Interview Excerpts: Hanson, Hudson and Mahon on the Olympic Marathon Trials
Posted October 22nd, 2007 at 9:04 AM by Martin Kennedy
Section: News & Results, Marathons, Olympics, Special Features, Interviews
Last week, the New York Road Runners hosted the second installment in a three part series of teleconferences about the about the November 2 U.S. Olympic Men’s Marathon trials in New York City.
In the second installment, the media had the opportunity to speak with NYRR CEO/President Mary Wittenberg and Coaches Keith Hanson, Brad Hudson, and Terrence Mahon .
Hanson is the co-founder and coach of Hansons-Brooks Distance Project, which has 13 athletes who have qualified for the trials. Hudson is the coach of Olympic Trials qualifiers Dathan Ritzenhein, Jason Hartmann, James Carney, and Ed Torres. Mahon is the coach of Olympic Trials qualifiers Ryan Hall and Mike McKeeman.
Mary: We consider the coaches the key component in a successful athlete’s career. There is no more important role than the role of the coach. At New York Road Runners, we believe that the coaches are key to the rise of an athlete. We believe they are critical as we head towards an even more successful sport.
On your coaching style and how it differs from the other two coaches:
Terrence: We’re definitely an altitude training group. Our group meets early day twice a day except Sunday, when they meet once, so it’s definitely a pretty intense environment. None of the athletes we have have any jobs other than the job of running, so I know that’s a little different than Keith and Kevin. But other than that, I wouldn’t peg us as a strength-based program or a speed-based program because we definitely coach individually. It’s just a matter of fitting the individual needs of what that athlete needs at the time.
Keith: We are a very large group and a big huge component of our group is having that support group. Obviously, Brian Sell’s gotten more attention than others because of his latest accomplishments, but certainly Brian Sell wouldn’t be where he’s at without other athletes in the program. Our athletes do work about 20 to 25 hours a week, which I find within our group to be a good diversion to get them away from the thought of running 24/7 even though that is what there lives are all about right now. It’s a real fun group and they work real hard. Most of our athletes tend to be more strength-oriented athletes. We do recruit a certain type of athlete into the program. It doesn’t tend to be track-oriented. We do some things on the track, but they’re at pretty slow pace compared to what the track athletes will do.
Brad: Even though my group is called the Boulder Performance Group, I coach four individuals, and this time around I had two athletes at sea level, Dathan Ritzenhein and Jason Hartmann, and two athletes at altitude, James Carney and Ed Torres, who are now at sea level. I coached them all very differently. We don’t train the same each cycle; it changes a little bit. We keep trying to do things better. I wouldn’t say we are either speed or strength. We try to utilize what is going to work best for each individual athlete.
On your philosophy regarding training at altitude:
Brad: I have two athletes at altitude and two athletes at sea level. I just want to emphasize that we believe strongly in altitude training. Some athletes do a little bit better at altitude than our others. I don’t necessarily believe in any sort of magic altitude. It’s just how you use it in training and how you prepare specifically for a race. At the end of the day, the races are at sea level, and so I think using sea level in our training takes a little bit of the mystery out of how we’re going to do in the race.
Terrence: The mystery with altitude is that people get a little too complicated with it. I consider altitude as a stressor on an athlete’s typical training regimen, and I don’t see it actually as that much different than the stressor or, let’s say, weigh training or running up a hill or doing sprints. If you look at it like that, you’re obviously going to see that different athletes are going to adapt differently to different stresses on their body. … If we take someone like a Ryan Hall, who’s pretty much been at altitude, 6000 feet or higher, since he was a young boy, his adaptation to that stress as such isn’t as hard as the next person. What we’ve actually looked at this year Ryan is we’ve brought him up to 9000 feet because we found we weren’t getting as much of a stress at 8000 feet and we’re looking to add that tiny bit of stimulus to the system to improve his running economy.
Keith: Obviously, our group trains in the suburbs of Detroit, and we like the training area because it is very soft surfaces. Eighty percent of our mileage is probably done on dirt, between trails and dirt roads. Certainly I agree with Terrence; it’s obvious that running at altitude is a stressor. A Brian Sell, for example, counters that will running very high volume. Brian is a consistent 150-plus miler per week athlete when he’s training for a marathon. That’s the sort of thing that gives Brian confidence. Brian would be a good example, in my opinion, of somebody who would have difficulty at altitude because it would be somewhat suicidal of him to run his 150 to 160 miles per week at altitude.
On the advantages and disadvantages of running a criterium-style course:
Keith: I love the looped course. Our athletes are fine with it and focused on what they need to run. It is good for coach, and it is spectator friendly. You get to see them two times a loop. There is some rolling terrain. Obviously we have seen faster runs on this course. The course can run fairly fast, but I wouldn’t say it is a fast course. It has its ups and down, which can be advantageous to some runners.
