At the end of March I ran the Golden Gate Headlands Marathon, which is a beautiful trail marathon in the Marin Headlands with views like this every step.
The course had 5,000 ft of elevation gain which is about the same as running half way up Mt. Hood - aka a lot. When I learned that the winning woman finished in 3:34 I was incredibly impressed and wanted to talk to her, so, I found and called up Elizabeth and got to learn all about the story behind such an amazing finish!
Elizabeth grew up in the Bay Area and played lots of sports as a kid, eventually focusing on lightweight crew in high school. She competed with the lightweight crew team at Harvard where she became a Two Time All American and her team won Nationals her senior year (2014).
She recalls the team’s fall training “triathlon” - erg 7.5k, run 6 miles, then finish with a full tour of the Harvard stadium steps. Besides this they didn’t run very much as a team but she has always loved running, and remembers running before school sometimes in elementary school just for the enjoyment of it.
After graduating, like most collegiate athletes, she wasn’t sure what her new athletic life would look like, and soon took up running. She had moved back to San Francisco to work as a consultant in the life sciences/biotech industry, and she had some of the world’s best trails and parks out her back door. She ran the San Francisco Marathon in 2015 (3:31) and the Boston Marathon in 2016 (3:25).
Elizabeth with the race’s signature trophy - a rubber chicken.
Megan and David Roche’s book, “The Happy Runner” has really changed Elizabeth’s perspective on training since college. She has come to truly love and enjoy the process of training each day. I haven’t read this book, but in hearing about it, I share the philosophy of enjoying and being grateful for your training, instead of being taken over by the pressure of it.
This marathon was her first trail race, and she started training with a loose plan in mind on January 1. She generally ran 50 miles/week, with one day of 45 second hill repeats, a medium long run on Thursdays (10-12 miles), a long trail run on the weekends, regular runs the rest of the week, and Mondays off. She would also do pilates or yoga on the weekends as what she called her “insurance policy” for injuries. Well said!
Elizabeth plans to run more marathons this year - both trail and road - with the hopes of getting a Boston qualifier on the roads. I have no doubt she will! Long term she’d love to do more mountain running and ultras. She will be moving to Hanover, NH in the fall to attend Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, and will have a whole new terrain of trails to explore there.
So why run? For Elizabeth, she loves how happy running makes her feel in the moment and when she’s finished, saying, “You’ll never feel worse after a run.”