We continue our lightning round of Vermont City Marathon elite runner previews with some quick responses we received back from a couple of the invited runners. We basically just asked one simple question to many of the elites: Are You Ready? They had free reign to answer in any way they saw fit. Unfortunately, it’s not good news from the men’s side.

Matt Pelletier

After missing 2 months with a sacral stress fracture, I’m not expecting much tomorrow. My plan is to be conservative and hopefully pick off some of the front runners later in the race. I’d like to be able to run with those guys, but I’ve only had about 2 months of running and won’t be able to sustain the pace they plan to run.

Jonathan Charlesworth

Unfortunately I had a bad case of achilles tendinitis during my marathon buildup. I finally took some time off over the last few weeks in the hopes that it would recover before the marathon, but it’s still pretty bad, so I won’t be racing this weekend.

Karen Benway

I’m feeling relaxed and ready to give it my best shot. My expectations aren’t super high. My training was kind of spotty, and I’m nursing a hernia that’s going to need to be repaired soon. It’s worse when I run fast, so I haven’t done any speed. I’m definitely not in my best shape. I’ll do the best that I can with the fitness I have and let the cards fall where they may.

Joanna Johnson

I’ve been looking forward to this race for months! I’ve never run Vermont City before but I’ve heard great things about it and I’ve been impressed with their hospitality. This is my fourth marathon and training has been going better than ever so I’m looking forward to an exciting race!

Three out of four of the responses here just weren’t the type of thing we wanted to see. Kudos to Matty and Karen for gutting it out, and here’s to a speedy recovery for Jonathan. Hopefully they’ll be healthy and ready to roll for the next one.

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