Friedman adds another notch to her belt

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Troy Hyde/Daily News file photo Lambs Grove native Robyn Friedman is shown here after she qualified for the 2008 United States Olympic Marathon Trials. Two weeks ago, Friedman took sixth in the Twin Cities Marathon, and her time in that race was again fast enough to qualify for the Olympic trials in 2012. She also won the Des Moines Marathon this past Sunday. (File Photo)

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The average reader would have thought Lambs Grove native Robyn Friedman had done it all as a marathon runner.

At least more than they could have ever imagined doing.

Well, this past weekend at the Des Moines Marathon, Friedman added another win to her wall but also did something she had never done before.

She not only won the annual Des Moines run and bested her own record, but she also did so after competing in another marathon just two weeks prior in Minnesota.

“It is not something I would plan to do, but it would be a case-by-case basis,” Friedman said. “I was pretty sore.”

Her main motivation came from two friends.

Wendy Torris of Oregon is a four-time winner of the Des Moines Marathon. She ran with Friedman at the Twin Cities Marathon on Oct. 4 and then told her she would be in Des Moines to run in two weeks.

“She wanted me to come to Des Moines to cheer for her,” Friedman said. “But I thought if she could do it, then maybe I could do it. She didn’t want me to run in it, but I just love the Des Moines Marathon.”

She also knew it was possible because her co-worker — Matt Scotton — at Skiff Medical Center competed in a 50-mile trail race and then ran in the Quad Cities Marathon two weeks later. Scotton also ran in the Des Moines Marathon on Sunday.

“I just thought that if these guys could run this much within two weeks I could do it, too,” Friedman said.

The normal marathon runner competes in about two races per year. Friedman said she has run in five marathons from November of 2008 to October 2009. She was sixth at the Twin Cities Marathon, first at the Des Moines Marathon and also participated in the New York City Marathon (16th), the Sacramento Marathon (11th) and Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minn. (third).

The good news for Friedman now is that she can kind of just sit back and train and not have to worry about running in any certain marathon.

After qualifying for the 2012 Olympic Marathon trials with her sixth-place finish at the Twin Cities, she can now decide when and where she runs next.

“I don’t have to keep the trials in mind now,” Friedman said.

Friedman competed in the 2008 Olympic Marathon trials but qualified as a ‘B’ standard runner. Her goal for 2012 was to qualify as an ‘A’ standard runner.

“If you set the ‘A’ standard when you qualify, they pay for my plane ticket and hotel fees,” Friedman said. “I was able to qualify at that standard this time around.”

To qualify for the ‘A’ standard, she needed to run the Twin Cities Marathon in two hours, 39 minutes or better. Her time was a 2:36.40. She missed the ‘A’ standard last time by 19 seconds.

Friedman’s plans for 2010 remain open, but she intends to run in two marathons. She plans on running in the Living History Farms race on Nov. 14 and also will compete in the Club Cross Country Championships with her Runablaze team on Dec. 12 in Lexington, Ky.

Friedman did not expect to run her best race at the Des Moines Marathon on Sunday, but her strategy changed due to her competition. She was running about a 2:45 pace until Vera Ovcharuk caught her seven miles in. She ran with Ovcharuk until mile 11 but did not want to keep up with her 2:35 pace.

“I backed off at that point because it was too hard,” Friedman said. “It was hard to let her go, but it ended up being a good strategy.”

Ovcharuk had about a 30-second lead until Friedman passed her at mile 22. But before that, Friedman was conceding that she could end up second.

“Her fastest marathon before Sunday was 2:44, so she would either run the race of her life or she would fade,” Friedman said of Ovcharuk’s pace. “I decided at that point I was OK with second as long as I was holding my pace. But I was banking on her not holding her pace.”

Friedman guessed right and managed to win the race with record-time of 2:41.28.

Friedman said she owes a lot of her summer training miles to former Newton standout and current Drake University runner Casey McDermott. The two of them logged plenty of miles this summer while McDermott was in Newton.

She said she also gets motivation from Dr. Ron Charles of Skiff Medical Center and her husband, Bryan, who ran in the 2008 Boston Marathon.

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