“He was faster than me in cross country, but I was faster than him at track,” said IU junior Henry Buck.
While many may say they have grown out of silly sibling competitiveness the Buck brothers admittedly have not.
“Going to marathon training we both were kind of looking at who was going to be faster, who was going to be better,” said Henry.
The Buck brothers both separately decided to run different marathons. Nolan is running the Chicago Marathon and his little brother Henry is running the Indianapolis Marathon.
Nolan claims he started the domino effect of his little brother and father also running marathons this year.
“I’m the trendsetter right? I started, I did it first and then my dad fallen on and Henry is like well I guess I’ll do one too,” said IU alumni Nolan Buck.
However, Henry claims he made the decision on his own.
“He can think what he wants, but I wouldn’t want to give him the satisfaction of him thinking the reason I’m running a marathon is just because of him,” said Henry.
Henry Buck explains why he decided to run the Chicago Marathon.
They live in different states so they can not run the same marathon, racing side by side, but the thought of beating one another’s times is enough to keep them pushing through.
“Henry and I are very competitive and I really want my marathon time to be faster than his,” said Nolan.
Marathon training is no easy feat and requires a lot of sacrifice.
“I’ve had to honestly give up a lot of what I would expect to happen in a traditional Chicago summer…Hit the bars, go to a cubs game, literally just stay up late on a friday night because I can’t do that when im training just because I tend to get very hyper fixated on making sure I’m prepared for whatever run is going and I sell out to make sure my training is going well,” said Nolan.
Nolan Buck explains a typical week training for the marathon.
In addition to his runs, he has been walking the course, a common practice he did when he ran cross country. On his walks to work he would notice the angle of the sun and take note about where he’d be in the race at that point and how long the sun would bother him. Although Nolan has been sticking to a strict regimen, and is confident in his training, he is still eager to know what his brother is up to.
“I wanna hear how his training has been going because he was really good about logging it on Strava…my dad has been logging all of his runs and I log all of my runs, but Henry kind of dropped off on Strava so I don’t what he’s been up to he went under the radar…I just don’t know where he’s at in his training and I would love to know because it kind of gives me a better idea of what I need to go for tomorrow how how aggressive I need to be,” said Nolan.
This competitiveness is not petty, rather a motivator to be the best versions of themselves, and go the extra mile.
“I don’t want to have that conversation at Thanksgiving with my little brother that he was faster than me,” said Nolan, “I don’t want to have that conversation. I need to be faster.”
