AFTER NEAR MISS AT THE TRIALS, PANNING IS READY FOR FAST TIME IN CHICAGO

AFTER NEAR MISS AT THE TRIALS, PANNING IS READY FOR FAST TIME IN CHICAGO
By David Monti, @d9monti
(c) 2024 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved, used with permission. 

CHICAGO (11-Oct) — At the USA Olympic Team Trials Marathon last February in Orlando, Zach Panning made the most important move of the race, dropping a 4:49 sixth mile and breaking the race open.  He felt confident.  Still a young marathoner, he felt free to experiment.

“This was my first Trials and, I would say, inexperience was showing a little bit,” he said after that race.  “I’m really proud of how I raced.”

After a 64:07 halfway split and a 4:44 17th mile, Panning’s energy was sapped by the time he reached the last two miles. He faded to sixth place at the finish line in 2:10:50, and his Olympic dream would have to wait four more years.  Still, that race showed him that on the right day he could run a fast marathon.  He hopes that at Sunday’s Bank of America Chicago Marathon here he can achieve that goal.  It was here in 2022 where he set his still-standing personal best of 2:09:28, a time he hopes to beat by minutes.

“Personally, I think I have improved a lot since then,” Panning told Race Results Weekly in an interview here this morning just after finishing his training run.  “It hasn’t really shown up on a results page.  That’s really my goal, right?  Just improve on that personal best and just finish as high as I can.”

Panning, 29, has had an unusual year.  After recovering from the Trials he ran an unconventional slate of events.  He did an 8-kilometer team event in Chicago with his Hansons-Brooks Original Distance Project teammates, a road 5-K in Boston, a 10,000m track race in Britain, and the USA Olympic Team Trials, also at 10,000m.  The goal was to get him away from marathon training, change-up his muscle usage, and allow him to clear his head before buckling down for big miles he would need to run ahead of Chicago in the fall.

“I feel like each time it’s a little more difficult to go back to the track,” Panning explained.  “I’m in my young marathon career here.  I think it’s important to not let things get stale (and) run those faster races, get uncomfortable still.  That was kind of the goal of the segment.”  He continued: “The focus was on this fall, running a fall marathon.  But, be able to spin those gears a little quicker this summer was nice.”

As he built-up his mileage this summer Kevin Hanson, who coaches…