How a full-time nurse ran a 2:29 marathon Erin Mawhinney & Coach Reid Coolsaet

Getting the worst flu of your life isn’t a perfect plan for anyone’s marathon race-week, but if there’s any athlete who's used to less-than-ideal prep it’s Hamilton’s Erin Mawhinney , a nurse educator who balances training upwards of 150km each week with the demands of full-time healthcare work. At last month's Marathon Project in Arizona, Mawhinney's hopes of capitalizing on a flat, fast course against world-class competition were dashed by a nasty race-week flu that forced her to withdraw just 10K into the race. Yet for her and coach Reid Coolsaet , a 2xOlympian at the marathon himself, letting the months great training go unused was never an option. Fast forward to January 11th and Mawhinney was back on the starting line of a marathon for the second time in under a month, this time in Texas at the Aramco Houston Marathon. Free from the illness that had derailed her previous attempt, Mawhinney would go on to run a massive 7-minute personal best of 2:29:36, finishing 5th in the women's elite field and making her the 12th fastest Canadian marathoner of all time. Today on The Shakeout Podcast , we’re joined by Erin Mawhinney and Coach Reid Coolsaet to talk about the work behind the breakout performance and how they approach elite marathon training while balancing the demands of a full life outside of sport. Follow Erin @ErinMawhinney_ Follow Reid @ReidCoolsaet

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How a full-time nurse ran a 2:29 marathon Erin Mawhinney & Coach Reid Coolsaet is an episode from The Shakeout Podcast by David Stol.

This episode is 00:42:44 long.

This episode was published on Jan 29, 2026.

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