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Des Linden: “Trust the work you’re putting in”

Des Linden also picks "Boston win" over "Olympic gold"

On Friday, one month out from this year’s Boston Marathon, WBZ-TV posted “Rapid Fire with Des Linden,” who said the best advice she’d ever received was “Trust the work that you’re putting in.” Meaning, if you’ve done the training, believe that you can do it, because you can. Linden will defend her Boston title on April 15.

RELATED: Rob Watson’s advice on the Boston Marathon

It should reassure anyone preparing for a spring marathon to know that even Linden occasionally wonders if she can pull it off. At last year’s Boston, one of the worst-weather scenarios the Boston Marathon has ever seen, Linden was still doubting if it would be her day several kilometres into the race, when she famously told Shalane Flanagan she might drop out. (Though admittedly this might have had less to do with self-doubt than with the weather.) At a certain point Linden realized she was probably stronger than anyone else left on the course, and that she could win. Her victory was the first for an American woman at the Boston Marathon in 33 years.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BuK1T9KnX7M/

Some other gems from Linden:

Des or Desi? Des. Unless you’re my mom.
Your advice for a first-time Boston Marathon runner: Don’t go out too hard.
What’s harder: the hills in Newton, or the downhill after the hills? The downhill. Hundred per cent.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BvCOx4Kgob_/

Loudest crowds on the course? Boylston… The last six miles are insane. Heartbreak’s great. And then, all the way from there in, is just unreal.
Coffee: hot or cold? Hot.
Beer or bourbon? Bourbon.
Boston win or Olympic gold? Boston win.

 

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