Inside the Olympic Distance Runner's Brutal Year

The block that almost broke

The aerobic base block in the early winter was supposed to be the easy part. It became the hardest part, because of an Achilles strain that, on the medical staff's worst-case projections, would have ruled out the spring meets entirely.

The runner trained around it for fourteen weeks. The training around it cost what coaches call "downstream" fitness — speed work that should have happened in February and didn't.