Luke Puskedra thought about quitting the sport of running. His marathon debut in New York City last fall was anticipated, but he fell short of expectations and finished in 2:28:54.

Puskedra was a decorated high school runner from Utah who earned a scholarship to the University of Oregon. As a freshman he finished fifth at the 2008 NCAA Cross Country Championships; the Ducks won the team title.

His career at Oregon included seven All American honors and a blazing fast 61:36 half marathon. All signs pointed toward a great professional career for Puskedra, and he joined the Nike Oregon Project shortly after his NCAA eligibility ended.

In a star studded field in the Big Apple, Puskedra’s New York City marathon debut wasn’t pretty. It forced the young and promising runner to evaluate whether a career as a professional athlete made sense anymore.

Puskedra stayed away from running for a few months. He and his wife Trudie moved from Portland to Eugene when Puskedra’s Nike contract was not renewed, and eventually Puskedra found himself with his former University of Oregon distance coach Andy Powell.

“Andy Powell sat down with me and just said, 'Hey just come by the practices. You don’t have to run or anything like that.’ So I started coming by and being like, ‘Hey, do you need me to time this or that?’ Puskedra said, laughing.

Powell encouraged Puskedra to start jumping in runs with the Oregon athletes or even with Powell himself. By slowly getting back into the sport (He jokes that at first he was ‘struggling’ to run 3:20 per kilometer with the team in workouts), Puskedra was able to find joy in running again.

Powell helped Puskedra build his fitness back up with a variety of races. He won the Vancouver Sun Run 10K in April and finished 12th in the Lilac Bloomsday Run, a 12K in Spokane dominated by East Africans, in May. These races set him up for the Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minn. on June 20. He finished sixth in 2:15:27, a 13 minute improvement from his NYC run.

“I was pleased, but I think the biggest thing was that I was excited,” Puskedra said. The Grandma’s race was set up as a course record attempt with a shiny new car as the prize, but Puskedra ran his own race.

“I kind of made the conscious decision just to stay back. I ran conservatively and tried to hit even splits and get the fueling in. You know, go through in 1:08 and hope to just keep catching guys.”

With an Olympic Trials qualifying time from Grandma’s Marathon, Puskedra hoped to run a fast half marathon this fall, but didn’t see an opportunity that fit into his training. Enter the Chicago Marathon. Three weeks ago, Puskedra contacted Dathan Ritzenhein, his former Nike Oregon Project teammate and Chicago Marathon alum. He asked Ritzenhein if he could put him in touch with Chicago race director Carey Pinkowski and the race was set.

Puskedra doesn’t have a time goal for tomorrow’s 26.2 and simply wants to run more aggressively than he did at Grandma’s in June. He’s happy that there will be no pacers, so the pressure of running fast from the start is gone. One thing is for sure, though. Even without a professional contract, he’s back to loving his life as a runner.

“Even in college, I always enjoyed the training and all that stuff,” Puskedra said. “Now it’s to the point where I enjoy going out and running every day, and I haven’t had that since high school.”