Brad: Having a looped course that is spectator friendly in New York City the day before the ING New York City Marathon is what our sport has needed for a very long time to promote the sport, the world of marathoning, and also the professional athletes. Everyone running the marathon will have the opportunity to watch the trials. The course has a lot of action, there is always a change with the ups and downs that I think will wear on people. I think we have done the best job we can preparing athletes for the course, and I think most people do know the course.
Terrence: With a trials race looped or traditional, it is an event that only has 100-150 athletes, and its hard to get thousands of spectators to line a course that isn’t a looped course. In past trials, there were many dead zones along the course. It is hard to get that many people out to line a full marathon course. At the women’s trials in St. Louis, it was great to be able to have that many people only having to fill a four to five-mile loop. It keeps it exciting for the athletes. Coaches are able to get to many spots, which is very helpful for the athletes. The course is not boring at all. It is a difficult course, but the kids will be able to monitor their loop splits, which will provide a good barometer the along the way. The kids will be able to go though a learning curve with each loop.
On the depth of this group of athletes:
Keith: I would go so far as to say it’s the deepest ever. For the top eight or so, it is deeper than it has ever been.
Terrence: I would agree with Keith. Maybe the better question would be, what happened in the 80s and 90s? We had so many great groups that were producing great runners. Then things fell apart until Keith’s group and our group started up.
Brad: The trials field is not only strong up front with a lot of young athletes and veteran athletes that have had great careers and have Olympic medals, but there’s a lot of depth, and I think that’s important to the sport. Not only are we top heavy right now, but we have a lot of depth. And I think it is coming from the training groups. Athletes are seeing other athletes do well in the U.S. The younger athletes are training harder; some of that has to do with the Internet, seeing what people are doing.
Terrence: Not to toot our own horn, but now you actually have professional coaches instead of college coaches who are overwhelmed with work. Now you can give a little extra care that maybe you didn’t see back in the 90s.
On who they pick as one surprise candidate to win:
Brad: I have three. I’ll take Carney. He is running very well right now. Ed and Jason as well.
Keith: Mike Reneau is someone who started running at 26 and was a wrestler in college. He only has a 2:17 PR, but he could certainly surprise some people.
Terrence: I have to say there is not going to be a breakthrough in the top three. The types of runners that are entering this race are not the kind to let anyone go. You’re not going to have a Teddy Mitchell who’s going to take off for the first half of this race and have guys not go with it.
On what is the most important thing for a coach to do in the last two to three weeks to keep their athletes from going overboard:
Brad: The only thing you can do right now is to screw up by doing something too fast. We just need them to realize that they need to relax.
Keith: The main work is over. It is just tuning up a couple of things now.
Terrence: The first thing I start with is putting a check on myself as a coach. Athletes are sponges. They read you as a coach. If I get too amped up, they will be too amped up as well. Especially with Ryan, who is an excitable kid. Like Keith said, we can’t work too hard before the race.
On how important is it for runners to have experience on the specific race course that they are running:
Terrence: We have been out two different times, one back in winter when Ryan was able to work out on the course, then in spring, we went out three days in a row and did a couple more runs. With a course like New York, learning tangent lines and learning how to run a course that doesn’t have any flat parts is very important. You need to get a feel for the course and practice running it with even effort while seeing uneven splits. It is especially important for Ryan to get in his head that he was coming off courses that are more metronome style where you are plugged into hitting the same split every time. But for New York, we are trying to learn how to hit with the same effort and evaluate what the splits would be to have him mentally comfortable seeing different splits but running an even economy.
Note: Terrence Mahon wanted us to pass along this note following his remarks on the call:
“In my interview … I had mentioned that Meb Keflezighi had used an inhaler to combat the pollutants at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Upon speaking with Meb today, he corrected my statement and informed me that this was not the case. He did take the asthma test both at San Jose at athlete processing and then again in Athens. He was found not to need the inhaler and as such did not use it. Using one would have required him to fill out all the paperwork for USADA and WADA. He took the test because, when he first went to UCLA for his college career, he tested positive for exercise-induced asthma in relation to smog and other pollutants. After subsequent years of training, he had found not to need it anymore and stopped using the inhaler.”
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Tags: altitude training, brad hudson, coaching, conference call, criterium course, criterium style course, dark horse, ed torres, interview, interview excerpts, James Carney, keith Hanson, loop course, mensmarathontrials2007, new york road runners, nyrr, race course, teddy mitchell, Terrence Mahon
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