Why Jiggy matters: John Ignacz and fast marathons in college

John Ignacz is one of the most durable (if vexing) athletes I’ve ever coached in the past 32 years. I call him a “piece of steel” because, well, he is. He runs, a lot. Long distances and hard-earned paces. During Covid, along with a lot of running, he biked, a lot. Long distances and hard-earned paces. Yes, at times, he was prone to overtraining earlier in his college running career. But, we have since dialed that back and dialed that in, and now Jiggy (that’s his nickname) is a role model for the type of day-to-day process I want all of our athletes to emulate. Now, Jiggy trains very hard but also quite smart. And he races tough. But, admittedly, his racing performances – in cross country, in track -- have been inconsistent, spotty. We’ve talked about it frequently. He is hard on himself; I can be hard on him, too. Through it all, I’m his biggest fan and his biggest believer. I want him to succeed. I want him to have more success, more consistent performances, than he has shown. Again, his PRs are solid. But he’s capable of more. He knows it, I know it. And on Sunday in Virginia Beach, in an unlikely setting for a collegiate distance runner in the midst of a school year of training and racing, he proved it.

Back in the middle of the winter, Jiggy approached me with the idea of doing the Shamrock Marathon. His mother, Donna, an avid marathon runner, was doing it. Being the loyal son, John was going to support her. Someone (mom, Jiggy, it doesn’t matter) thought it might be a good idea if John ran the marathon, too. My response was: “Wait, isn’t there a half marathon there?” Yeah, but … the marathon held intrigue to Jiggy. His typical long runs are pretty long, even by our team’s standards, upwards of 17 miles. His long runs are at a fast pace. Extending the long runs a bit, for a few weeks, after the indoor season, to allow him to pop a full marathon in the middle of March? Why NOT! Intuitively and instinctually as a coach, this didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Our outdoor season starts THIS week! And it’s a short duration season. Marathons, generally, take a long time to recover from – several weeks, at least. Emotionally, however, I was all in. Jiggy’s as tough as iron. He was excited about the idea. Even though I am a logical and reasoned coach who should not have been too thrilled about Jiggy running a marathon, I was excited about the idea.

Why was I excited about the idea?! Well. A little history is in order. Turn back the clock 40 years, when a skinny kid from Jersey was on the XC/track team at Marist. His new coach – with a unique, gravelly, staccato voice -- was enamored with the 4x800 relay, with constant speed workouts – three or four times per week. The skinny kid from Jersey had no wheels and no interest in this, and casually mentioned to the new coach the idea of moving up to the marathon distance. The eccentric and well-traveled coach shrugged his shoulders, offered the kid some crazy marathon training plan out of a long-defunct magazine, with a half-hearted blessing to give it a try, and that was that. A marathoner was born, at the tender age of 19 (for a marathoner, for sure), in 1983. That skinny kid was me. That first marathon was a few months after my 19^th birthday, at the Jersey Shore, and I wound up doing five (5!) marathons while in college. This is not recommended – then, and certainly not now. I look back on that era of my running life with great pride (my times were pretty decent, usually starting with the number “2” before the first colon), shame (who’s DOING these things!) and regret (the marathons, and the 90-mile training weeks with no days off, most likely shredded my musculoskeletal system prematurely). But mostly, there was and is pride and fond memories, as it shaped what would be the rest of my running (now jogging/walking) life.

Back to Jiggy: Our guy went down there to Virginia Beach on Sunday, and he kicked ass. As I knew he would. Piece of iron. Piece of steel. No 26.2 miles gonna faze this kid. He listened to his coach’s plan by taking the first 10km at a chill pace. The 6:06 pace (37:53) for the first 6.2 miles must have felt like a stumbling jog for him. After he got a bit of a tailwind (Virginia Beach is a WINDY venue in March), Jiggy started cranking. His half-marathon split (1:16:25) shows that. Then, in an unfortunate twist, he made a wrong turn on a mismarked/unmarked section of the course. Cost him about 0.3 miles and at least two minutes. And then, the last 7 miles were into a 20 mph headwind, which he fought gamely (his pace struggled, but he did close with a 5:52 last mile). His official finishing place (third) and time (2:38:13) were impressive. His Garmin stats (I know, I know, it doesn’t COUNT) showed a much longer (26.76 miles) and much harder (5:55/mile) effort. He ran way faster than I ever did or could have hoped to run, 40 years ago, as I knew he would. He even shared a post-race beer with his mom – I’m OK with this, he’s 21 and what the heck, he just ran a MARATHON! By the way, Donna ran a very strong 4:08:09 and finished eighth in the 55-59 division!

Jiggy ran a hard and tough marathon -- as a college student in the midst of track seasons. Back then, it wasn’t particularly smart. Now, it’s downright frowned upon as rogue, radical and ill-informed. If I mention it casually to other coaches at upcoming meets, it will probably confirm their suspicions that I am a bit off kilter. You know what? We don’t care! It worked for Jiggy. He showed up at Monday night’s team meeting saying he felt “all right” (standard Jiggy line, he never complains) and was ready for a Tuesday track workout. Piece of steel. Piece of iron. I told him, “no, John, let’s wait a few days.” He plans on racing as much of the outdoor schedule (not our season-opener at Monmouth, now on Sunday) as he can. He’s hungry for more. A grinder. And a fast one at that. So yeah. This one’s personal, a young marathoner born while still in college, just like 40 years ago (only much, much better). A young runner who cares about what he does, and craved to go the distance. He did just that. Highly neat!