Gete Wami and the Marathon Double
A look at the precedents & her chances of pulling it off
By Joel Tetreault
As featured in the Web Only issue of Running Times Magazine
If there is one thing that Gete Wami can't be accused of, it's avoiding a challenge. By beating one of the top 10000m women's fields ever at the 1999 World Championships, and being a double Olympic medalist (5000m and 10000m) at Sydney a year later, the 32 year old Ethiopian has been a force to be reckoned with on the women's distance scene the last ten years over the tracks, roads, and cross country. Wami first made her major mark with a bronze medal at the 1996 Olympics in the 10000m at the young age of 22 and has gone on to win two more Olympic medals, a World Cross Country Gold, a set PR's of 8:27 (3000m), 14:30 (5000m), 30:22 (10000m), and just last year, an Ethiopian national marathon record of 2:21:24 at the Berlin Marathon.
This year has been exceptional as well. She finished second in the competitive London Marathon in 2:21:45 this spring, and then five weeks ago, she easily won the Berlin Marathon by over a minute in 2:23:17. But just prior to racing in Berlin, she announced that she will be attempting a rare challenge: first running in Berlin and then coming back five weeks later for the ING New York City Marathon this weekend - with the aim of winning both.
A win in New York would probably make her the top marathoner of the year, but it would also make her $500,000 richer, as she is the leader in the World Marathon Majors (WMM) standings, a grand prix where elite runners win points for placing in the top 5 in five of the major marathons in the world. Coming into New York, Wami tops the WMM leaderboard, ten points ahead of Jelena Prokupcuka (two time defending NYC champion), who will also be running in New York.
A win would net Wami an additional twenty five points and give her the WMM title as NYC is the last marathon in the series. It should also be noted that even if Wami fumbles in New York, she will still win the WMM as long as Prokopcuka finishes lower than third place. For the win, Wami will have to contend with one of the top NYC women's fields ever assembled [ field ]. In addition to Propokcuka, world record holder Paula Radcliffe [ website ] will be there, back from maternity leave, as well as two time World Champion Catherine Ndereba and this year's Boston Marathon winner Lidiya Grigoryeva, just to name a few.
Besides the obvious difficulties the stacked field will present, Wami has taken on the challenging task of running two high quality marathons in the space of five weeks. While many marathoners have doubled back from a late summer marathon (such as the World Champs or Olympics) to run a fall marathon three months later, it is rare to hear of a top level marathoner attempting two in such as short time span as five weeks.
Normally, when one hears of back to back marathons (or more), it is in the context of ultra-marathons, or athletes running multiple marathons with the aim of finishing all of them. In this article, we'll look at statistics that show what a rare a feat Wami is trying to accomplish by going for the win in two of the top marathons this year. We'll also look at the training of two US marathoners (Bill Rodgers and Mike Cox) who have done or are doing a similar double, to get an idea of how one goes about recovering and training in such a short time span.