How Becoming a Miler Helped This Brooklyn Marathoner Qualify for Trials – runnersworld.com
How Becoming a Miler Helped This Brooklyn Marathoner Qualify for Trials runnersworld.com
It all started with a bet. When Leigh Anne Sharek was *fresh* out of college, a friend bet that she could beat her in a 5K. While Sharek had run a bit as an …
It all started with a bet. When Leigh Anne Sharek was fresh out of college, a friend bet that she could beat her in a 5K. While Sharek had run a bit as an undergrad at Pace University—and was naturally fit from a decade of competing in gymnastics—she had never gone more than a few miles at a time, let alone raced them. Still, that bet ignited a fire.
“I wasn’t about to let her beat me,” Sharek, now 30, told Runner’s World.
Sharek prepared for the 5K by doing out-and-backs at night on the Brooklyn Bridge, which sat a stone’s throw from her campus dorm. The view of the Manhattan skyline always stopped her in her tracks (figuratively, at least), and made her proud to call the Big Apple home, she said.
When race day arrived, Sharek surprised herself by placing 4th overall in 20 minutes and change. Her friend ended up getting a bloody nose two miles in, then dropping out.
Bragging rights aside, Sharek gained something else that day: a sense of accomplishment. From then on, she craved the feeling of running really, really hard.
That competitive drive—along with a supportive, homegrown running community in New York City—would push Sharek to great running feats over the next seven years, including an Olympic Marathon Trials-qualifying performance (2:41:59) at the California International Marathon in December 2018. That means in February 2020, Sharek will toe the line in Atlanta with the 301 (and counting) women who have also qualified for Trials.
“I train with women who have also qualified, so it’ll be so exciting to be there,” Sharek said. “New York isn’t an easy place to be a runner, but the community here makes it possible.”
Becoming a Runner in the Big Apple
When you picture the ideal setting for starting a running program, NYC probably doesn’t come to mind. Rural roads and lush trails—like those found in Sharek’s native New Hampshire—are much more conducive to training than the concrete jungle, where routes are limited and getting to Central Park or a track could mean an hour-long subway ride.
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But for Sharek, who moved to Brooklyn after college to work as a criminalist with NYC’s Chief Medical Examiner, the city has played a huge part in her running success. One major plus, she explained, is that you always have someone to run with no matter the time, since everyone is juggling training with a career.
“No one comes to New York to run,” she said. “When you meet up with a group of runners here, everyone brings different jobs and interests to the table. Running is our shared hobby, but it’s not our only hobby. And that makes us really maximize the time we have to run.”
After she ran her first 5K, Sharek immediately wanted to do another race; and she had no problem finding one, thanks to the frequent events hosted by New York Road Runners. She completed a few 10Ks and half marathons, and at age 24, she pulled the trigger on registering for her first 26.2-miler, the 2012 Philadelphia Marathon.
“The title ‘marathoner’ holds a lot of weight in New York,” she said. “Everybody is always asking what marathon you’re training for. It was something to aspire to.”
Like most first-timers, however, the marathon took its toll. When she got to mile 22, she hit a wall and started crying from the pain in her quads. Her iPod had died, the earbuds hanging dejectedly around her neck. She ended up finishing Philadelphia in 3:58:55—a respectable debut, but far from what she’d run in six years’ time. To bust through that wall, however, she first needed to find the type of training that worked for her.
To Run a Fast Marathon, You Have to Run a Fast Mile
In the three years following Philadelphia, Sharek steadily brought down her marathon time, finishing the 2014 and 2015 New York City Marathons in 3:38:20 and 3:01:55, respectively. To make that giant jump in performance, she trained with a local crew called the Nike Plus Running Club. A few years later, once she’d formed a close circle of running pals that lived near Brooklyn, she founded the Brooklyn Track Club, which she continues to lead today.
“It made a huge difference [in races] when my training was focused, and I wasn’t just running by feel,” she said. Instead of doing mindless miles, she had a routine—track workout on Tuesday, long run on Saturday—as well as running companions who challenged her.
