A dream to make the team: Cardin, Bennie ready to shine at U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials

For Sutton's Jessie Cardin, "spring training" in Florida began before Christmas, a couple of months of needed preparation.

"I'm feeling the benefits," Cardin said by phone recently from Davenport, Florida, near the site of next Saturday morning's U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in downtown Orlando. "I'm excited to see how it's going to help us."

The Hansons-Brooks Original Distance Project, Cardin's team, is using this heat acclimatization trip for its eight women and five men competing, rather than a block of altitude training other organizations may use. And the former Sutton High and Westfield State standout, who trained in Florida before Boston last year, couldn't be more pleased with this approach and its intensity.

"This build has been very solid, super successful," she said, noting that the weather in Central Florida has ranged from the 30s to the 80s while she has been there.

While Cardin is making her Trials debut following more than two months in the Florida sun, Colin Bennie is arriving Wednesday in Orlando, primed to improve on his ninth-place finish four years ago at the Trials in Atlanta. Like Cardin, he has trained relatively injury-free to full capacity, yet in the Bay Area, where he has been working on a second master's degree, at the University of San Francisco.

"It has been about what I was expecting," said Bennie, the former Wachusett Regional and Syracuse star who was the top American finisher at the 2021 Boston Marathon. "The school work at times gives me a good distracton from training. There are only so many hours in a day, but I've been able to get in what I need to."

Cardin and Bennie met and talked briefly last January at a summit in Seattle for Brooks, which supplies both runners. Cardin joined the Hansons team in 2022, Bennie, a former Reebok Boston runner, signed with Brooks last year during his move to the West Coast.

"It's been fantastic," Bennie said. "It's a running-only company, and it shows. It's fun to be surrounded by a running-focused culture."

"Brooks' main focus is long-distance running; every long nerds' dream," said Cardin, who turns 28 in April. "All the aches, pains ... that's what Brooks tries to remedy."

Cardin is encouraged by how this training progressed in Florida. "It has been beneficial to have the time here," she said. "There's not a whole lot we do besides train, but we also can get proper sleep and recovery. My body has felt really strong, and I've taken up a fine lifting plan."

She hasn't experienced any of the problems that forced her to drop out of Boston last April, when it later was discovered that a lack of salt intake likely caused her two trips to the emergency room that week. She has added sodium to her diet and is taking gels with more salt on runs to neutralize the condition.

Cardin's mileage built up gradually, to 125 miles the week of Jan. 4-10, just 5,280 feet short of her all-time high, when she challenged herself one week in 2021.

The mileage took a toll on her training shoes, which has 485 miles on them before obtaining a new pair, but not her enthusiasm. "Yet I am happy I'm on the other side of the build."

Bennie remembers training for his first Trials, which actually was his first marathon, as he had qualified at the 2019 Houston Half Marathon. Yet he looks at his quest in '24 with four marathons in his memory bank, also including his 2:09:39 at the 2020 Marathon Project in Arizona and 2022 Boston, in which he placed 19th in 2:12:08. He has run each of his marathons in the 2:12s or better.

"The difference from then is I have a lot more experience at 26 miles, and I'd like to think I'm quite a bit more knowledgeable. I'm hoping that added experience will set me up for more success."

The top three runners in the men's and women's races secure their trip to Paris for the 2024 Games. Bennie, who turns 29 in June, has that experience around the head of the pack, yet he's so aware that anything can happen.

"There's always the unknown at the Trials," he said. "Everyone's focused their training to it, and doing everything possible to capitalize. But I still have to run my own race."

One things that hasn't changed at the Trials is the best this country has to offer. "A lot of the guys are still around," said Bennie, who crossed in 2:12:14 in Atlanta. "The depth has gotten deeper as Americans have gotten more and more competitive on a world scale.

"There are even more names being tossed around these days," he added. "On the right day, anyone can make the team. There's Conner Mantz, Clayton Young and Scott Fauble, who's smart and talented. And Galen Rupp is still Galen Rupp."

Joining Bennie on the flight to Florida is longtime girlfriend Abbie McNulty, who also will be running in the Trials. McNulty, who starred at Bishop Feehan and Stanford, qualified for the Trials in December with her 2:36 at the California International Marathon.

That news particularly thrilled Cardin, who remembers competing against McNulty in cross-country and track invitationals and state meets.

Bennie did offer a tip to Cardin for her Trials debut.

"Try to think of the Trials as just another marathon," he said. "Don't change your strategy. Sometimes people overthink it. It's different, but people can fall in the trap of trying to do too much."

"I like that," said Cardin, whose time goal for Saturday is 2:28. "I'm so ready and so excited. It's been since Chicago (in 2022, when she qualified for Trials in 2:33:34), and now it's becoming a reality."

—Contact John Conceison at john.conceison@telegram.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @ConceisonJohn.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Pair of local stars make final preparations for U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials