Anthony Booth brought home a massive 29+ minute PR at the Philly Marathon to finish in 3:29:25. After IronMan Wisconsin, Warhorse told me he wanted to race Philly. I am a big believer in carrying over IronMan fitness to race anything you want, so knocking out a marathon was going to be a relatively simple task. After a post-ultra course decompression, we went back at it. I knew his previous PR was around 4 hours, so, I knew if he did nothing over the next two months, he'd still close in a sub-3:50, but I got an earful about the training not being hard enough and that, to paraphrase, "I am not screwing around here and want to go sub-3:30". OK... :) I don't like pure marathon training as the non-intensity/hill or long runs are these mid-range really easy (read: "boring:") runs, so we replaced them with some biking and swims (some Kick-Heavy swims which I really like) and we were seeing his training run paces nicely come in at solidly sub-8's. Funny as we both knew 8's and a sub-3:30 was a done deal and sub-3:25 was looking to be a strong possibility. Then, the call... Just like his May, 2021 IronMan World Championship, where the week prior, he developed bronchitis and couldn't race, in this case, 2 weeks out he got sick again and the weather forecast of sub-30 degree and heavy winds was leering in the forecast. Thankfully, the sickness dissipated, and during our race strategy discussion, we discussed what he should wear and we went with the, what looked like, "Flat Stanley" look. Key -- Keep the core warm and ensure you have ears and hands warm. Bottom line was the weather wouldn't be worse than IronMan WIsconsin, so, what happened -- consistently sub-8's all day, and BAM, 3:29 and change! :)
