Jim Walmsley – The Road to Atlanta
Article by Tait Hearps of Sweat Elite.
Our most recent guest on the Sweat Elite Podcast is Jim Walmsley. Jim has blazed a unique trail over the past few years, reaching the pinnacle of ultrarunning and amassing a cult following in the process. His latest undertaking – turning his attention to the marathon. There was a lot of hype surrounding Jim in the lead-up to the Olympic trials in Atlanta, where he made his marathon debut. We sat down with Jim and discussed the motivations and process behind this transition, among many other aspects of his life in Flagstaff, training, and his path into professional ultrarunning.
The journey to the trials started a while back, as an idea to link a training block for a marathon with a build for Comrades. It did line up, theoretically, to do a marathon in February and a fast 90km down in South Africa a few months later. However, with the current circumstances there is great uncertainty as to what the next year or so of racing will look like. A chance to refresh and take things at a different pace.
His path to the trials is completely unconventional, unique among the competitors with whom he toed the line in Atlanta. Jim’s ultrarunning success over the past years has seen him win many, many races, taking the course record for the Western States 100 miler (14:09:28), and the world record for the 50-mile distance (4:50:08). Training for these events is something that we discuss in detail, and it’s vastly different from that required to yield results in the marathon.
“It’s one of the hardest parts about the marathon, I think you’re stressing so many different systems to really fire at what is a really cool but really unique event that still has so much endurance, but at the elite level still has so much speed.”
Even Jim’s qualification for the trials was an affront to convention. Coming off the back of a number of big race results, Jim announced in November 2018 that he would be racing the Houston half marathon in January 2019. His time of 64:00 was right on the cut-off for qualification for the trials. Changing gears from racing ultras to the speed required in a half was no small feat. Jim has a background in track from his collegiate days in the Air Force Academy, and he said that qualifying through the half was in part to prove he still had residual leg speed and could translate it to performance in shorter distances.
There were a lot of positives that Jim took from committing to the preparation for a marathon, and he says that making his debut at the trials was also a bit of fun.
“The whole training block was really beneficial as far as getting myself out on the track or road and doing quality intervals, and really pushing myself again to get back into leg speed workouts… That stuff doesn’t quite come back right away.”
And although there was the aim of linking the marathon preparation into building for Comrades, there were bigger goals in mind as well.
“Why I was doing the trials was basically why everyone else was there. Once every four years you get to throw your hat in the ring and you never really know if it’s going to be your magical day and you pull something out… It’s not really hiding any of my goals. A goal of the Olympic trials was to make the team, I fell short of it but at the same time I feel like I’m a more well-rounded athlete and ultrarunner than I was five months ago.”
Walmsley ran 2:15:05 on debut – on a hilly, windy course that took a toll on many accomplished marathoners. Despite falling short of his aspirations, he said that the experience has “provided a lot of tools” for the future.
All of Jim’s running is uploaded to Strava, where over sixty thousand followers ogle at the monster runs popping up on their feed with alarming regularity. The build-up to the trials was meticulously logged there too. We spoke about some of the sessions and how he felt during the block leading up to Atlanta. Self-coached, Jim formulates his training plan whilst bouncing ideas off his friends and training partners in Flagstaff. “It’s a bit interesting,” he admits of his unorthodox approach, with planned weeks of up to 300km.
His training is heavily volume based. Jim’s huge aerobic base that has served so well in the ultras is the foundation for his performance in these shorter road races too, with the speed work and increased leg turnover serving as the icing on top. At the end of a 283km/175 mile week in December, balancing heavy training with the stresses of having family in town over the holiday season – think, fitting in Christmas celebrations around a 49km run… – was becoming a bit much. Despite feeling strong, the accumulated miles were amassing in the legs, leading to feeling slower and entering the realm of overtraining. It was decided to abandon the plan for a 300km+/186 mile week and hold constant at the 175 mile mark. All of this was relatively slow running, with few structured sessions – but finishing each session with some strides to work on “hidden speed”.
Following this he started to lower the mileage and ratchet up the speed work, preparing for a half marathon in Phoenix. With only three weeks of speed sessions, sometimes two sessions in a day, he jokingly says he was “cramming for the half marathon”. He decided to take to the track, wanting to see some fast times on the watch. “Before the half marathon I was trying to stay on the track a bit more to get the leg speed up, and my confidence with running that speed a little higher.” A lot of these sessions were on a track down at Sedona (4,300ft/1,320m) rather than Flagstaff (7,000ft/2100m) where Jim lives and does most of his training.
Some of these key sessions were:
December 31st
8 x 200m (30s)
12 x 400m (74s down to 66s)
January 3rd
6 x 1600m (4:49 down to 4:39)
12 x 400 (66-67s)
January 5th
Long run 48.48km averaging 3:33/km
January 7th
7 mile tempo (~3:15/km) + 8 x 400m
January 10th
4 x 2 mile (9:36-9:48), 2 mins recovery
10 x 500m (1:27-1:28), 90 sec recovery
January 15th
10 x 800m (2:18-2:20), 60 sec recovery
This “cramming” paid off and saw Jim run 62:15 in the AZ Rock n Roll Half Marathon in Phoenix. Unfortunately, there was some controversy here, and the course was short. Jim says it probably worked out to be a 63-low. When I questioned what he was most proud of looking back on the journey to the trials, this race was it. The half is worlds away from where his prowess lies, however being able to translate high volume and a couple weeks of speed sessions into a very solid performance gave a lot of confidence and suggested that there’s a lot of room to improve in the discipline… and gave a glimmer of hope that if things fell the right way, a big surprise could happen come race day in Atlanta. “That was part of the point, to think and to hope that I could have a chance at competing for a top three spot.”
Moving on from Phoenix, there were six weeks remaining to figure out the balance of speed and enough endurance, and to dial in on some marathon specific training. A key part of this block was maintaining a long run each Saturday of between thirty to fifty kilometres. Jim said that some of these were hit very well, but others left him battling through a tired patch in the subsequent days. One such run was three weeks out from race day, where Jim incorporated a 50km trail race as his long run. Averaging 3:27 min/km, the fatigue following this run exceeded what was productive, and Jim decided to really shift focus towards quality workouts for the final few weeks, in order to build some confidence.
In his own words, Jim didn’t quite thread the needle with this preparation, and it left him feeling like he had overreached when he arrived in Atlanta, with motivation consequently suffering. “That can play a big factor when things get hard in races, to keep pushing and be hungry for more and more and more.” A big shift in this block was the duration of the build. Despite running much longer races, ultrarunners tend to race much more often than pro marathoners. A training block for Jim usually takes around eight weeks, focusing on vertical metres, dealing with heat, and extended time on feet, with fewer structured workouts. How does prep for Western States or UTMB compare to marathon prep? “It’s a lot more enjoyable.” The marathon is more all-consuming, and as Jim says, “in 14 weeks, you can get yourself into a lot of trouble because you’re really riding the line for such a long time.”
Despite not riding the line as well as he had hoped, it was a bold move by someone at the pinnacle of his discipline to throw himself into unfamiliar waters, and doing so very much in the public eye. This willingness to face new challenges is really commendable, something that lots of people can learn from, and a 2:15 debut in the tough Atlanta conditions is nothing to scoff at. Hearing about this journey straight from the horse’s mouth was an absolute privilege and I really enjoyed speaking to Jim. A very eye-opening experience with lots of important takeaways. We hope you enjoy listening to our conversation with Jim Walmsley – you can listen on our web-player here or on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher (Episode #27).
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