Shalane Flanagan and Amy (Hastings) Cragg are tired. And hungry. And they are plotting the appropriate time for a nap later on, as they contemplate the menu options at a popular brunch spot in downtown Flagstaff, Arizona. Coffee and tea warm them up from a frigid run, which they logged on a dirt road with a few members of their Bowerman Track Club team.

Olympians. They’re just like us?

On this particular Sunday morning, which is quickly waning into afternoon, Flanagan and Cragg are three weeks away from the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, on February 13 in Los Angeles. They’ve hit that zombie-like state during training—when the fatigue is real and the accumulation of hundreds of miles at 7,000 feet of altitude has taken its biggest toll. They have one more week before the taper begins.

Flanagan orders steak and eggs. When the server asks if Cragg would like grits or potatoes, she asks for both—and cleans her plate.

The day before, the duo went down to Phoenix for a 20-mile run that included marathon pace work. The lower altitude, two hours south of Flagstaff, allowed quicker leg turnover, but running along a flat—and seemingly endless, often boring—canal path didn’t make the session any easier. The training partners both suffered, but the experience also created a perfect illustration of why joining forces has strengthened each athlete.

“If we didn’t have each other, yesterday would have been a death march,” Flanagan said. “The accountability was essential. Those are the kind of moments you realize why you have a training partner.”

Cragg, who finished in the heartbreaking fourth-place position at the 2012 Olympic Marathon Trials, agrees.

“Shalane talked me through [the 20-miler]. I was in a dark place,” she said. “But there’s comfort in knowing, ‘She’s feeling it too, we’re in the same boat, let’s just get it done.’”

Cragg, who made the 2012 London Games competing in the 10,000 meters, recently joined Nike and the Bowerman Track Club. Collaborating with Flanagan—currently America’s fastest marathoner with a personal best of 2:21:14—had been long in the making, but it was a matter of the right timing, personally and professionally. After a trial summer training stint in Park City, Utah, while Flanagan was preparing for the world championships 10,000 meters in Beijing, Cragg and her husband, Alistair, made the move to Portland, Oregon. Cragg parted ways with Brooks and her Providence, Rhode Island-based training group, which included Molly Huddle, American 5,000-meter record holder.

Taking such a big leap in location, training groups, and coaches in an Olympic year is risky, but the opportunity for two of America’s best distance runners to help each other out at a pivotal moment in their careers was too good to pass up. The change has been seamless for Cragg, with more emphasis on the long run than ever before. She and Flanagan do a run of 20 miles or longer every seven days and most of the time it includes some kind of pace work at marathon or 10K effort. One other day per week the focus is a shorter, faster workout.

“For me, it’s great. This is the kind of athlete I’ve always been,” said Cragg, who has the third-fastest marathon qualifying time of 2:27:04 behind Flanagan and her former Arizona State teammate Desiree Linden (2:23:54). “Honestly, it’s been an easy transition in the sense that I feel like I am doing the right thing.”

For Flanagan, the Olympic Trials buildup hasn’t been as smooth, although her confidence and her body have come around in the past month. After taking sixth place at the world championships, she took a two-week break and then started marathon training. Ten days later, she discovered a stress reaction in her foot. By the time it healed, only 10 weeks remained until the trials—and the niggles kept creeping up on her, in the form of back and Achilles pain.

“It was stuff I haven’t had to endure before in marathon training. I’ve had pretty flawless buildups,” said Flanagan, who is aiming for her fourth Olympic team. “If I make this team, it’s definitely going to be one of those memorable ones, just because I’ve had a lot of hiccups. Amy and I are in a really good position right now, but it was stressful there for a while.”

Watching Flanagan cope with the setbacks has served as one of the teachable moments for Cragg, who has admired her new teammate’s constant focus, even in the moments of struggle.

“The way she’s handled every little obstacle has been impressive—she’s not complacent,” Cragg said. “She’s still managed to get every workout done, get in all of her mileage—everything. Most people would not handle it as well as she has.”

There have been more light-hearted moments as well. Like, “the bear incident,” during what was supposed to be a recovery run in November. In Flagstaff, they encountered a bear during a run, which initially stopped them in their tracks before they ran for their lives. Then there was the San Antonio Rock ’n’ Roll Half Marathon, which they ran as a tempo-paced workout, finishing in 1:12:42 behind Kara Goucher, only two weeks after Flanagan had started running again, post-injury.

“We ran with Alistair—he helped pace us,” Flanagan said. “Those are the things you take for granted in the moment, but then I look back on it and realize how cool and special it was.”

But will that kind of teamwork happen on at the Olympic trials, too? To be determined with their coach closer to the race, they said.

“I think that if we can execute a similar race plan, it would benefit both of us, but we just don’t know yet,” Flanagan said.

Cragg is focused on the women in the field—of which there are about 10—who could have a breakthrough to the 2:26 range. That’s what she predicts it could take to be a top-three finisher.

“There are the people you know, who are going to come out there and have good races,” she said. “But then there are the unknowns, who are chomping at the bit. They are scary. You don’t know what they could do and the Olympic Trials brings crazy stuff out in people.”

The ultimate goal for either of them is not to place first, but to make sure they both end up on the Olympic team—and train together again for the Games in August.

“I’ve had the luxury of winning the race and I know how special that is, but at the same time, as soon as the top three women cross the finish line, you’re all the winner,” Flanagan, defending Olympic Trials champion, said. “If you win by 10 seconds, it is only 10 seconds that it matters. Amy and I are so focused on the top three and whatever we need to do to be in the top three, that’s all that matters.”

But what might matter even more at this very moment is getting back to the house they share with the other women of the Bowerman Track Club, who have headed to the track for an afternoon workout. If they hurry, Flanagan and Cragg can get a few hours of shuteye before the house comes alive again with the sound of roommates.

That rest is just one of critical component to success on race day that Cragg says is the most important of her career.

“For me, there’s more on the line at this race than any other race. You just have to have everything go perfect on that day,” Cragg said. “There are so many women who have the potential to make the team. It’s top three, then everyone else. It’s a fine line between it being one of the happiest days of your life and it being a disappointment.”

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