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races, but they didn’t matter that much.”

Once again, a gradual transition paid off, and Monson placed 3rd in the OT 10,000, presaging a 13th in Tokyo against the world’s best. So, yeah,” she says, “It turned out well.”

She clearly has no regrets about choosing her current training situation: “Dathan’s been so good with so many people on our team about progressing and improving over the last few years. It just goes to show that Dathan, when we started this group, had a vision that we were going to be some of the people who are really competing at that world level, and he’s definitely delivered on that. Part of that is us trusting in his training.”

Over the fall, she gradually increased her volume, hitting some 90/95-mile weeks, “whereas last year it was 85-90M. I’m very slowly increasing it. Obviously, I’m hoping to have a long career, so we’re methodically increasing the training.”

Ritzenhein has tabbed her as a future marathoner, something she doesn’t dispute: “Even when I went pro, he had a longterm vision of me improving on the track and then eventually moving up to the marathon. We don’t exactly have a timeline for it. We’ll just see how things go on the track and how competitive I can be on the world level.

From 2021 to 2025, we’ve had World outdoor years or Olympic years every single year; ‘26 is the first year [with no major championship], so maybe I’ll start putting my eyes on the roads more.”

Till then she’s going to keep strengthening her skills as a racer. It’s a task that’s been made very enjoyable by working with her OAC teammates. “The best part of it is we travel everywhere together, travel around the country and the world, and I feel our team has been something special that not everyone has as a professional runner,” she says. “It just makes everything more fun.