How Shalane Flanagan Ran Six Fast Marathons in Seven Weeks
10 min readPast slide, 4-time Olympian and marathon terrific Shalane Flanagan arrived out of retirement to pursue the at the time-in-a-lifetime prospect of running all six of the Abbott Globe Marathon Majors in one period. Because of to COVID, spring races were being rescheduled, so Berlin, London, Chicago, Boston, Tokyo, and New York were being held in a seven-7 days span. Flanagan ran them all in what she referred to as Job Eclipse.
Tracing the arc of Flanagan’s finishes, it is apparent her job was get the job done of precision engineering. She began robust, rolled as a result of the center marathons, and ran an amazing finest-of-six 2:33:32 in the capstone New York City Marathon. She at first hoped to comprehensive the six marathons with an regular time of beneath three hrs—and she did handily, with a closing average of 2:38:30.
From the outside the house, it looks obvious that she had a fantastic approach and followed it to a T. But ask Flanagan how it went, and she’ll inform you really the opposite. She didn’t teach nicely, she felt the endeavor was “in significant jeopardy” midway, she had to hone her fueling and recovery skills, and she needed assistance from family, friends—and even typical blood screening.
Flanagan succeeded, she thinks, not mainly because she was tremendous in good shape, but due to the fact she predicted the stumbling blocks and knew how to hurdle them. “I was anxious at the starting, due to the fact I was not positive I was prepared,” she says. “I manufactured it to the conclude due to the fact I was as proactive and preemptive as I could be.”
Flanagan doesn’t faux she’s just like anyone else. No, she’s nonetheless an Olympic silver medalist (for the 10,000 meters in 2008), a New York City Marathon winner (2017), and a hardened veteran with two decades of entire world-course aggressive efforts. That explained, lifestyle has a unique tint now: she’s 40, with a 12 months-aged son, a coaching work, and lots of marketing get the job done to do for Nike and her three cookbooks. “My times are quite whole, and they are no extended centered on my own coaching,” she suggests. “My athletes are my precedence, and I’m pulled in a large amount of directions.”
In a the latest job interview via Zoom, Flanagan talked about the road blocks, the scares, and her eventual good results in her quest. (The event was hosted by InsideTracker, an athlete-centered blood-screening business that has partnered with Flanagan and supplied her with regular biometric checks all over Job Eclipse.)
Here’s how she did it, and how you can follow in her footsteps.
Uncover Your Reason
Positive, Shalane Flanagan is a famed global athlete with guides, endorsements, and extra, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she life in Camelot. She experienced medical procedures on equally knees in 2019, hoping primarily for a return to ache-totally free managing in 2020. The surgeries went very well more than enough, but 2020 wasn’t a smooth year for any individual. While she and her partner have been thrilled to undertake an toddler boy, Jack, that April, baby-rearing provides lots of new anxiety and strain.
This summer months was intensive, with the Olympic Trials for observe and field in late June and the Olympic Video games in Tokyo a month later on. As a coach to Nike’s Bowerman Observe Club runners, Flanagan had a frantic and anxious time of it. She started on the lookout for a personally energizing effort, and was intrigued when she found out that the 6 Earth Marathon Majors had been returning to in-particular person races in a limited, 7-7 days period.
She felt a powerful pull to return to the working arena as a participant. “I needed a insane journey to reset my mental well being and to reconnect with running—my best pal for so extensive,” she claims.
Established a Somewhat Audacious Aim
A target is unique from a intent. The initially is an introspective, significant-stage mission the second, extra nitty-gritty. What are you heading to do, and when?
Objectives must be a bit grandiose but also achievable. Flanagan had expended several years functioning 20-milers pretty much every single weekend. There experienced been few since retirement, but her prolonged-operate financial institution account was complete. She made the decision to travel to and race all six majors, on three continents, and aim to total every single in under a few hrs.
Additionally, she had a top secret determination. Flanagan understood she had a shot at an unbeatable planet record. “I realized the majors would under no circumstances yet again appear so shut to each other,” she says. “I like geeking out over things like that and pondering about what I’d have to do to handle it all.” Not that the individually-contrived file would at any time be acknowledged. But that’s the splendor of purpose location. You can invent and chase whichever mark you want
Create a 360-Diploma Aid Method
“I knew I could not end Venture Eclipse with out a significant aid crew,” Flanagan claims. So she assembled one particular. It incorporated babysitting support, education and racing companions, lots of sleep and restoration time, cooking and nutrition assistance in her individual kitchen, and blood-amount monitoring from InsideTracker.
She credits managing lover Carrie Dimoff, who ran a 2:29:33 at the California International Marathon on December 5, with serving to her via significantly of the schooling. She also had pacing partners in all but a single of her marathons. At Boston she ran with previous Bowerman elite athlete Andy Bumbalough, who has a marathon PR of 2:10:56. She submitted blood work in mid-August to set up a baseline and then had three far more blood checks amongst her second marathon (London) and her final a person (New York), offering insights on her muscle mass, bone and brain-wellness, recovery, and oxygen-transportation systems, all of which informed her education and diet.
“It was it’s possible the spotlight of my working occupation to share Task Eclipse with so numerous friends and supporters,” Flanagan suggests. “It was the adventure of a life span.”
Settle for Altered Programs
Flanagan never experienced a prolonged-range approach to operate the six marathon majors. In point, she did not even announce her intention right up until mid-September. By then she had presently skipped a number of months of what should have been her schooling-buildup period—June, July, and August.
She expended most of that time attending to her Bowerman Observe Club runners at the Olympic Trials and the Tokyo Olympics. “At the Trials, I acquired in occasional 30-moment operates some times and almost nothing at all on other days,” she suggests. “It wasn’t considerably, but I instructed myself that at minimum I experienced been investing a whole lot of time on my ft.”
