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—Written and Narrated by Jeanne Mack

Sam, Kinjal, and I hunt for footholds along the farm-bordered road outside of
Waitsfield, Vermont. We aim for the least loose patches of dirt to push off of
and try to ignore the hill rising up ahead of us. We are on our second two-mile
repeat, heading back to where we began the workout. I don’t notice that the
first rep was mostly downhill until we flip directions and start running hard
the opposite way.

 

Sam motions for me to go ahead of her about a mile in, just as I am falling off.
She knows that I raced the night before and sees that I am drifting back, losing
steam on the hill. I push through the burn in my quads and muscle my way to
where she’s gesturing. As I rejoin the pack, the humidity around us breaks into
a light, cooling drizzle. I hear it landing in whispers on the wide, green
leaves fanned out over our heads. I crest the hill tucked between Kinjal and
Sam, and we keep going.

 

What feels like eons later, we finish that rep, and I work to get my breathing
under control, knowing I have a decision to make. I am either going to complete
the workout and do the third and last repeat, or call it there to avoid getting
my body into too deep of a hole.

 

For Chicago, I’ve set a specific target. I want to be as close to 2:40 as
possible, ideally on the faster side of it—think Price is Right rules. So when I
had the chance to join a handful of ambitious marathoners for a weekend of
training in Vermont, I said yes. That weekend just happened to be the day after
an ill-timed, but favorite-of-mine road 10-miler. Still, I know that part of
staring down my 2:40 goal involves taking every chance possible to reach out and
try to touch the still-glowing stovetop.

Standing on that dirt road in the rain in Vermont, my legs are tight and sore
from the race, but somehow willing to give a little more, because Sam and Kinjal
are there, waiting. I nod, take a breath, and do about another kilometer before
recognizing I’m not going to get more out of the day and pulling the plug. I
watch them keep going and feel guilty I stopped, but know that I’ve discovered a
little more. I’ve found a sharper, deeper edge; the boundary of exactly which
rep I imploded on and the point at which I felt I couldn’t keep going. And I
wouldn’t have uncovered those particular coordinates without Sam waving me ahead
of her halfway through two miles, or Kinjal towing me up the hill. I let the
soreness sink into my calves while I wait to rejoin them for a cool down. As
everyone chats training and racing over the rest of the weekend, I catch myself
feeling anxious about my next marathon. But for new reasons this time. I ran New
York to present myself with a challenge that was unfamiliar. I’m running Chicago
to see if I can take something I’ve already done and make it unfamiliar again.

Racing ten miles on the roads the night before a training trip with competitive
marathoners probably wasn’t the most conventional, or logical plan. But, when I
registered for the 2018 Chicago Marathon a few months earlier, I’d made a deal
with myself: this second attempt would be different from my first marathon.

I’d stood on the starting line in New York City in November 2017, filled with
nervous energy, and anxious with the uncertainty of what running 26.2 miles
hard, at once, would be like. After years of racing distances that had come to
feel like dependable adversaries, escaping to a new, completely foreign
territory was a welcome release. Not knowing if I would even be able to race the
marathon took away the pressure of having to do it well. That relief from my own
expectations was something I’d chased. But, dodging the acute uneasiness of
setting a specific goal was really just me avoiding a fight. I finished in
2:45:20 in New York, missing the Olympic Trials B standard by 20 seconds. My
lack of expectation had been freeing, but had also left me staring hungrily at a
goal I didn’t even realize I deeply wanted to attain until it was too late.

Kindred

spirits



Sam, Jeanne and Kinjal used this Vermont training camp as part of the build-up
for their fall marathons. Each is aiming to run an Olmypic Trials Qualifying
time at CIM, Chicago and Philadelphia, respectively.

Our Fall 2018 collection is available
at Tracksmith.com.

SHOP FALL 2018







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photography 

words

Art Direction

Emily Maye

Jeanne Mack

Rafael Oliveira







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Emily Maye

Jeanne Mack

Rafael Oliveira