________________________________________________________
Comments are closed.