Marion Pyles is getting ready to race this weekend at the Shamrock Marathon in Virginia. She has been rocking the local road race scene for the past couple of years with wins at the Ashland SummerMotion 10K and 5th place finish at the Charleston Distance Run. She started her adult running career at Marshall University where she set numerous school records. Now she is being coached by her husband Jason. Between her student teaching and running 75+ miles a week, she took some time to set down with TriStateRacer.com and answer some questions.

Post Date: 3/16/09

Name: Marian Pyles

Town: Huntington, WV

Age: 25

Sponsor: Strands/Puma

-When did this new sponsorship happen and what is Strands?

Team manager Matt Downin contacted Jason around the first of the year about us joining Team Strands. It was such a great sponsorship opportunity we couldn’t pass it up. Team Strands is an elite sponsored team made up of roughly 15 runners: http://team.strands.com/. Strands, Inc. is a website for runners to log their miles online, share race results, photos, images, events, and blogs with people. Here is a good interview with Matt Downin going more into detail on what Team Strands is: http://www.trackshark.com/features/entry.php?w=angelina&e_id=418

-What type of benefits comes with being sponsored?

There are so many benefits to this sponsorship I don’t know where to start. Team Strands receives all our training equipment from Puma. We have received so much stuff already that our apartment looks like a Puma outlet right now. The sponsorship with Strands also covers our travel to events, which is the biggest help to us at this time. Strands is bringing us out to Eugene, Oregon in early May which is going to be a blast.  We also have a nice incentive setup for the team where we get money bonuses if we run certain times, place in the top at certain big races, or get so many people to sign up for the site. I’m humbled to be a part of Team Strands and it motivates me to better myself as a runner.

If anyone is interested in joining Strands.com just contact Jason runjpyles@yahoo.com and he will send you out an invite to join the site (it’s free to join).

-Goals for this first marathon?

I have a few goal paces I would like to run but more then anything I just want to enjoy the entire experience.

-If you hit the goals this weekend, where do you want to take your running? What is on your long-term agenda?

I just want to continue to get better and to love running more each day.

-What was a typical training week like for you?

Since I have a very stressful semester we came up with a training plan that had lots of longer runs and very easy recovery days. A typical week might have two runs over 2hours, 1 steady state/tempo run and the rest just short easy recovery runs. My longest run got up 2:50.

-How many miles/week were you putting in?

I peaked at around 75miles, due to student teaching all my training was done in singles. In the future I would love to increase my mileage to around 85-90 miles a week for Marathon training.

-What do you do with your free time?

Well with student teaching, graduate classes and training all of my free time is just relaxing with Jason. We love going to Seattle’s Best and drinking lots of coffee every chance we get.

-What is your hardest workout that you did preparing for the Shamrock Marathon?

I enjoyed all the training but the hardest workouts would probably have been an 18-mile long run with the last 12 miles at goal marathon pace or my last 20-mile long run that included the last 4 miles at a fast finish.

-What is your favorite Workout?

Long steady state tempo runs.