Mary Popish approached the Eugene Marathon mostly just as a training run. She figured it would help get her in shape for the 50- and 100-mile races she plans to run later this year.
This didn’t stop her from running a new personal best of 4 hours ,7 minutes, destroying her old best time of 4 hours and 29 minutes, a time she ran just a week before at a marathon in Bend.
Popish, a manager for the studio spaces at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication, had always wanted to run a marathon. It was natural, perhaps, for a former high school cross-country runner.
She checked off that bucket-list item in 2010, when she ran the Eugene Marathon as a freshman at the University of Oregon.
Her 22-minute PR on Sunday marked her 11th marathon, leaving her hungrier for longer and much harder distances.
“Gotta have goals—that’s where the 50 and the 100 come in,” she said. “I’m my happiest and my best self when I have something I’m training for.”
Popish does most of her training between 6 and 7 every morning before work. These days consist mostly of strength conditioning and speed work. She saves her long runs for the weekends.
In preparation for the 50- and 100-mile races she has planned, Popish hopes to extend her weekend long run to about 40 miles, a feat that would last just about all day.
Popish relies on what she calls “silly tricks” to help her get through such long distances.
“I tell myself silly things like, ‘You absolutely can do this, yeah you can do this,’ and spend a majority of my time in races doing math,” she said. “’OK, at this next mile marker that means we have x amount of miles left, if we have x amount of miles left that’s basically three sets of x miles.’”
Popish understands that attempting to run 100 miles is an unusual thing to do but has no plans to back out.
“Are we crazy? Yeah that’s a crazy thing to do,” she said. “We’re telling everyone we know, so not doing it is not an option at this point.”
After completing the 100-mile race later this year, Popish has another goal in mind, the Boston Marathon.
In order to qualify for Boston, Popish would have to run 3:35 or better, meaning she’d have to run 73 seconds faster per mile over the 26.2-mile course than she did when she ran 4:07 at the Eugene Marathon.
She said she plans to take as much time as she needs to fully recover from the 100-mile race and then wants to dive right into a more speedwork-oriented training regimen.
“It’s a different kind of athlete, it’s a different kind of training program, to try and run a fast marathon than to try and run 100 miles at a time,” she said.
