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USATF Teleconference Q&A with Shalane Flanagan

Posted April 21st, 2007 at 2:29 PM by David Monti

Section: News & Results

Flanagan_Shalane USATF hosted a teleconference with Shalane Flanagan, the American record holder for 5000m outdoors (14:44.80) and 3000m indoors (8:33.25), yesterday. Here are excerpts:

Q: Tell us about your race.

A: Like Suzy, I had been training pretty hard, and to have it translate into a race is pretty nice. Before the race, my coach said I was capable of running anywhere from 14:35 to 15 flat. We knew that if the weather was good, we had a chance, but it is very early in the season. To have it all work out was pretty nice. I thought I was going to be real close [to the record], and I usually feel I thrive off of competition. So to run fast by myself was great.

Q: What do you think your time would be comparable to if you had the Ethiopians there to pull you around the track?

A: I like to think that by the end of the summer when I’m running with some of the top women, I’ll be able to run about 10 seconds faster. That effort felt very comfortable until the last 1,000.

Q: When is your next competition?

A: I am looking to run locally here at North Carolina, they are putting on an elite meet with throwers and distance runners. I will help pace my teammate Erin Donohue. I won’t run another 5,000 until USAs.

Q: Are you going to have no races against international fields?

A: Not for the 5k until after USAs. I’m going to be running the 1,500 at Prefontaine (June 10), and hopefully that brings together an eclectic mix of people. For 5ks, not until the summer will I run an international one.

With the 5k, I don’t believe you can run too many in one year. I took off a few days this week, with active rest, and we’ve been unpacking from our move back to Carolina, so that’s a workout in itself. I’m recovering from that race [at Mt. SAC], and it makes me realize that if you want to run quality 5ks, you can’t push too many upon yourself. Given that I’m a year off my surgery, I don’t want to push things too much. I want to be selective about my races. After USAs, I’ll run one before Worlds.

Q: Why did you move back to North Carolina?

A: We consider Carolina home, and my coach lives in Florida, so it was closer to him. My training partner lives in New Jersey, so Carolina is a good meeting place. I had an amazing experience for the last year, thanks to Nike out in Portland, but we’re big family people so it’s great to be back in North Carolina.

Q: Take us through the extra bone in the foot process.

A: My anniversary of my surgery was yesterday. The kind of state I was in last year was pretty pathetic. I was down and in pain, and if somebody told me that I’d break the American record in a year I’d have laughed. [For more on Flanagan’s surgery and her training/recovery from it, see theUSATF teleconference transcript from January 31 by clicking here.

Q: What is your goal for Osaka?

A: I tell my coach all the time I just want him to put me in contention. My ideal situation would be to hang with the Africans for as long as possible and just be in contention.