After the 2015 NYC Marathon, Sharek set a new goal for herself: breaking 3:00 in the event. But even as she zeroed in on that barrier, building endurance through tempos and long runs, when she showed up on race day, her marathon times fell just off the mark. In 2016 Boston, 2016 New Orleans, and 2017 Boston, she missed her goal by five minutes or less.
“You always know at mile 23 if it isn’t happening,” she said. “I’d have nice buildups, then run 3:01 or 3:04. I asked myself, ‘Why am I stagnant right now?’”
After 2017 Boston, Sharek and her boyfriend-slash-coach, Steve, decided to do something different the following fall. Rather than focusing on marathon training, she’d train for a mile.
“If you want to run a fast marathon, you first have to run a fast mile,” she said. “It’s like science. To really understand DNA, you have to understand a single molecule.”
Though she had never raced such a short distance before, Sharek’s gymnastics background rewarded her with the kind of explosive power that’s critical in a mile. “I’m used to the pounding,” she said.
Sharek set her sights on NYC’s 5th Avenue Mile in September 2017, where she hoped to break 5:00. At the same time, she was also preparing for a half marathon in Denmark in September, as well as the Chicago Marathon in October. On summer evenings leading up to 5th Avenue, she met her teammates for track workouts and strength training.
In total, she was running about 60 miles per week. While it wasn’t much less than her typical marathon mileage, by alternating days between all-out and easy efforts, she was becoming fitter and faster than ever before.
The hard work paid off: Sharek finished the 5th Avenue Mile that fall in 4:52, crushing her goal time. Then, just a few weeks later, she ran a personal best half marathon time of 1:19:32 in Denmark. And finally, she busted through 3:00 at Chicago, finishing in 2:52:23.
Focusing on the mile not only made Sharek a stronger runner, but it also gave her a much-needed mental break from the marathon.
“Switching up the distances allowed me to reset,” she said. “I’d put a lot of pressure on myself to be a marathoner. But I realized I could still train with my friends and set goals for a different race, too, and be just as happy.”
The Fast Track to OTQ
Having now broken the 3:00 barrier, Sharek set a new goal for 2018: running sub-2:45 at the California International Marathon (CIM) in December, which would qualify her for Trials.
To prepare for her OTQ attempt, Sharek stuck with her speedwork-heavy routine, doing Tuesday night track workouts of 10 x 400 meters or 20 x 200 meters, as well as 10-mile tempos that were quicker than marathon pace (around 6:10 per mile). “I tried to get in as many miles as possible at sub-marathon pace,” she said.
To sneak in extra miles during the week, she would run-commute four miles to work—carrying a small backpack of clothes to change into—and run back home afterwards. She made sure to make her easy days easy, going around 7:30 to 8:00 pace per mile, to allow her body to recover from the hard efforts on the oval.
True to her character, instead of tuning up for CIM with a half marathon in November, Sharek raced the USATF 5K road championships in NYC, which she finished in 17:25. A month later, she was sitting on a hotel bed in California, freaking out before her race. Her friends had made her a good luck video, and it was “gut wrenching in a good way,” she said. She tried to quell her nerves with some good news—earlier that week, she’d gotten a promotion at work—but she was hoping for a second reason to celebrate. “I wanted two wins,” she said.
On Sunday morning, December 8, the New Yorker toed the line with confidence. Steve told her that as long as she relaxes for the first three miles, she’d be fine. Sharek sailed through those early miles at 2:40 marathon pace, then “the rest of the race was a blur,” she said. While her splits were on pace throughout the race, she never assumed she had sub-2:45 in the bag.
“I didn’t let myself think I [qualified] until mile 25,” said Sharek. She crossed the line officially in 2:41:59, shedding tears in the process. But this time, they were tears of happiness.
Since CIM, Sharek has returned fully to training with the Brooklyn Track Club, and she’s now preparing for the Brooklyn Half Marathon on May 18. “This is my home court,” she said. “I have about 100 teammates doing the race. I’m hoping to run under 1:16 for the half.”
Later this year, she’s aiming for an Olympic “A” Trials-qualifying time of sub-2:38 at the Berlin Marathon, then will dive head-first into training before the main event in Atlanta. At Trials, she isn’t going to worry about getting a podium spot—she’s there to enjoy it. “It’ll be a celebration of all the effort we’ve put in,” she said.