By Canadian Press

Cliff hopes for strong track season just weeks after breaking marathon record

Mar 19, 2019 | 2:30 PM

Ten days after she shattered the Canadian women’s marathon record and ran the 2020 Tokyo Olympic qualifying standard, Rachel Cliff is in a holding pattern.

The 30-year-old from Vancouver has learned that in the days and weeks after a marathon, the body is unpredictable.

“I saw my physio yesterday and got a tune-up, and hopefully everything is moving well, sometimes the marathon can throw something off,” Cliff said Tuesday. “If I can stay healthy and rested and stuff, I want to come back for the track season. But it’s beyond my control. I feel like it’s 50/50 whether your body lets you bounce back.”

Cliff broke Lanni Marchant’s Canadian record from 2013, running two hours 26 minutes 56 seconds at the Nagoya Women’s Marathon on March 9. She woke up the next morning to learn she’d also raced under the Tokyo qualifying standard of 2:29.30 — the IAAF had coincidentally announced the standards that day.

Now Cliff’s focus shifts to the summer track and field season. She ran the 10,000 metres at the 2017 world championships in Beijing, and would love to do the same at the worlds sixth months from now in Doha. But her best shot to qualify for the world championships in the 10K is the Payton Jordan Invitational on May 2.

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“Whether I can do it six weeks after a marathon is kind of a different question. The problem is there aren’t a lot of opportunities to run fast 10Ks, and so the best one is in early May, which may be a tall order. But it may be fine too,” Cliff said.

Marchant’s marathon record was 2:28:00. Sylvia Ruegger’s Canadian mark of 2:28.36 had stood for 28 years before Marchant finally smashed it.

The morning after Cliff dipped under Marchant’s record, Marchant quoted the late Hollywood actress Audrey Hepburn on social media: “As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.”

“Records are meant to be broken & I am beyond impressed & excited by @raecliff performance this weekend!” Marchant wrote. “Can’t wait to see you (and hopefully be along side you) in a team Canada vest at #tokyo2020.”

Cliff never saw herself as a marathon runner when she first took up the sport.

“I fought it really hard. I really didn’t want to do it,” she laughed.

But coach Richard Lee gently broached the subject in 2016 and Cliff had to admit it made sense.

“I didn’t think he was wrong, he framed it from a logical standpoint, just in terms of the standards, and there were some indications that I might not be bad at it,” Cliff said. “I thought about it for awhile, and the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t think of a reason to not do it.”

Her excitement grew last season when she trained for the half-marathon and found the longer training — she runs 100 miles a week on her heaviest weeks — came naturally.

“I’m used to really fighting to be good at the 5 and the 10K, but (the longer training) was fun, I was really surprised with how much I enjoyed it,” she said. “I did four half-marathons in the span of four months . . . and that was when I actually started getting excited for the marathon because I could see, my coach could see if training for the marathon felt anything like training for the half-marathon, that it was probably going to be something I would enjoy.”

But there was no way to prepare for the pain of a marathon. In her marathon debut in Berlin in September, Cliff was only 53 seconds off Marchant’s record. But it hurt.  

“It’s a different type of pain than what you get in the short events,” Cliff said. “It was a very unfamiliar feeling, and so I think because I knew what to expect (in her second marathon), it ended up being better. But it’s weird, you can’t replicate it in training like you can in the other events. It’s literally your body kind of getting mad at your for pushing for two-and-a-half hours.

“It’s kind of interesting, it’s like a different zone you reach.”

Cliff’s marathon record came five months after Cam Levins shattered Jerome Drayton’s 43-year-old men’s record in his marathon debut.

Lori Ewing , The Canadian Press