7 Trials Competitors, 1 Coach, 10 Training Tips for Busy Runners With Jobs – Runner’s World

The Second City Track Club (SCTC) in Chicago has many top-notch runners, but no professional athletes. Some have physically demanding jobs with 16-hour workdays. Others balance multiple part-time gigs, and a few are pursuing graduate degrees.

But you wouldn’t know it from their results—nine of the team’s 17 marathoners ran an Olympic Trials qualifying time this cycle. (Two won’t toe the line—Lauren Kersjes, 28, who’s moving to Seattle, and Chirine Njeim, 35, who will run April’s Rotterdam Marathon in hopes of earning an Olympic spot for her native Lebanon.)

That means of the 22 athletes from Illinois who will line up at the 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials, seven come from the SCTC roster.

Outside of their Wednesday and Sunday morning practices, coach Michael Lucchesi trusts them to mold their mileage around their work and other commitments, texting them afterward to find out how they’re feeling. The key elements of his blueprint for busy athletes are to:

Extend the cycle. Lucchesi—who ran at the University of Illinois and started the team in 2013—thinks in 14-day blocks, not seven. Each features four quality workouts—a long run, threshold run, longer intervals, and a strength and speed session, such as hill sprints—plus adequate time for recovery.

Run by time, not distance. On a Monday after a hard long run, for instance, he’ll prescribe an easy hour rather than 10 miles. That way, his athletes won’t stay on their feet too long, nor will they run faster than they should in an effort to get to work on time.

Take rest days. Each SCTC runner gets a day off every seven to 14 days. Rest days offer a mental break and an “insurance policy” against overtraining and injury. “Our three pillars are for all our athletes to be happy, healthy, and improving,” Lucchesi said. “If the first two are not happening, the third rarely does.”

Here’s how the seven teammates running the Trials hit all three of these pillars.

Jackson Neff, 27, Chicago

Courtesy of Michael Lucchesi

Qualifying race/time: Chicago Marathon 2019, 2:17:21
Job: Global product marketer for Motorola Solutions
Tip: Surround yourself with people who get it.

Neff’s girlfriend, Tori Gerlach, is a professional runner for Reebok, specializing in the steeplechase. “It’s good to have my partner focused on the same things and kind of on the same schedule—we go to bed early, we eat healthy, things like that,” he said. “The people closest to me understand why I don’t drink at brunch or stay out until four in the morning or do other things that most people my age would probably be indulging in.”

Oscar Medina, 27, Chicago

Courtesy of Michael Lucchesi

Qualifying race/time: Chicago Marathon 2019, 2:18:45
Job: Line technician for United Airlines
Tip: Schedule everything, even meals and recovery.

“Take an ice bath.” “Roll out before workout.” “Make shake for tomorrow morning.” Those are just a few of the reminders Medina has dictated to Siri this training cycle. Medina lives in Chicago, works six-day stints (sometimes 16 hours long) in San Francisco, and travels in his free time.

So, he lives and dies by his iPhone calendar. When Lucchesi emails each Sunday with the week’s schedule, Medina takes note of key workouts. If they require specific terrain—hills or a track—he figures out where in the world he’ll be and how to find an appropriate spot. Then, he slots in his meals to avoid an upset stomach and plans to get at least seven hours of sleep, preferably eight, two days beforehand.

Dan Kremske, 30, Chicago

Courtesy of Michael Lucchesi

Qualifying race/time: Chicago Marathon 2019, 2:14:53
Job: Medical coder and part-time staff at Heartbreak Hill Running Company
Tip: Build workouts into your long run.

Kremske, who’s also applying for physician assistant programs, will make his second appearance at the Trials. He didn’t finish the hot, humid Los Angeles race in 2016. But this year, he’s fresh off a four-minute personal best at his hometown race, a breakthrough he attributes to consistency and some long-run love.

Instead of twice-weekly workouts plus a long, slow run, the 14-day cycle means boosting the quality and quantity of his extended efforts. “Going into the last Trials in 2016, I’d done one run that was two hours, 20 minutes, or about 22 to 23 miles,” he said. “This time, I just counted, and I’ve done 10,” most with fast miles built in.

Kristen Heckert, 33, Bolingbrook, Illinois

Courtesy of Michael Lucchesi

Qualifying race/time: Chicago Marathon 2017, 2:38:54
Job: High school math teacher, also earning her master’s degree in mathematics
Tip: Find a friend who’s your speed.

As she told Runner’s World in the days before her PR race, Heckert’s first alarm blares before 4 a.m. on school days. For many of her morning miles, she meets up with fellow math teacher, grad student, and SCTC teammate Alyssa Schneider.

They’ve run stride for stride for so much of the buildup, and hope to “roll together” come race day. “It’s so much less stressful when you have someone to calm you,” she said. “You’re like, ‘I trained with this person, I run with this person. And so when you’re going through a bad patch, you can stay with them through it.”

Alyssa Schneider, 26, Bartlett, Illinois

Courtesy of Michael Lucchesi

Qualifying race/time: Chicago Marathon 2019, 2:35:31
Job: High school math teacher, also earning her master’s degree in mathematics
Tip: Mix it up to avoid the comparison trap.

Like her teammate Heckert, Schneider divides her hours between classes, coaching, and training. While she also highly values her teammates, she finds varying her running partners helps her strike the balance between staying motivated and judging herself too harshly against others’ accomplishments and paces.

“I love running with my current running group, running with old high school or college teammates, running with my older sister, and running with the high school athletes I coach,” she said. “Seeing so many different perspectives, and meeting so many different people has made me love the sport even more.”

Christopher Zablocki, 31, Phoenix

Courtesy of Michael Lucchesi

Qualifying race/time: California International Marathon 2017, 2:13:45
Job: Medical resident
Tip: Adjust your mindset.

Zablocki recently moved to Phoenix to begin his residency in family medicine. He can’t always control his schedule—it’s often a night job as well as a day job, he said—but he doesn’t dwell on missed runs or bad workouts. “Keep thinking positively, even if other things make a dent in training,” he said.

Looking on the bright side extends to race day, too. Instead of dreading hard efforts, he welcomes them: “Racing is only cool once aboard the pain train.” (That propensity for suffering may explain how, in 2017, he set the then-world record in the indoor marathon, completing 211 laps at The Armory in New York City in 2:21:48.)

Kevin Havel, 30, Chicago

Courtesy of Michael Lucchesi

Qualifying race/time: Chicago Marathon 2019, 2:15:37
Job: Operations Consulting at TriVista
Tip: Run wherever, and whenever, you can.

Fitting 100-mile weeks around a job that’s 75 percent travel isn’t easy. By now, Havel’s colleagues know that if he doesn’t get his run in at the end of a workday, he’s unpleasant to be around—he calls the feeling “rungry.” So, they offer him time and space to lace up.

A last-minute assignment to a new city might require rescheduling a workout or swapping in an easier effort to explore his surroundings. “You’re not going to do a hard run that first night, because half the run is trying to figure out which streets you’re not going to get hit on,” he said. And sometimes the routes themselves get creative. He once ran 50 laps around the parking lot of the Pittsburgh airport pre-flight.

Contributing Writer Cindy is a freelance health and fitness writer, author, and podcaster who’s contributed regularly to Runner’s World since 2013.