How Hard Morning Miles Helped This Mom of Twins Qualify for the Trials – runnersworld.com

Every weekday morning, Chelsea Benson wakes up at 6 a.m. to run before heading into her office at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The 37-year-old, who raises two five-year-old twins while working full-time as a public programming manager at Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology, considers herself lucky to be able to work in a place that allows her to sleep in “that late,” she told Runner’s World.

“I could be waking up at 4:30,” she said.

Benson—who began running in high school but started seriously training for marathons in 2017—does almost all of her running outdoors between 6 and 9 a.m., even in the brutally cold winters in Ithaca. By doing the day’s portion of her weekly 90 miles first thing, she can devote her nights to hanging out with her husband and their kids, Ada and Graham.

All the hard work she’s put in over the last two years paid off last December, when Benson ran a 2:42:27 at the California International Marathon (CIM), which met the Olympic Trials ‘B’ standard of 2:45 and qualified her for the 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials in Atlanta next February. The race was technically her fourth marathon, but she called it her second “real marathon,” along with the 2:50:22 she ran at the Philadelphia Marathon in 2017.

“I always kept running after college, but I never trained [for marathons],” Benson said. “I was hanging onto, ‘I’m fit and out of college, I can do this without much training,’ and that was a really bad idea.”

In order to tap into her potential as a marathoner, Benson had to make a few major training changes, including embracing higher mileage, finding a running partner, and committing to quality workouts. And she had to do all that in a way where she wouldn’t sacrifice time with her growing family—or lose her love of running.

Finding Her Passion for Distance Running

Benson grew up in Kane, Pennsylvania, near the birthplace of former 10,000-meter national champion Amy Rudolph. In middle school, Benson tried other sports like basketball and softball, but realized she liked running in games more than she liked actually playing them, so she joined the track and cross-country teams instead.

In high school, she posted decent, but not extraordinary, times of 2:27 for 800 meters, 5:22 for 1600 meters, and 12:01 for 3,200 meters. “I love those old PRs,” she said. “It’s fun to see how far my racing has progressed since then.”

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Though she wasn’t heavily recruited for big schools, Benson was accepted onto the varsity team at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania. She first specialized in the 1500 meters, but after her coach recognized her knack for longer distances, she was moved out to the 5K, which she ran in 18:02.

After Benson graduated from Allegheny in 2004 with degrees in English and psychology, she earned a master’s degree in environmental and community studies at Humboldt State University in 2009. She gave birth to the twins in 2014, and then a year later, the family moved to Ithaca, which is where Benson’s running took off.

While attending a summer track series race hosted by the Finger Lakes Running Club that summer, a fellow runner approached Benson and said, “You should run with my girlfriend.” That girlfriend turned out to be Julianne Quinn, who would eventually OTQ in the same race as Benson, running 2:39:16 at the 2018 CIM.

Benson joined a training group that included Quinn and her coach, Jon Clemens. The accountability and structure their small trio provided was a key part of Benson’s success as a runner, she said.

Balancing Family, Work, and Miles

Juggling marathon training and real-life responsibilities is no easy task—especially when that training is at an elite level. To prepare for CIM, Benson said she maintained a weekly mileage between 80 and 90 miles per week, including two workouts and a long run.

On easy days, she ran between 7:30 and 7:45 pace per mile, always outdoors unless the winter roads were too slippery even for her homemade screw shoes. If the weather was too nasty, she logged her miles before dawn on the indoor tracks at Cornell or Ithaca College, or used the treadmill she recently bought for her home. Outside of running, she didn’t do any cross training, due to time constraints.

“I am fortunate that I stay pretty healthy,” Benson said. “I also have a hard to doing anything ‘extra.’ I am negligent about core, mobility, and strength. I always tell myself that I’ll start doing it, and I stick with it for a few weeks until my training cycle gets demanding, then it’s the first thing to go.”

Benson credits her spouse for being supportive while she wracks up those high miles. Her husband is a teacher, which allows him to care for the twins when school is out for the summer.

“He’s very supportive of my running. He knows it’s a really important part of my life, and it’s an outlet for me,” Benson said. “I only run in the evening if I have to double, and when that’s on the schedule, I’ll try to do my double at lunch to avoid after-work runs. I like to reserve that time for my husband and kids.”

The twins travel to cheer on Mom at races that aren’t too far away from home, such as the USATF Half Marathon Championships Benson raced in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in May. Before she leaves for a run, her kids will tell her, “‘Bye mommy, have a good run. Run fast,” she said. “It’s motivation in and of itself.”

Cutting Down to 2:42

While Benson has plenty of motivation to get out and run each morning, if left to her own devices, she would run more base mileage and less workouts. One of the major factors contributing to her eight-minute PR was committing to running hard and fast, with shorter intervals on the track on Tuesdays and a long tempo run or workout on Saturdays.

“Before I was being coached, I would be really bad about making up my own workouts,” Benson said. “I would only do it if I felt like it.”

Backed by a coach and months of solid training under her belt, Benson went into CIM with the goal of qualifying for the trails. Her plan, as instructed by Clemens, was “no racing until mile 20.” Throughout the race, she held an almost perfectly even mile pace of between 6:11 and 6:13 per mile. By mile 18, Benson still felt strong and powerful. Then at mile 20, it was race time.

“I was able to pick off a lot of those women that were in the tight pack ahead of me,” Benson said, “And some of those women were also catching me. It was really motivating to be in that push and pull.” When Benson crossed the line in 2:42:27, it was a “holy crap” moment for her, she said.

The Hilly Road to Trials

Before Benson competes in the Olympic Trials next February, she’s registered to run the Twin Cities Marathon this fall, where she hopes she can break 2:40. Then to prepare for Atlanta’s hilly course, she’s planning to incorporate hillier tempo runs into her training.

“The course at Atlanta is going to lend itself to strength-based runners. Fortunately, here in Ithaca, most of my runs are hilly,” she said.

In Atlanta, Benson said she can’t wait to run with some of the “the best marathoners in the world.” Her main goal for Trials is to enjoy the experience of simply making it there.

“It felt good to be able to to have the idea that I could qualify,” she said. “And then convince my body to actually do it.”