After reaching the Tokyo Olympic 5,000m last in 2021, the following two years have been a whirlwind for Canadian 10,000m report holder Andrea Seccafien. The 33-year-old suffered a root meniscus tear in early 2022, then a stress fracture in 2023, and at instances, contemplated calling it a profession to return to high school. She felt like she was lacking one thing and had one last field to examine as a runner: the marathon.
“The plan has all the time been to maneuver as much as the marathon,” says Seccafien. “I can be working the Tokyo Marathon on March 3.”
Seccafien advised Canadian Working that she desires to be on the Canadian Olympic staff for the marathon in Paris: “The Olympic customary [2:26:50] is the aim in Tokyo. I’d not be working the marathon if my coach and I didn’t assume it was potential.”
There have been numerous modifications for Seccafien final 12 months, who moved from Melbourne, Australia, to Portland, Ore., and again to Melbourne. She left Nike Bowerman Monitor Membership in November 2023 after two years of coaching beneath coach Jerry Schumacher. She joined the group with fellow Canadian Lucia Stafford in November 2021 (who additionally subsequently left the membership).
Seccafien says she left Bowerman on good phrases. “It wasn’t something with Jerry; I simply didn’t have a neighborhood in Portland or Eugene,” she says. “My life was in Australia, and never within the U.S.” Seccafien is the ninth girl to go away Bowerman Monitor Membership previously two years, leaving the staff with solely two girls on their roster, based on their web site.
When requested concerning the downfall of the Bowerman staff and the timeline round Shelby Houlihan’s doping suspension, Seccafien mentioned that Gabriela DeBues-Stafford was the one athlete who left for that purpose particularly: “Nobody else thought that approach about Shelby,” she says. “Everybody within the membership has been open with one another’s determination, and I believe everybody left for a lot of totally different causes.”
“After I joined, I assumed working the marathon there would work with Bowerman. Jerry doesn’t have time to educate a marathoner; you’d basically be coaching by yourself,” says Seccafien. Schumacher took a task with the Oregon Geese group in Eugene, Ore. (two hours from Portland) whereas nonetheless teaching the Bowerman group. “It’s now a completely totally different setting than once I joined.”
Since returning to Melbourne, Seccafien has begun working remotely with Canadian physiologist and coach Trent Stellingwerff, who additionally coaches Olympians Natasha Wodak and DeBues-Stafford. “I wished to seek out somebody keen to educate me remotely and to present me some stability in my life once more,” she says. “Trent calls the photographs on mileage, and I simply comply with his plan. Our coaching relies extra on depth fairly than miles.”
Seccafien says she now does most of her coaching on her personal, along with her associate, Jamie, often becoming a member of her on the bike. “Like everybody, I’ve began doing double threshold exercises, and Jamie, who’s an train physiologist, will take a look at my blood lactate.”
Seccafien advised Canadian Working that coaching has not been straightforward. “There have been numerous lows. I felt like I had retired at instances,” says Seccafien. “I couldn’t put any load on my knee for 4 months to recuperate from my meniscus surgical procedure… I may solely swim, however couldn’t kick my legs.”
She says it was nice when she was lastly capable of run once more, however shortly after, she bought a stress fracture –one other large low. “Now, I’m simply making an attempt to remain constant and take issues as they arrive,” she says. Seccafien is seven weeks out from the 2024 Tokyo Marathon, the place she can be within the elite discipline alongside Chicago and London marathon champ Sifan Hassan, whom Seccafien final ran towards within the 5,000m last on the Tokyo Olympics (the place Hassan gained gold).
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The Guelph, Ont., native, who has made Melbourne house for the previous few years, felt the 2024 Tokyo Marathon was the right place to make her debut. “In Tokyo, you realize you’re going to be taken care of, which takes out numerous stress and uncertainty for me,” says Seccafien. With two spots on the Canadian Olympic staff for the marathon nonetheless open, Seccafien and her coach assume she might be sporting a Canadian singlet in Paris.
