Chris Zablocki has trees for teammates yet he has won 19 of 47 marathons he has run

One of the fastest American marathon runners right now is a 29-year-old doctor in rural Connecticut who doesn’t have a coach, doesn’t have a sponsor and doesn’t run with a watch. He trains alone, as long as feels right, with “only the trees for teammates,” he says. In the past seven years he has raced 47 marathons, winning 19 of them. “I just go as long as I can before my legs get too heavy and my head gets in a haze,” said Chris Zablocki, the best marathoner most elite marathoners have never heard of. Zablocki is the rare athlete who is able to pull off quality races in astounding quantities, emerging as a maverick of the American distance running scene. Zablocki’s strategies are indisputably extreme: he once ran three marathons in three countries in three weekends, winning or medaling in all. And he keeps getting faster: He ran his best marathon ever last December, a 2:13:45. It was the 19th fastest time in the United States in 2017 — and his 11th marathon that year.

posted Friday March 16th