Is Janet Cherobon-Bawcom always marathon training, even when there's not a 26.2-mile race on the horizon? It's a valid question. Peek inside her training log and you'd be hard-pressed to believe that this is an athlete who has won eight U.S. titles at every distance between the 10K and 25K, often within a few weeks of each other. Instead of twice-a-week speed sessions, you'd find long tempos, cruise intervals and 20-milers, almost all of them run in the speed-sucking altitude, 7,000 feet above sea level, of Flagstaff, Ariz.
The 35-year-old, who was born in Kenya and became a U.S. citizen in 2010, credits much of her success to Jack Daniels, who holds a doctorate in exercise physiology and whose customized training program has made her strength lethal in shorter events.
"Somebody could argue that I could train a different way and run faster," Cherobon-Bawcom says. "And possibly I could train for a 10K, run one or two races in a year, and maybe run a little faster than what I'm running. But I love to race, and I don't know why I would be training if I couldn't race. This training really helps me do that."
She discovered by accident that strength work benefited her racing at all distances, when she abandoned her plan to run the 2011 New York City Marathon after she was granted eligibility to compete in the U.S. Olympic marathon trials scheduled two months later. To bridge the gap, Cherobon-Bawcom filled her schedule with shorter road races. She started winning them, too, beginning with the 20K title in 2011, and most recently, this year's U.S. 10K championships at the Peachtree Road Race. "From that we learned that it was a lot easier for me to step down than to step up," she says.
Cherobon-Bawcom went on to finish fifth at those Olympic marathon trials in a personal best of 2:29:45, a big improvement over her previous PR of 2:37. Since then her training has continued to escalate. Before coming to Daniels three years ago, her mileage had plateaued at 70 per week. That jumped to 90 by the time she started training full-time in Flagstaff and has since increased to 115.
Her workouts have also continued to grow. The one she places the greatest faith in is 3 × 2 miles at her threshold pace, which Daniels defines as sustainable for a 1-hour race. As she prepares for longer races, this workout grows to 4 × 2 miles and 3 × 3 miles. If Cherobon-Bawcom is training specifically for a marathon, she substitutes a challenging mixed-pace run: 2 × 2 miles at threshold pace, 1 hour at marathon pace, then another round of 2 × 2 miles at threshold. Add in altitude-adjusted marathon-pace runs of up to 18 miles and you have an athlete accustomed to a high level of fatigue.
"Oh, yeah, they're tough," she says with a laugh. "That's why I only do one or two workouts a week."
After a short post-marathon recovery period, Cherobon-Bawcom continues to focus on strength work, even as she eyes shorter races. "Even when I'm not training for a marathon, I'm still probably 85 percent marathon training," she says. "I'm still doing over 20 miles on long runs. I'm doing tempos. I'm doing the long workouts. Jack and my husband figured out that it keeps me strong and healthy, and I can race more often off of marathon training."
The lone concession Cherobon-Bawcom made when preparing for the 2012 outdoor track season was a track workout every 10 days. It proved to be enough. Cherobon-Bawcom earned an Olympic "A" standard at 10,000m that spring, survived illness at the Olympic track and field trials, and went on to place 12th at the London Olympic Games with a 20-second PR of 31:12.68.
Now that she has won her eighth U.S. title at Peachtree, Cherobon-Bawcom is preparing for the New York City Marathon. Then again, wasn't she always?