Tokyo was worse, with its infamous midsummer humidity and demanding COVID protocols. Even though Flanagan managed 1 ten-mile run all through the Game titles, she spent hours each individual day going for walks concerning many Olympic venues. Not the greatest preparing for six marathons, but “I named it my ‘poor man’s altitude instruction,’” she says.
Deal with the Purple Flags
The initially InsideTracker blood consequence, in mid-August, disclosed that Flanagan’s vitamin B12 level was “suboptimal,” in the words and phrases of diet expert Stevie Lyn Smith. She advised Flanagan to start on a B12 health supplement although also feeding on a lot more B12 foodstuff like organ meats, fish, dairy, and eggs. Smith also instructed a vitamin D supplement and an iron dietary supplement. She thinks in foodstuff 1st, then treating acknowledged deficiencies with particular nutritional supplements, not scattershot multivitamins.
After a solid 1st marathon in Berlin, Flanagan ran into hassle in London. She didn’t like the unfamiliar food choices, which bothered her stomach and likely led to underfueling. Jack, who was touring with her, came down with a chilly and passed it alongside. Flanagan began also rapidly (a rookie mistake) and had to end and stroll for the initially time in her racing profession. As a result, she ran the second fifty percent 5 minutes slower than the very first, feeling horrible all the way.
Her submit-London blood test unveiled drastically bigger liver- and muscle mass-breakdown markers, together with amplified swelling and an raise in white blood cells. “I assumed the whole undertaking was in jeopardy,” she claims. “I felt really fatigued, and the blood outcomes explained to me it was not just in my head. I knew I had to make a big reassessment.”
When in Question, Go Back again to Basic principles
Flanagan experienced strike a slippery slope. With 4 marathons to go, she understood she may spiral even farther downward. But she did not want to end instead, she selected to refocus. “I wasn’t likely to give up,” she says. “I made the decision to system for the worst and hope for the very best.”
She built significant alterations to her teaching, touring, and fueling. She remaining Jack at property for the again-to-back, Sunday-Monday Chicago-Boston double, took an ice tub involving the two races, and recruited a pal, Natalie Bickford, to her kitchen to help put together and freeze some preferred substantial-diet food items from her cookbooks. These bundled Bolognese sauce, turkey meatballs, beef and lentil minestrone, turmeric-coconut curry sauce, darkish chocolate and banana muffins, and buckwheat-chocolate-molasses cookies. She eaten these at household and also carried several travel-all set freezer baggage with her on the street.
As a veteran runner and cookbook writer, Flanagan didn’t have to have to extend for new methods. She only experienced to concentrate on what she presently understood.
Just This As soon as, Don’t Hear to Your Physique
Flanagan did improve 1 key apply. She had very long identified about the “glycogen substitute window’’—that 30-to-60-minute period of time soon after a tough run when leg muscle tissue are primed to absorb and shop carbs. But a runner may also experience sweaty, exhausted, and possibly queasy in the course of that time. “You’re not always hungry,” Flanagan states. “It’s quick to notify oneself it simply cannot make a pretty major variation.”
Her nutrition guide inspired her to believe if not. “I notify runners this is a time to make a ‘business meeting’ with their gasoline,” Smith claims. “You could possibly not have any urge for food, but you have to have to set the fueling session into your calendar like any other meeting.”
Flanagan attempted this and felt much better for the energy. “I imagine I may have been underfueled for significantly of my occupation,” she claims. “This is certainly some thing I’m likely to emphasize with my athletes likely forward.”
Goal to Prosper, Not Just Survive
After Boston, Flanagan’s blood function seemed a lot better—all the muscle-breakdown and inflammation markers had dropped down nicely, and she felt improved, far too. It did not damage that she only had Tokyo and New York to go, with almost three months concerning them. Soon after racing Tokyo just about with close friends all around her Oregon neighborhood—given that the race was canceled due to a COVID-19 surge—she began scheduling for a sturdy complete.
“I desired New York to be the exclamation place at the finish of Venture Eclipse,” she claims. “I preferred to clearly show that I could not just endure, that I could in fact prosper.”
She did. She ran the very first 50 % of New York in 1:17:08, and the next 50 % in 1:16:24, for a overall time of 2:33:32. That placed her next in general in the 40-to-44 age group and a decisive initial amid people who had run the five earlier majors this calendar year (so much no other is recognized).
Dare to Have Entertaining
Flanagan considers herself a realist. She is aware every single working day can not be a peak knowledge, and she’d be happy not to relive the London Marathon yet again. But she claims she experienced extra entertaining with Project Eclipse, significantly its 360-diploma assist procedure, than she did when competing in her earlier days. “As an elite runner, you carry all over this kind of high expectations and fears about your self-well worth that it can be hard to appreciate the joy of the method,” she says.
Task Eclipse proved much unique. For 1 thing, she acquired that numerous runners truly discuss to just about every other for the duration of their marathons. Various runners released on their own to Flanagan en route, commenting that her son was genuinely sweet, that they ended up “teammates” who were being also carrying Bowerman Monitor Club singlets, that they had been carrying “energy bites” from her cookbook (and giving to share), and inviting her on a ski trip in Sweden.
“I’m a social runner, but elites do not have discussions like this in the course of marathons,” Flanagan pointed out. “It was a really different and entertaining practical experience.”
In point, she misses it now. “Project Eclipse gave me an appreciation for becoming nutritious and joining other runners at big races. It was a cool 42 times, and I’m unhappy that it is more than. I hope every person else makes an attempt one thing that would make them feel so fully alive.”
