To Speed Up, a Top Runner Is (Kind of) Slowing Down

If she was feeling outside pressure, she didn’t show it. At a dinner in the days before the marathon, she nonchalantly asked amateur runners about the course and the crowds. When answers included the word “fun,” Ritzenhein chimed in. Raising his eyebrows, he told Obiri it might not be all fun.

With her collection of accolades, Obiri knows a thing or two about moving through the pain cave. “If you tell your mind, ‘I’m tired,’ you’ll give up,” she said. So she instead repeats, “I’m strong, I’m strong.”

But she was underfueled in New York, she said, and she began shutting down in the last few miles. She finished sixth in 2:25:49, two minutes behind the winner, her countrywoman Sharon Lokedi.

Obiri moved back to Kenya after the marathon as she and Ritzenhein worked to get her back to Boulder with her husband, Tom Nyaundi, and their 7-year-old daughter, Tania.

Obiri was ready for the change. For the past 12 years, her coaches, including the longtime coach Ricky Simms, have advised her from a distance. Turns out she needed someone to tell her to slow down, she said, laughing. She wasn’t going to be able to do it herself.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/16/sports/hellen-obiri-boston-marathon.html