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Guelph marathoner hasn't ruled out a fourth Olympics

Eric Gillis is still figuring out his competitive running future
20160626 INFERNO 3
Eric Gillis of Guelph leads Kevin Friesen of Vancouver during the Canadian men's 10,000-metre championship race at Alumni Stadium. Gillis took the title with his second 10K victory of the day. Rob Massey for GuelphToday

Guelph marathoner Eric Gillis has at least one more marathon left in him.

Fresh off his 10th-place finish in the men's marathon in last month's Rio Olympics, Gillis has added next month's Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon to his schedule.

"It's the right timing for me," he said after announcing he'd entered the Oct. 16 marathon. "It just gave me something after Rio that I thought would be beneficial. I really like doing Toronto. It's the hometown race in Canada here, close to home here in Guelph. I thought that if I managed the Rio buildup well and executed well in the race that things would go well there."

The 36-year-old Gillis is also interested in seeing how well he can do in a marathon so soon after running another marathon. At most, he's run two marathons a year and they're usually five or six months apart.

"I've never tried to take the fitness that I've achieved in a marathon buildup and carry it over to another one fairly close so, personally, part of it is the curiosity of what I can do," he said of entering the Toronto race. "The buildup for Rio went quite well. I was really happy with it and I'm in the best shape of my life. I can take a big break after Toronto. There's no immediate plans after that. My wife (Emily) is on board with it. She thinks it's a good idea. My coach is on board with it, Dave Scott-Thomas. It was just a good challenge for me right now in my career."

Gillis has also had plenty of success at the event and he's been very consistent in his times. This year's Waterfront Marathon will mark the sixth appearance in it in seven years for Gillis, who skipped the 2012 race as it was too soon after the London Olympics where he placed 22nd.

His previous five appearances resulted in his fastest five marathon times ever, from a slowest Toronto clocking of 2:12:06 in 2010 to his fastest time of 2:11:21 in 2014. And his Rio time of 2:12:29 was the fastest ever by a Canadian in the Olympic marathon.

"Rio went as well as I possibly could have hoped," he said.

Going into that race, a top-10 finish was a goal of his, but one he kept pretty much to himself.

"Top 10 was something (coach) Dave (Scott-Thomas) and I talked about a couple of times and I talked about it with Emily," he said. "I've learned over the years that when you have one of those type of goals and you talk about it too much or put too much emphasis on it, for me personally it just gets me distracted and not focusing on the other 99 per cent that I need to be focusing on. I really wanted to run well in Rio so I focused on the other 99 per cent on the day-to-day basis that I knew I should and had to."

Gillis figures this year's Toronto race won't be his last marathon, but he's not sure how long he'll remain in the sport.

"I'll run the marathon again for a couple of more years, at least, and see where that takes me," he said. "Really, and to be honest, I can't plan any races after Toronto until I run Toronto and see what happens in Toronto. You know, how fast I run Toronto. Pretty much what happens in Toronto, I'll go from there, what motivates me and energizes me for the next challenge."

That could mean a fourth appearance in the Olympics which are slated to be held in Tokyo in 2020.

"That's one of those things, too, that I could say anything right now, but it wouldn't be accurate because I haven't put enough thought into it," he said. "I could say, yeah, I'm not ruling it out, but there are a lot of things that I am not going to be doing, but I'm still not ruling them out and Tokyo is one of them. Yeah, I'm not ruling it out, but I very well may not be doing it."


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