“I was in my own little bubble for a long time…I think if I had a sense of how bad I was, I don’t know if I would have continued. I love that in New York you can go to all these local races and kind of place high without having these super performances. I think that gave me some teasers that I could kind of be good at this.”

Somehow the World Athletics World Half Marathon Championships are still set to take place on Oct. 17 in Poland. For this episode, we are joined by Marie who was set to represent France in her first-ever world championship but is 99% certain that she is not comfortable making the trip amid the global pandemic and may have to skip the race. However, she still managed to qualify with an impressive 1:14:12 half marathon back in January in Houston. She’s also run 2:36.23 for the full marathon last October in Chicago.

Our very own Leigh Anne Sharek has raced against her many times in the city and can attest that Marie is definitely one of the city’s fiercest competitors. She runs for the Queens Distance Runners. For more on that group, check out our past episode with founder and captain Kevin Montalvo. We touch on how she connected with that group but most importantly how she made major leaps in training once she teamed up with her coach and husband Luciano Medina. Together, they operate and run Coach Medina NYC. You’ll also learn more about her own coaching philosophy.

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This is Runners of NYC. A biweekly podcast from CITIUS MAG. Hosts Leigh Anne Sharek and Chris Chavez look to bring you many of the untold stories behind luminaries and legends that make up New York City’s running culture. You can catch the latest episode of the podcast on iTunes so subscribe and leave a five-star review. We are also on Spotify!

Follow Marie-Ange on Instagram here.

Check out Coach Medina NYC and Marie-Ange’s offerings here.

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NOTES AND QUOTES

– “In 2019, I ran the Chicago Marathon. I finished, got my time and it was great but right after that somebody from the French Athletics federation told me that’s the second-fastest time that was run this year by a French athlete. I had no clue. It was 2:36, which is decent but I’m around the New York community and the United States – which is a good time but not great. When someone tells you that you’re the second-fastest for your country, it puts things in a different perspective. They told me there’s the World Half Marathon Championships in March of 2020 and the standard is 1:15 but I’ll probably need to run low-1:14 to make the team. They said, ‘If you think you can hit that then you need to run a half’ because I had never run one. I decided to try Houston in January and I ran 1:14:12, which I thought was borderline to make the team but it was good enough to earn my spot there. They selected the five-fastest athletes who have hit the standard and I squeezed in at fourth place.”

– “If I had known how to train for a marathon, my first marathon would not have been 3:16. I was really happy with a 3:16 because I went into that race wanting to run 3:15 and I ran a pretty solid positive split. If I knew what to do and how to train for it, it would have been faster. Not long after that I ran 3:06 and it just got gradually faster – not because I got faster – because of what I should do and what I can do.”

– “To me, enjoying a race means getting the best out of myself. Everything is going to be in that direction and that line. That’s just what makes me proud of myself. It’s doing the best that I can and not just cheerfully butterflying around.”

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