We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back: Desiree Linden, USATF to Elect New President Amid Budget Deficit Boston Marathon in April.
And she didn’t really feel like running again until the end of September.
Five months, during which, she said, “I hated everything about running.”
At Boston, Linden finished in 2:25:06. It wasn’t a bad day, that’s for sure. But she had wanted to win, and she made no secret of that goal who won in 15:24 and set a course record. But Linden was happy with her performance.
So she was disappointed. And tired, after three marathons in the previous 14 months: the Olympic Trials (where she was second), the Olympics (seventh), and then that fourth at Boston.
“There is this post-Olympic hangover, for sure,” Linden, 34, said on Friday in New York, in town not for Sunday’s marathon but to race the USA Track & Field 5K championships the day before the main event, the Kevin Morris/Photo Run on Sunday. “I think you throw yourself into the next big thing so you don’t [feel it]. Then it kind of kicks you in the butt at some point.”
Linden spent the summer mostly not running. She drifted in a kayak on a Michigan lake. Went fishing. Read a lot. She tended to her puppy named Boston. She had considered a fall marathon and realized it would feel like a chore.
Her family stood by her while she didn’t run. “I think it definitely affects me mentally, it changes my mood and my disposition,” she said. “I’m probably not a joy to be around. I love them for loving me through that.
“Ryan (her husband) is the most supportive person on the planet,” she continued. “He just rolls with it, like, ‘You can be mad when you need to be mad, and I’m going to be here. When you’re ready to be happy, I’m all for that, too.’”
Her coach, Kevin Hanson, also gave her space. Let me know when you want to do this again, he told her.
At times, she wondered if that day would ever come, after the frustration of a string of marathons with all roughly the same result.
“I feel like I’m not getting any better, which is totally normal,” she said. “And fourth at Boston, 2:25, is a totally fine place to plateau. If I could ride off into the sunset there, it wouldn’t be the worst thing. But I feel like I would rather try to shake things up and fail miserably, but at least try, than just keep doing the same thing and getting the same result.”
That’s where the shorter distances come in. After recovering from the exhaustion of those marathons, Linden returned to training, sporadically in September. Some days she woke up and said to herself, “Not doing this today.”
October was better. Linden ran every day and got her mileage back up to 90–95 per week. She also started doing some short, fast workouts, she hadn’t done in years. On October 22, she ran a cross-country race in Boston, her first in seven years. And Saturday she mixed it up at the 5K distance. Linden was eighth, in 16:04. She was well behind Molly Huddle, who won in 15:24 and set a course record. But Linden was happy with her performance.
Related: Molly Huddle’s Great Saturday Morning: U.S. Title in a Course Record
“I pressed for the whole race,” she said. “I never settled. I got in little battles out there with people. I felt like I was competing. That was the whole point. It was fun.”
She’ll next run the Manchester Road Race, a 4.748-mile tradition in Connecticut on Thanksgiving Day. She’s also looking at a half marathon soon after that. With the shorter, faster distances she’s trying to improve as a marathoner. But she’s given her brain a break as well.
“I can just have fun and race often and try to be competitive without super high expectations,” she said.
That’s a good sign. And one even better: She’s feeling a little bit of marathon envy, jealous of her peers lining up for 26.2 miles on Sunday.
Also: Preview of NYC Marathon Elite Women’s Race
“It’s good, because I’m getting excited again,” she said, “like, ‘Man, I wish I was doing that.’ It’s good to have that feeling of excitement.”
Health & Injuries is a writer and editor living in Eugene, Oregon, and her stories about the sport, its trends, and fascinating individuals have appeared in Runner’s World New York City Marathon, Run Your Butt Off! and Walk Your Butt Off!
