Episode 6 - Bijan Mazaheri and Ryan Root

The inspiration for today’s show comes from Charlie Marquardt, specifically a tweet he put out after this years Chicago marathon. In that tweet he compares how three runners fared in the 2012 NCAA XC championships in Terre Haute, with  how they finished this year’s Chicago marathon. The runners who did both are myself, Ryan Root, and Bijan Mazaheri. Most striking was the pace comparison between the two. While my marathon pace was a few seconds slower per mile compared to that 8k in 2012, Ryan (2:17:00) and Bijan (2:15:26) ran as fast or faster per mile in the marathon than they did in 2012. You can find the tweet in the show notes. That compelled us to call them up, hear about the rest of their  collegiate careers, but almost more importantly, hear how their Division Three experience created a love of running that continues to this day. Both these men are a case study of the progression a D3 athlete can make over the years, and it was really cool to get them on record together.

Charlie's Tweet: https://twitter.com/cmarqq/status/1183505005048946689

Ryan Root on Twitter: @RyanAndrewRoot

Bijan has a website dedicated to D3 XC Predictions: https://bijanmazaheri.wordpress.com/d3-regional-cross-country-rankings/