Like many runners, summertime is when I’m typically ramping up my training for a fall marathon. This year, I’m signed up for the Chicago Marathon on October 13, so my four-month buildup began in mid-June.

For the first time, I had the opportunity to immerse myself in an early summer training camp with professional runner and coach Nell Rojas. I’ve been coached remotely by Rojas since August 2021, and she’s helped me lower my marathon personal best by over 15 minutes as well as hit my first Boston Marathon qualifier at the 2022 Houston Marathon.

Since that breakthrough, my training has admittedly had its ups and downs, which I suppose is to be expected after you blow your first big goal out of the water. Still, there are a lot of aspects of my training journey and relationship with Rojas that have reassured me about continuing to work with her, even when more fast-for-me times have eluded me. She’s managed to keep the prescribed training fun, enjoyable, and productive, while also cultivating a community among the athletes she coaches. I have appreciated her coaching smarts, her realistic perspective and encouraging tone, and her ability to apply those things to my specific needs.

Her level of individual care led me to hound her about hosting a marathon training camp, something I’d seen other former and current pros like Ryan Hall and Stephanie Bruce do in the past. When she announced she was finally hosting one this summer in her homebase and running mecca of Boulder, Colorado, I knew I was 100 percent in and saved the late-June dates immediately.

RISE Running Camp was open not only to Rojas’ individual athletes, but those who work with her fellow coaches under her business (which include her father, retired pro runner Ric Rojas, and fellow elite athletes Molly Grabill and Alex Diltz), as well as runners interested in learning about their programming. Runners had the choice of staying at the camp’s homebase, the Adventure Lodge, or finding lodging elsewhere (an option that made overall camp costs significantly cheaper than many other training camps available in the U.S.).

Over the course of three days, Rojas and her team packed in various activities, including presentations and seminars covering everything from goal-setting, mental toughness and injury prevention, guided track, strength, and plyometric sessions, several easy runs on paved and mountain trails, and a Saturday long run on the area’s famed Magnolia Road, a rolling dirt road that extends for 8 miles above 8,000 feet of elevation. I normally wouldn’t choose to attend an event like this more than once, but I left feeling fulfilled by the experience with existing and new runner connections, eager to dive into my current marathon training cycle, and excited to return next year.

Here are four key takeaways from my training camp experience, and how you might be able to benefit from a similar training camp in your next marathon buildup.

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1. Communication with your coach is key

Even though I’m at the point where I consider Rojas to be a friend in addition to my coach and feel comfortable texting her semi-regularly, I’ve always been conscious of maintaining boundaries, since I know I’m one of about 40 athletes she currently coaches, and she also has her own busy life as a professional athlete. In that same vein, I’ve kept my responses to her weekly training questionnaires and comments in TrainingPeaks (the coaching platform where she inputs our training schedules) to a minimum, thinking less is more and it made things easier for her to quickly go through my data and move onto the next athlete.

I was surprised to hear both Rojas and Grabill tell us “the more feedback the better,” but it makes sense. More feedback means more data points to help a coach better understand the full picture of what’s going on in an athlete’s life, giving them more accurate insights into how they might modify future training to adjust for variables like life stress, fatigue, work, or travel. This makes total sense and has motivated me to change that habit during my current build for the Chicago Marathon, where I’m hoping to set a new PB.

A marathon training plan should be considered a fluid experience, not a static document. The more you can relay to your coach, the better your coach can understand exactly where you are on a daily and weekly basis and the more your coach can help you continue to progress through your training program.

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2. It’s OK to not be a pro athlete

This was actually something I already knew, and the main reason why I hired Rojas in the first place. When I was first introduced to her story as an athlete after she won the 2019 Grandma’s Marathon, she discussed how she trained at lower overall mileage and volume than most of her competitors at her level. I was intrigued by that because through my own trial and error, I’ve found that I also perform better at lower volume and quality-focused training. I have run some of the worst races of my life when I’ve experimented with higher mileage, and only opted for that kind of training because seemingly everyone around me with similar goals was doing it.

When I was shopping around for a new coach to pursue my Boston qualifier, I had one coach straight-up tell me that I’d never be able to run a 3:30 marathon without going upwards of 60 miles per week, which I knew wasn’t true. I talked to Rojas about how some runners are simply better suited for lower mileage, and I was struck by her comment that some runners can’t handle higher mileage because they’re not professional athletes getting paid to run and recover. People with more traditional full-time jobs often don’t have the time and resources to regularly incorporate things like daily naps and weekly massages into their lives.

Rojas proved that first coach wrong. Under her training, which had me peaking at 50 miles per week once, I earned that BQ.

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3. It’s worth sweating the extra little things, as long as they’re the right things.

If fans and followers of Rojas know one thing, it’s that she’s big on incorporating strength training into her own race builds. She keeps it optional for her athletes, though, offering a full strength coaching plan at no additional charge to those interested. This has been a point of relief for me, as I’ve struggled to find motivation to keep up with regular strength training beyond core work. After all, I haven’t gotten injured in the three years Rojas and I have worked together (knock on wood), so why change what’s working?

However, during the group track workout, Rojas and RISE’s physical therapist, Jenna Zajac, observed our running form. Zajac also performed individual gait analyses at the gym workout. I had a one-on-one session with Rojas to discuss my current progress and goals later that day, and she noted that adding a short routine of glute activation and hip stabilization exercises before my runs could help boost running efficiency and decrease fatigue when trying to push off at faster speeds, which had been a weakness I’d noticed.

Understanding the biomechanical benefit behind incorporating some light prehab into my routine is the motivation I need to take those extra few minutes each day to do it. After camp, Zajac also sent me some recommended exercises with instructions and videos to help me work on my weaknesses. That custom programming from the in-person sessions are harder to replicate from afar, but the videos and guidance will help me incorporate them into my regular routine.

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4. It’s important to accept where you are now.

Like many runners, I’ve gone through periods where I’ve gotten ahead of myself and had to learn the hard way that I wasn’t yet physically or mentally ready to go after a big milestone running goal, like the seemingly universal goal to qualify for Boston. Dealing with injuries and burnout over the years forced me to reflect and reconcile why I was continuing to push myself toward this goal and learn from the mistakes that ultimately set me back.

We all go through training challenges—injuries, periods of less fitness, overly busy schedules due to work, family, or personal reasons—so it’s important to set realistic goals given your starting point of fitness and current life situations. Rojas knows this first-hand, so she’s eager to make sure her athletes have the right perspective—and goals—heading into a training buildup.

In one of her presentations, Rojas shared that her ultimate downfall at the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon in February (where she ended up dropping out at mile 18) was that she let her ego get in the way. She wanted to run with the front pack. But she ended up running outside of her fitness level as a result. Rojas believes that if she had run her own race, she may well have contended for one of the top three places that earned spots on Team USA at the Paris Olympics.

This is why it can be particularly beneficial to work with an experienced and well-seasoned coach, to help keep your mindset in check and encourage you, while also bringing you back to reality when you need it. Ultimately, Rojas helps me remember that while it’s important to have goals to work toward, marathon running is something that’s a passionate hobby for me, not my job or my life. At the end of the day, no one else cares as much as I do if I hit a certain running goal, and if I’m the only one who truly cares, I might as well be enjoying it. That said, my experience at the RISE Running Camp—thanks to the personal interaction and insights from Rojas—has energized me for the next three months of training.

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