A few weeks ago, Jesse Thomas, an American professional triathlete and CEO of Picky Bars , announced he’d be taking a break from triathlon to focus on his family and business. The third-place finisher at Challenge Roth last summer decided it was time to invest more time into his company to take it to the next level.
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Ok time to let the cat out of the bag – I’m running a marathon this spring! Not after a swim and bike, just a straight up good old fashioned foot race. I’m not “retiring” from triathlon and I don’t have any big plans of making the olympics or anything, I’m just taking some time to pursue a different challenge that better matches my time constraints right now. . After what I felt was my best Ironman distance race ever @challengeroth, I spent the last ~7 months focused on getting Picky Bars to the next level and spending more time with family. We’ve made some amazing progress at Picky that I’m very proud of, but I need another few months of focus on it. I’m enjoying running more than ever, and decided to take a crack at a “fast” marathon while I still can (I am 39 now after all)! It’s a great athletic challenge that brings me back to my roots, but most importantly I can train “enough” to fulfill my goals on less than ~10 hours a week, which gives me time for my employees and my family. . Those of you following me on @strava and @gozwift have seen me running a lot more miles than normal (averaging over 50/week for last few weeks which is way more than I ever did for triathlon), and doing less biking and almost no swimming. Given my injury history, I hope to run the best I can on ~60 miles/week peak. We will see. . Today’s workout was my first “simulation” where I did 10k building warmup, then 15k hard descending from 5:30/mile to 5:05/mile, then 5k “float” around 5:40/mile (S. It was hard but I felt decent and am happy with my progress. . I haven’t actually signed up for a marathon yet but most likely will head to Eugene marathon at the end of April because it’s a relatively fast course, close to home for family and Picky Bars can be there too. I’m still planning on doing some triathlons this year (might head to Winter Tri Nationals in 2 weeks), just waiting to get through this phase and see how the body and time looks. I want to thank my sponsors @descente_global @descenteathletic @redbull @rokasports @dimondbikes for the support of my athletic and life goals as they evolve throughout the course of my career. Thanks to all the crazy ass for the support as well!
A post shared by Jesse Thomas (@jessemthomas) on Mar 2, 2019 at 3:32pm PST
With a few less training hours, Thomas decided to train for a marathon. In his build-up, he ran the Shamrock (Portland) 1/2 Marathon on March 17th. He won the race in 1:08:07, and his wife, Lauren Fleshman, won the women’s race in 1:21:44.
Related: Review: Picky Bars
Thomas’ will compete in a marathon in six weeks – at the end of April.
