RM: How has the weather been in your area the past few months? Has it affected your training at all and if so, what changes were needed?LS: The Detroit area has had something like the 10th-highest annual snowfall in recorded history this winter (and I believe this has been the snowiest winter ever in Michigan as a whole), which definitely has impacted our training greatly, since we do all of our running outdoors. A lot of our runs have involved slogging through thick, heavy snow and slush or over treacherous ice: I can remember sliding around at a snail’s pace one morning in mid-February, when we had to run particularly early because we had to catch a morning flight – everything that morning was a sheet of black ice. I took a pretty hard fall later in February, spraining my wrist and bruising my pelvis (which made things interesting trying to play piano at church and anytime I stopped and started during a run, which made the pelvis sort of lock up, for a couple of weeks!), and several members of the men’s team have suffered weather-related incidents and injuries, so I’m lucky by comparison. Although I grew up in west Michigan and knew what I was in for, it was a difficult adjustment from Austin, Texas, where I live now, to arrive here December 1 and see nothing but snow since then! I guess the positive side of that is that hopefully having to brave the winter elements has made all of us tougher and stronger than if we were training in milder climates.
RM: Do you think training with a group gives you an advantage(s) over the women who train solo? What are some of the draw backs of training in a group that you have encountered?LS: This is my first experience ever training with a group; I always before was predominantly a “lunchtime runner,” doing most of my training whenever I could slip away for an hour in between court hearings, depositions, or client meetings, so it’s definitely a new experience not only to train with a group, but also to be able to enjoy the luxury of consistency, in being able to train every morning, without fail and without disruptions from “real-life” matters. As for drawbacks, I suppose the drawback is that in a team training environment, workouts cannot be tailored specifically to address individual strengths and weaknesses. This has struck me as a particular problem personally, given that I am not blessed with my teammates’ natural phenomenal leg speed. I historically have benefited most from a training regimen involving higher-volume, higher-intensity workouts in order to try to work on speed at least every other day, so I worry that without that constant hammering I have become a little sluggish – although I realize that the marathon doesn’t necessarily require a lot of top-end leg speed, so hopefully strength will prove to be more
important than speed.
RM: What workout has given you the most confidence as the trials are almost here?LS: Ironically, I probably have felt strongest on the worst of the winter weather days (ie heavy snow and slippery ice), which seemed to be the days when power rather than speed were an asset. I tend to be a workhorse, so toughing it out against the elements seems to suit me better than flying fast in good conditions.
RM: What would you say is your greatest strength/advantage going into the trials and why?LS: My attitude is probably my greatest asset. Not being gifted with natural ability, I know that I will have to work hard, and I’m ready and willing to put forth the effort to do so. Also, this will be my third Olympic Trials marathon and probably about my 60th marathon in general, so I do have experience both with the hubbub and excitement of that day and just in dealing with the distance in general. I’m also pretty low-maintenance (perhaps I have mellowed in my old age ): I don’t have to get up hours in advance to prepare special potions of drinks, meals, or supplements, but tend to wake up pretty much ready to go, and have always been fine with Gatorade or whatever is out on the course, so that’s one less area to have to worry about on race day.
RM: What do you think is your biggest weakness going into the trial and what are you doing to limit that weakness?LS: See answer to #2: I feel that my biggest weakness is my lack of natural leg speed. Unfortunately there’s not a lot I can do to limit that as a weakness, but hopefully I can overcome it with a good attitude and a lot of determination, like the tortoise and the hare story.
RM: What would it take for you to walk away from the trials happy/content? If you are willing to say, what is your goal for the trials?LS: Early on, I had hoped to shoot for something in the 2:33-2:35 range. Unfortunately my training has not gone as well as I had hoped, so now I think that 2:36-2:37 is a more realistic goal – and even that may be a stretch. My PR is 2:38, and of course it would be good to run a new personal best time and to exceed my 14th-place finish from the last Olympic Trials, but a lot will depend on the day, the conditions, and the field. By definition I don’t think marathoners generally come away feeling happy or content: no matter how well you run, it’s that constant hunger for more that keeps you going. If you run a 5-minute PR and finish in 2:33:01, you’ll dwell on wishing you had run 2 seconds faster, or if you finish 4th you’ll just wish you were 3rd, etc. But I suppose the best satisfaction would be in knowing that I ran as well as I possibly could on race day – and also in seeing my teammates run well.
RM: What are your thoughts on racing in Boston? How big do you think the crowd will be and what do you think the overall atmosphere will be like? LS: I actually wish that the Trials did not coincide with the Boston marathon, since that has made it particularly difficult for friends and family to plan to be there without paying a fortune for accommodations, given the price-gouging that goes on that weekend at the downtown Boston hotels. I would have thought that the Boston-area chamber of commerce would have foreseen greater advantage to luring in large crowds of runners on 2 separate weekends rather than combining everything into one – and there aren’t any economies of scale with street closures, etc., since the courses will be completely different. However, the advantage is that there should be a huge crowd on hand, which will generate an atmosphere of additional excitement during the Trials race – just think; TomKat may even be on hand to watch us!
RM: What are some of the foods that you just cannot get enough of during this heavy training phase? Are there any foods that you try to avoid during such a heavy training phase?LS: I pretty much live on pizza and pasta all the time, whether I’m training or not. I typically am a junk food junkie, thriving on about a case of Dr. Pepper a day and a LOT of candy; however, I have developed a personal tradition of giving up pop and candy during the 3 months before a marathon – just sort of a self-discipline practice thing – sort of like an extended Lent.
RM: Have you had any setbacks with your training leading up to the trials and if so, what were they and how did you deal with them?LS: Besides falling and spraining my wrist (see #1 above), my biggest setbacks have been personal – I’m currently going through a divorce, and have learned that I am NOT one of those people who can compartmentalize and run all the better during times of frustration; I tend to react exactly the opposite, so that has been tough. On the other hand, that was one of the things that enabled me to sort of put my “real life” on hold to join the Hansons-Brooks program and come up here to train with the team this winter, which definitely has been a great learning experience. Kevin & Keith are phenomenal coaches and inspirational as people; I feel proud and honored to be associated with them, and I hope that my performance at the Trials reflects well on them and on this program.
RM: When do you see your last hard workout heading into the trials being and what will it be? LS: We just got our schedule for the last month leading into the trials, and it looks like there isn’t as much taper as I’ve done in the past (typically I’ll drop from 145 to 120 to 100 to 60 to 30 in the weeks pre-marathon; our baseline mileage here is a lot lower (around 110-120), but we won’t taper as sharply into the Trials). Our last longish run will be about 10 days before the Trials, with our last track workout the Monday (6 days) before.
RM: When will your last long run be heading into the trials and what will it be? How long has your long run been so far?LS: Our last longish run will be 10 days before the Trials: 18 miles with 3 miles at goal marathon pace. Our longest run has been 21 miles.
