Lanni Marchant Q-and-A on her Commonwealth Games success

Lanni Marchant recently returned from Glasgow, Scotland, where she finished an impressive fourth in the Commonwealth Games marathon.

We caught up with the Canadian record-holder to ask about her time at the Games and what’s up next for her this fall.

Did you have any goals for the race? Time or placement goals?

Looking at the entries and knowing my fitness level, I thought I could be in the top seven or so and possibly crack the top five. Since it was a championship style race there was no goal time.

Were you expecting to run with anyone specific during the race? Was there any plans before the gun went off?

I had planned to key off a few of the U.K. and Aussie runners and figured the Africans would either run away from the start or put in a surge mid-race. My coach and I had planned for me to take the first half of the race really relaxed, regardless of how others raced, and then start working over the second half.

Did the race play out how you expected it to? Did you need to change any plans during the race based on what was going on?

The race played out pretty much how I thought it would.

It was a bit tight running in the pack with a few ladies tripping the rest of us up here and there, so I tried to stay a bit over or back from the traffic. We were really relaxed the first 10K (about 36 min pace I think), and then around 15K the two Kenyans and one other African made a bold move. I stayed with the Scottish and Aussie runners until we came around to finish the first loop and then I ended up on my own for a while. I did not plan on dropping anyone or putting in a move, it was more that the other two ladies seemed to be slowing a bit and I wanted to keep my turnover up. At 30K, I felt a twinge in my calf and by 35 or 36K I was unable to get up on my toe at all, so I couldn’t be as aggressive over the last portion of the race, but overall I raced exactly how my coach and I had planned.

What was your experience at the Games like, as a whole? Were you impressed by them?

It was an amazing atmosphere and such a great event to be part of. I did my best to make it out to see the rest of our track athletes compete and left Glasgow so excited and inspired or the next few seasons.

What do the next few weeks look like for you? How do you spend the downtime after a major marathon?

I took the week after the marathon pretty much off. I trotted a few times starting three days after the race and took advantage of the physiotherapists and massage therapists that were there for the team.

Now I’ll slowly get my mileage back up and start getting in some speedier workouts to prep for the 10K road race championships in September.

Last year you came back from an August championship race to break the Canadian record. Are there any plans to chase fast times before the year is out? Or are there different fall plans?

For now we are just focusing on coming back for a strong race at the 10K champs. If my body is feeling well enough we may bump up the mileage and see what, if anything, I want to do for the rest of the season. I definitely will want to make it back to Japan for the Chiba Ekiden in November.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.