Josh Izewski and Tyler Pennel will be competing at the inaugural Wyoming Valley Run in Wilkes-Barre, PA this Sunday, September 3rd. The race is 10 miles and will serve as their final competitive effort before the Berlin Marathon 3 weeks later. Tyler has a personal best of 46:48 for 10 miles from 2015. Josh set his personal best of 46:59 at the Broad Street Run this spring 9 weeks before running his 2:11:26 marathon best at Gold Coast.
Given the timing of the race, 3 weeks before Berlin, both athletes will use this as their final big long run by adding some additional light tempo work after the race to get 20+ miles on the day.
Tyler and Josh have both been training well. After a challenging spring and summer of racing Tyler has found his groove once again with marathon training. He had a small knee issue last week that cost him a few days of training, but has returned to pain free running this week and is eager to push his fitness over these final few weeks.
Josh is still less than 2 months removed from his 2:11:26 marathon at Gold Coast and has threaded the needle very well of balancing recovery with maintaining fitness leading into Berlin. The first 2 weeks of the buildup (4-5 weeks after Gold Coast) felt a bit stale, but things have been clicking very well for him over the last 2-3 weeks. This race will be a good fitness test and his only opportunity to race between the 2 marathon efforts.
The race is this Sunday, September 3rd at 8:00am. Results will be posted on the website following the race.