Ryan Smith has a lot going on in his life.
He was working three jobs — part-time in the admissions office at the University of Maine-Farmington, assistant coach of the Maine-Farmington track and cross country teams — and he was also working in a Chinese restaurant until he got too busy with cross country meets last month.
And he and his wife are expecting a baby in February.
And he’s been training for the Eversource Hartford Marathon — his first — with the goal of running an Olympic Trial “B” standard qualifying time of 2:19. The “B” standard gets a runner into the Olympic Trials, while the “A” standard time (2:15) gets them an all-expenses-paid trip to the Trials.
Smith, 23, of Farmington, Maine, had to leave the restaurant job once cross country season started and he couldn’t get to his shift. But he’s still super busy, training and working.
“I fit in the miles where I can,” he said.
He picked Hartford because “it has great prize money. I know guys are going for the [Olympic Trials] standard. It’s a fast course.
“All I’m shooting for is under 2:19. I’d like to think I’m in kind of that shape. You just never know with the marathon.”
David Sinclair of Peru, Vt., who was a member of the U.S. Mountain Running Team last year, ran a qualifying time of 2:16 last year at the California International Marathon and should be in the mix, too. In the women’s race, Rachel Shilkowsky of Providence, Kate Pallardy of New York City and Karen Bertasso of Albany, N.Y., are the likely favorites.
The half marathon field is stellar, with late entry Donn Cabral of Hartford, last year’s marathon winner Brian Harvey of Boston, Dan Vassallo of Peabody, Mass. (who holds the race’s 5K record of 14:50) and mountain runner Eric Blake of West Hartford. On the women’s side, 2012 marathon winner Hilary Dionne will run as will Annmarie Tuxbury of New Hartford, who qualified for the Olympic Trials earlier in the year.
Shilkowsky, like Smith, is busy. She works full-time as an engineer at an orthopedic research facility. Like Smith, she will be running her first marathon and going for the Trials “B” standard qualifying time of 2:45 (the “A” standard is 2:37).
“I feel like at some point everybody does [try the marathon],” said Shilkowsky, 26, who was a five-time All-American at Cornell. “It’s inevitable.
“I’ve raced the half maybe twice. I still haven’t totally figured that out yet and now we’re going to double it.”
Shilkowsky was a steeplechaser in college, but after a few bad experiences, she decided to hit the roads upon graduation.
“My last race at Cornell, I sprained my ankle bad in the water pit,” she said. “I tried to come back the next year, I had never been afraid of the water pit. I was so scared of landing on that ankle.
“I tried to force my takeoff. I stutter-stepped and Supermanned into the water pit. It happened in slow motion. I was fully submerged.”
That was 2015. She’s run five or six half marathons since. She has found she loves the longer distances and as the window slowly closes for the 2020 Trials, she figured she might as well go for the marathon.
Smith is actually running his second marathon — he did not finish the first one, which was in college. He went to an NAIA school, Goshen College in Indiana, where he was an All-American and holds the school record in eight events. After the national championship meet, the NAIA ran a marathon for collegians.
“It was worse than New Haven with the heat and humidity,” Smith said. “It was in Alabama in late May. I collapsed from heat exhaustion at 20 ½ [miles]. I was winning by four seconds. The guy in second collapsed, too. Over half the field dropped out.”
Saturday’s experience has to be better than that.
“My next move for marathons will depend on how I run at Hartford,” he said. “If I get the standard, I’ll probably go shorter distances for the season or run [the] Boston [Marathon in the spring].
“If I don’t get the standard, I’ll probably pick a faster marathon than Boston. I’ll keep chasing it ’til I get it.”
