he hit the Olympic standard
times on his first attempts.
Now, things are different.
“I see it as a bigger challenge
than I’ve ever had to get to the
Olympics,” Coolsaet says. He’s
finished 1 4 marathons since his
debut at that distance in 2009.
The last three have been the
slowest of his life.
To qualify for the 2020 Summer
Olympics, athletes can either
meet the qualifying standard
(2:11:30 for men and 2:29:30 for
women) or be ranked high enough
internationally based on their
performance at big competitions.
The last time Coolsaet ran
under 2:11:30 was in December
2016 when he ran 2:10:55 at the
Fukuoka International Open
Marathon Championship in
Japan at age 37.
Less than a month after that
run, Coolsaet felt pain on the top
of his foot and was diagnosed
with osteonecrosis. Some of the
bone in his foot had died because
of inadequate blood supply.
Coolsaet spent much of 2017
recovering from the injury and
then ran the Boston Marathon in
2018, battling through the wind
and rain to finish in 2:25. He
ran 2:17 at both the Scotiabank
Toronto Marathon last fall and
the Tamarack Ottawa Marathon
this spring, placing second and
first Canadian respectively.
The times are slower than
Coolsaet has run in the past. He
believes age may be a factor, but
he knows there are other things
at play, including the long break
he took to recover from his injury,
illnesses he experienced leading
up to his recent races and less-
than-ideal race-day conditions.
But Coolsaet also just doesn’t
feel as fast as he used to. Before
taking time off for his injury, he
used to go into a race t r y ing to r un
2:10. Now he’s aiming for 2:13.
“Certain marathon paces are
just harder. I have to find a pace
that’s sustainable, and that’s
a few seconds per kilometre
slower than it was even three
years ago,” he says.
“There’s not really any room for
error. I’m going to have to run 2:13and place well at a big race if I’m
going to have any shot at getting
to the Olympics. I’m just not as
fast as I was before.”
Coolsaet says he would eventu-
ally like to try ultramarathoning
and trail racing, but the lure of
the Olympics is stronger and
he’s going to continue training
full time on the road in order to
get there.
By the time he races his first
marathon as a masters runner this
fall, the time off he took in 2017
shouldn’t be holding him back.
“The only thing that will affect
me is just getting old. And hope-
fully, that won’t be a huge factor,”
he says.
While Coolsaet has been
running slower times than he
would like over the past two years,
marathoner Lyndsay Tessier has
been watching her times drop
consistently over the same time
frame.
Tessier, a 41-year-old elemen-
tary school teacher, had enjoyed
running as a child but stopped
after Grade 8 when teachers and
coaches started expecting her to
place well in cross-country and
track races.
“It took the joy from it,” Tessier
says. “Not that I couldn’t deal
with the pressure, but it removed
the pleasure and so I stopped.”
Tessier didn’t run again for
more than 20 years. She hadn’t
realized she missed the sport until
a friend challenged her to take
part in a Running Room clinic to
train for a half marathon when she
was 33. As soon as Tessier started
running, she loved it and was soon
running several days a week.
She finished her first half-mara-
thon in a time of 1:3 4 and almost
immediately began training for
a marathon. She made her debut
running a 3:09 at the GoodLife
Tor ont o Ma r a t hon i n 2 01 2.
Tessier has since run five more
marathons, setting substantial
personal bests in all but one.
Her 2:30 run at the 2018 Berlin
Marathon – a new Canadian
masters record – was more
than six minutes faster than
her previous personal best of
2:36, which she ran at the 2017“I’ve not considered
age to be a limiting
factor. I’m not naive,
I know that it will
be eventually – but
I think our limits are
as much or as little
as we make them
out to be.”
—Lyndsay Tessier, Canadian masters
marathon record holder
ABOVE Lyndsay Tessier racing the
2019 Spring Run Off in Toronto46 Canadian Running September & October 2019, Volume 12, Issue 6Maxine^ Gravina