If you ask Matt McDonald about any event in his running career, chances are he can give you a rundown of where he was, what time he ran, and how he thought he did. Not only can he recall the exact time he ran at a 5K as a 10-year-old (23 minutes and 43 seconds), but he remembers the seemingly unimportant events of his running life, like the controversial mile he ran in his fourth-grade gym class.
“I remember running the mile in gym class, and I think my friend beat me,” the now 26-year-old McDonald said. “My friend Alex beat me, but the gym teacher said we tied. … I think it’s guilt almost that I remember. I never let (Alex) have it that we tied.”
This weekend, McDonald will be running for far more than fourth grade bragging rights as he participates in the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Atlanta on Saturday. The race will start just after noon in front of the College Football Hall of Fame near Centennial Olympic Park and wind through downtown before finishing in the park just over two hours later. The top three male and female finishers will represent the United States at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
McDonald, a Clinton Park, New Jersey, native who now is an Atlanta resident, qualified for the Olympic Trials at the 2017 California International Marathon, but solidified himself as a real contender after running a time of 2 hours, 11 minutes, and 10 seconds time at last fall’s 2019 Chicago Marathon. The performance made McDonald the ninth-fastest qualifier for the Trials race, only two minutes slower than the third-fastest qualifier, Scott Fauble.
“I definitely feel like I’m representing the city (of Atlanta),” McDonald said. “I got recognized by somebody in Piedmont Park a couple days ago, so that’s cool. … It’s things like that, which make me feel like I am representing Atlanta in this race.”
McDonald feels especially excited to have the race in his backyard, citing the familiarity of the race route as an advantage. He also thinks that he might have the biggest personal fan section he’s had at a race in a long time.
“First of all, I’m going to have so many friends and family out on the course. I cannot wait for that,” McDonald said. “But also, I’ve run the course a lot. Not just doing the course loops, but even on my easy runs just around Atlanta. Every part of that course I know very well.”
McDonald’s journey to the Olympic Trials started well before his arrival in Atlanta. Growing up in New Jersey, McDonald burst onto the running scene in high school and committed to run at Princeton starting in 2011. His college years reaffirmed his love for the sport and culminated in an individual Ivy League championship in the 10K in 2015.
After graduating from Princeton that spring, he took some time off from competitive running, unsure of the next step. It wasn’t long after his graduation that McDonald moved to Atlanta and enrolled in the Georgia Tech doctoral program in chemical engineering. Around that time, he started to race again, but with the time away, he wasn’t pleased with the results.
“When you’re out of shape and you go and try and race and you do poorly it feels awful,” McDonald said. “There’s also this kind of (motivational tool) when you know what you’re capable of and you don’t come close to living up to it.”
In 2016, McDonald recommitted to running and joined the Olympic Development Team at the Atlanta Track Club, setting the 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials as his goal. At the time, he had never run a marathon, but began the gradual process of building to race 26.2 miles.
McDonald trained under the tutelage of Amy and Andrew Begley, both esteemed athletes themselves. Amy ran the 10K in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and Andrew competed in the 2000 Olympic Trials. Both coaches had a profound effect on McDonald, particularly with their overwhelming belief in him.
“Learning to trust the coaches has been a big part of the story. Not trust them in the sense that I don’t know what they’re doing is the best because I have the utmost trust in that respect,” McDonald said. “It’s in the sense, that what they see in me and how they believe in me, I need to believe in myself.”
Most important, McDonald found a training partner with the track club in Wilkerson Given. Given also qualified for Saturday’s race in a time of 2:11.44 and runs with McDonald four or five times a week, giving a boost to both runners. The pair trained in Albuquerque, New Mexico, over the past month to prepare for the Olympic Trials.
“Honestly, it would be great if there were more marathon runners at our level to join us and train,” McDonald said. “But I’m blessed to have what I got in a great training partner already, so I’m not going to ask for more.”
McDonald plans to hang with the lead group of runners through the first 18 miles of the race Saturday, attempting to exert as little energy as possible. With only three minutes separating the third-fastest qualifier and the 18th-fastest qualifier, the final few miles likely will determine which runners make the Olympic team.
As the race approaches, McDonald understands the difficult task in front of him, but wants to be a relevant competitor in the city that’s been his home for the past five years.
“The goal is 100 percent to qualify for the team but that is a reach. I understand that, but it’s what I want, that’s what I want more than anything,” McDonald said. “As far as being realistic, I want to be a contender … be someone that’s a threat late in the race. It’s going to be on TV, so I want to be someone that the announcers have to mention.”
