On a remote road shadowed by Boulder's Flatirons, a pack of American marathoners grimace through a late-winter's workout. There's Jason Hartmann, prepping for Boston, where he finished fourth a year earlier. And Trent Briney, a three-time Olympic marathon trials qualifier now competing in ultras. And Patrick Rizzo, with his 2:13 PR, pushing toward his first London Marathon.
But one runner stands out, and not because she's the lone woman in the group. Or because she's wearing hot-pink compression socks. Or because she has never raced more than 10,000m. Through eight 1K repeats on 90 seconds of rest, Adrienne Herzog hasn't buckled to her male training partners. After one repeat, Briney whispers to her, "You were dropping me." Herzog just gives him a half-smile.
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That's Brad Hudson, her coach since last fall. She's a half-second ahead of Briney this time. Hudson, relentlessly cheery, goes quiet for a moment. Then, "Adrienne, can you do two more?"
She nods, sort of. Her black wraparound shades hide what her eyes might be saying. As the 90-second rest dwindles away, she waits for Hudson to count down. Then she races down the road one more time. Hudson, fumbling for a pencil to scribble times, says, "Very rarely would I push her, but I am today."
That's because Herzog -- the Netherlands' top female 1500m runner for the better part of a decade (she's just 27) -- wants to become what each of her running mates is: a marathoner.
For sure, many a middle-distance runner has moved up to the marathon. But few have done so in the midst of a still-promising 1500m career -- or after enduring the kind of tumult Herzog has over the past eight months.
Last summer, she failed to make the Dutch Olympic team, even though she has been a dominating force for that country since 2002, when, as a 16-year-old, she posted a 9:12:77 in the 3,000m and competed in the World Junior Championships. In succeeding years, she won a bronze at the 2009 European Cross Country Championships and set a personal best for the 1500m with a 4:06.07. But at races last summer where she thought she could nail an Olympic qualifying time, Herzog repeatedly fell ill. Attempts at Payton Jordan and Mt. Sac did not produce Dutch qualifying times. "Last summer," she says in her heavy accent, "was terrible."
It would only get tragically worse. On July 24, her fiance, Terence "T.J." Doherty, 32, died after being struck by a car in Boulder while cycling. At the time of the accident, Herzog was back in Holland. She returned to Boulder to attend a memorial service that drew hundreds of local running enthusiasts. Herzog had met Doherty a couple years earlier in Madrid, where she was training with Spanish coach Manolo Pascua and he was studying for his masters in Spanish.
Soon after, she teamed up with Hudson, who has coached Stephanie Rothstein Bruce and Tera Moody, two current marathoners who moved up from middle distances under his watch. Hudson admits he knew little about Herzog -- except "rumors" stemming from Herzog's time in Spain. In 2010, Spanish authorities launched Operation Galgo, a drug investigation that implicated Herzog's coach and a dozen or so athletes. Herzog was never charged with wrongdoing, but the turmoil induced her to move back to the Netherlands. (When recently asked if she had ever doped, Herzog said, "No, and I don't like to answer that.") In 2011 she moved to Boulder with Doherty and last year sought out Hudson. "I don't know what happened [in Spain]," says the coach, "but I trust her."
Shortly after last summer's track season, Hudson recommended that she look to longer distances on the roads. Not only did she have the pedigree -- her father, Harald Herzog, is a two-time Dutch cross-country ski national champion and a 2:27 marathoner -- but, Hudson says, she looked "mentally freer" during workouts on the road. "There is such pressure in the 1500 and splits are so important," says Hudson. "Watching her work out on the track, there was hesitation." Now, he says, Herzog is handling the 100-mile weeks, which include a favorite, if grueling, workout: a 5-mile climb up Boulder's Lefthand Canyon. Herzog has posted a 29:34 on the route, the best time ever by a Hudson-trained female.
Before she could set her sights completely on the roads, Herzog zeroed in on the European Cross Country Championships. There, she battled a snow-laced course, 6-degree temperatures, a high-profile field, and the memory of a troubled summer. "I died 10,000 times during that race," she says. In fourth place with less than a half kilometer to go, Herzog raced back to earn bronze, within 3 seconds of the winner.
As it turned out, her half marathon debut would be put on hold: Herzog came down with the flu days before the NYC Half Marathon in March. Her summer race plans are to make her first world championship team -- in the 10,000m. So she'll have to wait to see if she's made for going long. But as she's come to realize, the future comes with few certainties. "There is so much happening, I am improving. I am happy," she comments after completing a 20-mile run. "But there is one thing I have learned. It is really about now. People like to plan out in detail. Well, life doesn't work like that."
