DURGIN TO RUN TCS TORONTO MARATHON
By Paul Gains
(c) 2023 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved – Used with permission.
(07-Sep) — Despite some impressive podium finishes at USATF championships on the roads and in cross country, Emily Durgin has yet to record a marathon time. It’s a situation she intends to rectify at the 2023 TCS Toronto Waterfront Marathon on Sunday, October 15th.
“I definitely think I am capable of running closer to 2:20 than 2:29,” she said of her target in Toronto. “But with that being said the biggest thing about the marathon is learning how to race it and get through the whole thing.”
The 29-year-old –who is originally from Portland, Me., but now lives and trains in Flagstaff, Ariz.– has earned bronze medals at the 2023 USATF cross country championships, the 2023 USATF 20-K championships, the 2022 USATF 10 mile championships and a silver at the USATF 15-K championships. Most impressive though is her half-marathon personal best of 67:54 which got her 6th place at the 2022 Aramco Houston Half-Marathon.
It is this credential which she believes is indication that her ambitious aim to run in the low 2:20’s is possible. It is a performance that has also qualified her for the 2024 USA Olympic Team Trials Marathon next February. However, a solid race at Toronto Waterfront, a World Athletics Elite Label Race, would give her more confidence in those trials.
Last November she made her marathon debut in New York but was gutted when she had to drop out at 30-K.
“Unfortunately, it was a super-hot day and that probably didn’t play in my favor,” she explained. “But there were a lot of other factors that went into it. Honestly, the entire buildup, it was in my head. I put way more pressure on it for what reason I don’t know. You learn a lot when you do your first buildup.”
Durgin graduated from the University of Connecticut with a degree in communications and journalism and she moved to Flagstaff in 2018, one of America’s running Meccas.
“I love Arizona as a whole,” she said. “Obviously Flagstaff is higher elevation (2,130m) which is why I like to live up here, but in the winter months it’s easy to drop down to Phoenix or Sedona. Last winter we had a ton of snow so for us it is really easy to get out of the weather if we have to.
“There is such a big running community here so we have that aspect of it,” she continued. “I will say that sometimes it is tough because, when you are up here, there is that mentality of training (mode) for me that’s why I…
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