Long earlier than Ser-Od Bat-Ochir grew to become one of the most prolific distance runners in the world, he planted himself on the begin line of the Hong Kong Marathon in 2002. At the time, Ser-Od had by no means run something longer than 20 kilometers — or about 12 miles — even in coaching.
“I didn’t know what I was doing,” he stated.
That hardly prevented him from operating with a lead group of Kenyans for the first few miles, after which the marathon imposed its remorseless model of agony. As he labored to the end line, effectively out of competition, Ser-Od got here to an necessary realization: Marathons are lengthy and tough.
“I just thought, I don’t want to do this again,” he stated. “But here I am.”
Yes, right here is Ser-Od, now 41, and there’s no one else fairly like him. A five-time Olympian, he has now run in 74 marathons and represented Mongolia at each main worldwide competitors since 2003.
On Sunday morning in Budapest, with the help of his spouse, Oyuntuya Odonsuren, who moonlights as his coach, Ser-Od made his eleventh straight look at the World Athletics Championships, in the males’s marathon.
In the course of, Ser-Od has turn out to be a uniquely in style determine in the marathon world: a self-made runner who emerged from obscurity to turn out to be a near-permanent presence on the international stage.
“Tough as nails,” stated Tim Hutchings, a broadcaster and former world-class runner, “and a gentle, smiling soul.”
Ser-Od, whose 5-foot-7 body has the easy aerodynamics of a hold glider, nonetheless has outsize targets. He hopes to enhance on his private greatest of 2 hours 8 minutes 50 seconds. He hopes to place amongst the prime eight at a serious marathon. And he hopes to race subsequent summer time at the Paris Olympics.
“I know it won’t be easy,” he stated.
But when has his path ever been straightforward? In an interview over espresso on a current afternoon, he thought again to his roots, recalling his childhood in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, the place his father taught industrial arts and his mom was a kindergarten trainer.
Ser-Od was not significantly academic-minded when he was younger — “There was nothing I hated more than studying,” he stated, laughing — however he was an excellent athlete. His first race was at a college sports activities pageant, the place he and his classmates got 5 minutes to see how far they might run. Ser-Od received simply.
“I loved that feeling,” he stated in Japanese by his agent, Brett Larner, who additionally acted as his translator.
Ser-Od continued to run all through highschool and, after attending college, briefly taught bodily schooling. But the pay was meager, he stated, and the lengthy hours lower into his coaching. He usually had no selection however to run at night time, and in the event you’ve by no means skilled the splendors of jogging on a cold night in Mongolia, Ser-Od can let you know all about it.
“It gets quite cold and dark,” he stated.
Back when Ser-Od was beginning out, Mongolia lacked a lot of a operating tradition, he stated. People would see him bundled up in 4 or 5 layers of sweats and stare at him as if he had been juggling cats on a unicycle.
But he was already dreaming huge, having watched on tv as Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia received the males’s 10,000 meters at the 2000 Summer Olympics. Ser-Od started to marvel: How does one go about changing into a world athlete? Would or not it’s attainable for him to compete at the world championships? Or even at the Olympics?
“And just because there’s not really any history of athletics or running in Mongolia, nobody knew,” he stated. “It was a learning process.”
After his marathon debut in Hong Kong, Ser-Od stop his educating job and joined the nationwide police as an officer, one who might win races. The nationwide police had a monitor and subject membership, and Ser-Od was a bit of a ringer.
More necessary, Ser-Od now had the requisite funding to practice on extra of a daily foundation. In 2003, he made his first look at the world championships, inserting 63rd in a time of 2:26.39, which demolished Mongolia’s nationwide report by about 10 minutes.
“Everybody was just amazed that a Mongolian could run that fast,” Ser-Od stated. “They said that it was crazy, that nobody would ever break it.”
Ser-Od continued to break it — he ran a take a look at occasion for the 2008 Olympic marathon in 2:14.15 — however he was assured that he nonetheless had untapped potential when, a 12 months later, he met Gebrselassie at a street race in England. Ser-Od stated he was ready to dine with Gebrselassie a pair of instances and took full benefit of the alternative to pepper him with questions on coaching.
“I still didn’t know what I was doing,” Ser-Od stated. “So I asked him, ‘What does a world-class marathoner need to do to run at that level?’ And Haile said, ‘The most important thing is to identify what works for you and don’t worry about what others are doing.’”
After the race, Ser-Od was getting off an elevator when he ran into Gebrselassie once more.
“And I’ll never forget this: He asked if we could get a picture together,” Ser-Od stated.
It was a formative second for Ser-Od, who drew inspiration from their encounter and continued to enhance. He broke by with a top-10 end at the 2011 London Marathon. What was working for him? A grueling coaching program that appeared to invite all of the planet’s atmospheric circumstances.
“I was training completely by myself, and I was doing it all,” he stated. “I was training in the heat. I was training in the snow. I was training in the rain. I was training in the dark. And that produced results.”
It was additionally taking a toll. By 2014, Ser-Od knew that he might use some firm — “Training by yourself is really draining,” he stated — so he moved along with his spouse and 4 kids to Japan, the place he joined an expert crew.
But marathoning is an unforgiving occupation, and when Ser-Od discovered himself and not using a sponsor after the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, he fell right into a funk. He thought his profession was completed. He reached out to Larner, whom he had met by operating circles.
“I was like, ‘Uh, I’m a big fan, but a 40-year-old Mongolian? How am I going to find you a sponsor?’” Larner recalled. “I told him I’d see what I could do, but I thought it was pretty hopeless.”
After making a number of inquiries that went nowhere, Larner was linked with Shingo Oshiro, the president of a photo voltaic panel firm that had lately began a girls’s operating crew. Oshiro supplied Ser-Od a contract and instructed him he would rent him as a coach for the crew as soon as he retired from racing.
“I was so appreciative that they believed in this idea of going for a sixth Olympics and wanted to support me,” Ser-Od stated. “I really want to repay my debt to them.”
Still, he is aware of that making it to the Paris Games subsequent 12 months will probably be one other problem. He is, in some methods, a sufferer of his personal success. It is all relative, however marathoning in Mongolia has turn out to be extra in style thanks partially to Ser-Od. He recalled visiting Ulaanbaatar this spring — he nonetheless has a house there — and getting stopped for selfies.
“Oh, it’s Ser-Od!” he recalled individuals shouting.
In a improvement that will have been unthinkable a number of years in the past, there at the moment are 4 Mongolian males who’re aggressive sufficient to race at occasions like the world championships. The downside is that the nation can ship solely three of them to main worldwide competitions.
In truth, Ser-Od thought he was in peril of lacking out on Budapest. After he positioned twenty sixth ultimately 12 months’s world championships in Eugene, Ore., accidents hindered his coaching. As a end result, his nationwide rating slipped to fourth. After an unspectacular end result at the Copenhagen Marathon in May, he braced himself for the worst.
“We kind of thought, Eh, that’s probably it,” Larner stated. “But there was a miracle.”
It turned out that one of Ser-Od’s Mongolian rivals had raced poorly in Copenhagen. The nation’s athletics federation subsequently awarded its closing spot in the world championships to Ser-Od.
“It was lucky,” Larner stated. “Very lucky.”
Of course, there’s nothing incorrect with a bit of luck, particularly after so a few years of onerous work.
Even so, Ser-Od didn’t end the world championship marathon on Sunday after an unlucky mishap: He stepped in a pothole early in the race, straining his proper leg.
And nonetheless, in opposition to all odds, Ser-Od’s end appears distant.
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