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Walmsley's half marathon helps keep running interesting.
Walmsley's half marathon helps keep running interesting. (Photo: Myke Hermsmeyer)
In Stride

Jim Walmsley’s Half Marathon Run Is Great for the Sport

In the age of specialization, it鈥檚 refreshing to see a big name get outside his comfort zone

Published: 
Walmsley's half marathon helps keep running interesting.
(Photo: Myke Hermsmeyer)

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鈥淚n track we are painfully and constantly aware of how we stack up,鈥 muses Quenton Cassidy, the beleaguered protagonist of John Parker鈥檚 novel Once a Runner. Such is the harsh聽reality of a sport where performance can easily be measured in minutes and seconds.聽鈥淚t鈥檚 all there in black-and-white,鈥 Cassidy says, 鈥渢he ego withers in the face of the evidence.鈥

As much as it may cause ego-withering distress, the quantifiable side of running is also a source of nerdy entertainment.聽One of the favorite pastimes of people who care about this stuff is to dream up intriguing counterfactuals along the lines of: 鈥淚f so-and-so ran X distance, what would (s)he run?鈥澛

鈥淲hat could Jornet run in a flat marathon with 6 months of marathon-specific training?鈥 one poster on LetsRun , referring to the diminutive Spaniard who spends a lot of time huffing up mountains, but avoids traditional road races. Meanwhile, the online running publication Citius asking the all-important question of what LeBron James might be able to run for the mile. (The author estimated four minutes and 20 seconds, which, uh, seems unlikely.) More often than not, these hypothetical scenarios remain unrealized.聽

But not always.

This Sunday, Jim Walmsley will be racing the Houston Half Marathon, thus giving fans a rare chance to see one of the world鈥檚 best ultrarunners go all-out聽for 13.1 miles. Walmsley, who is the defending champion and course record holder of the Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run, has stated that he hopes to run under 64 minutes, which would qualify him for the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. While that鈥檚 a time that would handily win most half marathons in the country, it鈥檚 a safe bet that Walmsley won鈥檛 be in contention for a podium spot on Sunday. The Houston Half typically has a and this year鈥檚 edition includes five men who have run under 60 minutes.聽

Over email, Walmsley said that he was treating the race as a 鈥渇un鈥 offseason challenge. What鈥檚 more, he was looking forward to venturing into territory where most ultrarunners don鈥檛 usually go. 鈥淚 think the half marathon is much more intriguing to aim for than the [full] marathon with my ultrarunning background,鈥 Walmsley says.聽

鈥淚 come from an almost 100% aerobic background right now, where I could translate well to a marathon. The half marathon is a test of your threshold pace which isn't used much, if at all, in an ultra. A half marathon time would show a lot more versatility and hopefully spark more excitement and interest into what that means translating to a marathon,鈥 Walmsley added.

Regardless of how Sunday鈥檚 race turns out, it鈥檚 refreshing to see someone at Walmsley鈥檚 level shake things up in an era where runners generally tend to specialize. And while it鈥檚 not too unusual to see top ultra runners go for an OTQ in the marathon, the half marathon, as Walmsley implies, is a different matter altogether. Shifting from 100-mile mountain racing to 13.1 miles on the road is like getting off a single speed bike and hopping on a Ducati. It鈥檚 the kind of recklessness that pro running could use a little more of.

Not that Walmsley is the only runner who is open to mixing it up a little.

Last summer, in , Mario Fraioli praised , an elite athlete with a strong road and track resume, for taking part in his first mountain race. Even though Bruce , Fraioli stated that he wished more track/road runners would try racing on the trails, and vice versa. 聽

鈥淚t only makes running as a sport more interesting and exciting, helps the athletes themselves keep things fresh while developing different skills, and creates more unity and synergy between the various disciplines that all get lumped under 鈥渞unning,鈥欌 Fraioli wrote.

For his part, Walmsley is probably unusually well cut out for this factotum approach. In 2012, he ran .聽Early this month, he was listed #23 on Sports Illustrated鈥檚 in the world list, the only male pro runner beside Eliud Kipchoge to make the cut. 聽

鈥淛im鈥檚 track times are really good, so he should be able to run under 64 in Houston fairly easily,鈥 says Max King, another elite-level runner known for excelling in a broad range of events, from the steeplechase to the 100K.

The argument can certainly be made that it鈥檚 more feasible for Jim Walmsley to run an aggressive half marathon in the offseason than for someone like Galen Rupp or Shalane Flanagan to go for broke at Western States. (How鈥檚 that for an intriguing counterfactual?) Among other things, and as I鈥檝e written before, the competition on the world-class marathon and track circuits is so cutthroat that there may not be much room for experimentation.聽

But it still takes some courage to step out of your comfort zone, especially for a frontrunner like Walmsley who is used to vying for the win. 鈥淧eople like success and getting beat is scary,鈥 Walmsley wrote when I asked him about why we don鈥檛 see more distance runners trying events outside of their usual range.聽

鈥淚 will get clobbered by the top guys in the Houston Half Marathon this weekend,鈥 he added, 鈥渂ut I would gladly take any one of them for a nice day in the Grand Canyon and flip the tables on them.鈥

Lead Photo: Myke Hermsmeyer

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