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It was 46 degrees and raining lightly when Andrew Epperson completed his last workout before leaving Fort Collins on Tuesday.

He expects it to be about 40 degrees warmer and nearly as humid when he stands on the starting line late Saturday night in Doha, Qatar, to compete in the men’s marathon at the IAAF World Championships.

Organizers are starting the marathon at midnight local time to combat the extreme heat of the Middle Eastern nation. Daytime temperatures this time of year are consistently above 100 degrees, with a forecast high Saturday of 106.

The 26.2-mile course consists of six laps around a lighted 7-kilometer loop on the city’s coastline along the Persian Gulf.

Not exactly the kind of conditions for running a personal-best time.

That’s OK, though.

The assistant cross-country and track and field coach at Colorado State doesn’t have a specific time in mind that he hopes to run while competing in his first world championship event. He’s more concerned about where he finishes in the most competitive race he’s ever been in.

The top 10, regardless of their times, qualify automatically for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Epperson doesn’t expect to finish that high. He’s seeded 52nd in the field of 81 with a lifetime best of 2 hours, 13 minutes and 11 seconds, recorded Feb. 3 at the Beppa-Oita Mainchini Marathon in Japan.

“Anything in the top 20 to 30 would be a phenomenal day,” he said.

Epperson, a Houston native, was a two-time NCAA Division II All-American in cross country at the Colorado School of Mines. On the track, he qualified to run in the NCAA championships the indoor 5,000 meters and outdoor 5,000 and 10,000 meters.

He didn’t really hit his stride as a runner, though, until after college, when he started running longer races.

His first half-marathon, in the fall of 2014, didn’t go as well as he would have liked. Epperson enjoyed training for the longer distance but realized during the race that he hadn’t pushed himself hard enough.

A few months later, he ran another half-marathon and ran it fast enough to qualify for the 2016 U.S. Olympic trials in the marathon, a distance he had never run in competition. He finished 27th, in 2:22:20.

“Obviously, I had aspirations of making the team, but realistically my goal was just to get to the finish line and figure out the distance,” Epperson said. “That was a great experience for me, because I really just went in with no pressure and had the experience of running the Olympic Trials. A lot of people went out very aggressively, and I was able to pass people pretty much the entire race, and that helped me run faster.”

Epperson, 28, has favored the longer distance ever since and has already qualified for the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials in the marathon.

“It’s a lot like cross country, where the rhythm changes several times throughout the race and you really have to just beware not only of your pacing but of your competition, too,” he said. “So, there’s a lot of different mental games that you’re kind of going through as the race progresses.

“Just the training aspect, too, in being able to push your body for that long, I find it very interesting and exciting.”

Epperson has been running as many as 120 miles a week to get ready for the world championships. He wore long pants and extra layers of clothing on his longest runs over the summer, drawing more than a few odd looks, to prepare for the extreme heat and humidity of Doha.

He often jumps into workouts with the CSU’s distance runner he coaches, giving him a chance to get to know the athletes on a different level, he said.

And he trains as often as he can with former CSU All-Americans Jarrell Mock and Grant Fischer, who are both competing professionally now. Mock was on the track with Epperson on Tuesday, running 800-meter intervals at a 2:25-pace with only 45 seconds of rest in between. Epperson ran six of those, and Mock, who is running the Chicago Marathon on Oct. 13, ran eight.

“I’ve been really excited about how my training’s gone,” Epperson said. “I’m in phenomenal shape.”

He’s as ready as he could be for the biggest race of his life.

“There are 45 guys that have run under 2:10 in the marathon; that’s half the field,” Epperson said. “It’s definitely the highest quality field I’ve ever been part of and may ever be part of, so I’m just trying to soak everything in.”

Two former Colorado State athletes, Mostafa Hassan and Shadae Lawrence, are also competing in the IAAF World Championships this week in Doha, Qatar. Hassan is competing in the men’s shot put for his native Egypt and Lawrence in the women’s discus for her native Jamaica. Lawrence finished 19th Wednesday and did not advance to Thursday’s final. Hassan will compete Thursday in the qualification round, trying to earn a spot in Friday’s final. CSU track and field coach Brian Bedard is in Doha to coach each of them.

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Kelly Lyell covers CSU and other local sports and sports-related news for the Coloradoan. Follow him at twitter.com/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news and help support the work he and his fellow journalists do in our community by purchasing a subscription at coloradoan.com/subscribe.

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