It’s finally the week that so many of us runnerds have been waiting for: the Olympic Marathon trials is this weekend in Atlanta! At long last!!! 

I feel like the internet and podcast worlds have been awash in an impressive number of human interest stories related to the Trials, and there seriously isn’t enough time in the day to read and hear it all. It’s all so inspiring, and I just *adore* reading this type of stuff. I find it all so encouraging and can’t help but want everyone to make the team this year.

To me, it doesn’t matter if we’re talking about a professional runner, whose job it is to run fast, or a local amateur who realized a big scary dream to earn those coveted three letters (OTQ): the shared thread here is that pretty awesome consequences can manifest if you put in the work.  

I’m sending all my love and fast wishes to everyone racing down the dream this weekend, including my Wolfpack teammate Julie (who OTQed in Chicago this past year) and the many SF-based Impalas (another PA team) who will be toeing the line. I’ll be at a swim meet all weekend, so I am looking forward to the text message thread updates from my running BFFs in Chicago (hi, Stacey and John!) who will be watching. I may even resurrect my twitter (@erinamg) to follow along the fun as well. 

It’ll be awesome to find out who our top 3 men and women are; it’s anyone’s guess since the depth of the fields is so impressive. I’m also looking forward to the aftermath of the Trials as well, when we learn more about how hard the course actually was, how the organizers managed to get the 8972346 bottles out to the right racers during the event, how the racing strategies unfolded in the thick of things — all that type of stuff that has been so hyped in the lead-up to the Trials (and admittedly, stuff that precious few outside the running community probably care about). 

I still remember standing in my kitchen watching Amy and Shalane go stride-for-stride and seeing Des tearing it up, per yoosh, back in 2016; I’m so excited to see what happens this time around on a drastically different course (and hopefully in far superior weather). I wonder if it’ll be another moment in time that I remember where I was when I learned/read/watched when _____ did _____.  Ahhhhh can’t wait! 

It begs the question: why care about this stuff, especially if we’re not an OTQ hopeful? 

At the very least, it’s because in some small way, we runners get it. 

We know how most runs actually don’t feel all that great right out of the gate and that most of the time, it’s easier to do nothing than it is to do something. 

Those of us who have had to take time off from the sport, for whatever reason — pregnancy, childbirth, burnout, injury, overtraining, whatever — know how scary it can be to feel like you’re starting from scratch when you start up in earnest again. 

We know how frustrating it can be when it feels like your dream — whatever it is — seems impossible to realize.

We know that The Grind is Real and know the fatigue that comes with trying to post solid training against the backdrop of other arguably more important commitments, like those we have to our families, partners, jobs, and academics, among many, many others. 

We know that it’s just miles, that it’s just running, yes, but it’s so much more than that as well. 

Light that course on fire, runners!!!!!!!!!!! Sending love and light xo