On April 20, Ryan Hall will try to become the first American man to win the Boston Marathon since Greg Meyer did so in 1983. In late February, Hall won the Gasparilla Distance Classic, a 15K in Florida, in a solo run of 43:23. He had been scheduled to run the City-Pier-City Half Marathon in The Netherlands on March 14 against Haile Gebrselassie, but then decided to stay in Mammoth Lakes, Calif. Hall is part of the Mammoth Track Club and is coached by Terrence Mahon. On the day before we talked, Japanese marathon legend Toshihiko Seko had been in town. On the morning of the day we talked, Hall did a workout of kilometer repeats at roughly 4:30/mile pace at just under 5,000 feet of altitude. Running Times: A lot of people are interested in the fact that you were going to run the half marathon in Europe against Gebrselassie and then didn’t. Is that related to Gasparilla? Ryan Hall: It’s more related to seeing the Boston course that same weekend as Gasparilla. The next day we went to Boston to check it out. Once we saw it, we realized we hadn’t really done anything back home to get ready for that type of course. It was really helpful. I’m glad we went and took a look at it, because it allowed us to come back here and make some changes. Gasparilla, you’re out there running all by yourself. First time out, I wasn’t expecting it to go super easy or to go out and stroll through any records. I just think my heart was more in preparing for Boston than going and traveling halfway across the world to run a half. Not that racing against Haile wasn’t an exciting opportunity, but I was just more excited about preparing for Boston at that point. Other than course-specific stuff, is there anything different in your preparation for Boston compared to your other marathons? RH: We’re doing some longer tempo runs. I’d say the quality’s getting better. My overall mileage is about the same as it’s always been. But whereas before, I’d do a couple 12-mile tempo runs and a 15-mile tempo run, this time I’ve already done two 15-mile tempo runs, I’ve already done an 18-mile tempo run, and I’ll do another 18-mile tempo run and another 15-mile tempo run, and I’ve also done a couple 12-milers. How are you defining “tempo run”? RH: For me, it’s a little bit harder than marathon effort for 10 to 18 miles. So effort based on doing some of them at 8,000 feet? RH: Yeah, pace-wise it’s not going to be the same pace, but the effort is going to be a little harder than marathon effort. Do you base that on heart rate or just intuitive feel? RH: Just feel. You race pretty seldom. How do you deal with that—that in a month you’ll be running against some of the best in the world, and other than Gasparilla, your last race was in Beijing? RH: What I love about running is training specifically for a race. I’m a very focused guy. My training is very marathon-specific, meaning that I’m not going to be great at 10Ks and half marathons, but I know that once I get out there for the marathon distance, I’m going to be in the best form possible because I’ve sacrificed fitness at 10K, even the half marathon, so that I can be totally A game for the marathon distance. That actually gives me more confidence than, say, running 27:30 a couple weeks before. I’d rather not go out and do that, in the same way that Khalid [Khannouchi] and some of these guys will go out and run 61 minutes for a half. I mean, {Marilson] Gomes dos Santos, he was coming off his 62:whatever he ran at world champs, compared to the year before, he ran 59:something and didn’t win New York, and then last time he’s in 62 shape and comes to New York and looks great. That’s been my experience, too. You gotta choose your battles. So for me, that battle is the marathon in Boston. Now that you’ve been up here awhile, do you have benchmark workouts and/or courses that you used to gauge how ready you are? RH: Yeah. My training’s been going way better than before Beijing, that’s for sure. It’s been just as good as any of my marathon build-ups. We’ll see how it goes this last month. And then, you gotta kind of realize that every workout comes in the middle of a cycle of training, so you can’t just compare one tempo run to the same tempo run you did last year. I find when I start comparing like that, I get myself in trouble. I’ve been feeling really good and my times have been good, so I have no complaints. Yesterday you talked with Seko. When you heard some of the stuff he did, were you like, “No, thank you” or more like, “Hmm, maybe I should look into that.” RH: For the most part, having already run 2:06, I feel confident in the training that Coach has me doing. So we don’t need to go out and try some crazy stuff. We’re still tweaking our program and adjusting, especially as I mature as a runner. But I don’t feel the need to go out there and slog out 50-mile runs. I think now the training is more toward quality. I’ve been talking about doing tempo runs, and Seko did some of that, too, like 4 by 5K. He definitely trained hard, so that part of it is inspiring. You chose to go to Boston instead of going back to London. What was the appeal of winning a cross-country type race like Boston instead of a trackish race like London, where you could get your PR even lower? RH: I think the biggest appeal is the appeal of Boston itself as a race, the history behind it. I feel like all the great marathoners have run that course and established themselves as marathoners on that course. I’ve always wanted to run Boston. And racing in the States is a big deal for me. I want to run in front of the people where I’m from. I want to generate more interest in the marathon in the U.S., and I feel like that’s pretty difficult to do over in Berlin. If you do it in the Olympics, that’s one thing. But I think to generate a lot of interest in the U.S., you gotta race in the U.S. Would you see that also as part of using running to glorify God, doing it in places where you’ll get more attention? RH: Right. That’s definitely one of the reasons to run here, to help share with people. You look at a guy like Lance Armstrong. The Tour de France was his platform to shine, to help a lot of people with cancer. I’m hoping that, for me, Boston, New York, Chicago, these major marathons in the U.S. could be my platform, so that we can raise awareness and support for something like kids in Africa who are hungry. World Vision has been a huge thing for my wife and I. That definitely goes into choosing races. You want to run somewhere where you’ll get the attention. Sometimes you want to go to something like Gasparilla and just kind of hide out; there’s different seasons for different opportunities, but I feel like I’ll be well prepared at Boston to shine on that platform. MY TAKE ON IT: VERY INTERESTING INDEED... A COUPLE PORTIONS OF THE INTERVIEW I FOUND INTERESTING: 1- WHEN HE SAID "YOU GOTTA CHOOSE YOUR BATTLES", THIS ASSURED ME THAT HE DIDN'T MISS THE MULTITUDE OF RACES HE HAS MISSED BECAUSE OF AN INJURY = REASSURING/ 2- HE SAID HIS TRAINING IS GOING BETTER THAN IT DID BEFORE THE OLYMPICS, THANK GOD!! I DO NOT WANT TO SEE ANOTHER AMERICAN RUNNER BE HYPED UP BEFORE A RACE AND THEN CRASH AND BURN/ 3- I LOVED HOW HE SAID THAT HE WANTED TO RUN BOSTON B/C IT WILL GENERATE MORE AMERICAN INTEREST IN RUNNING AND SPECIFICALLY THE MARATHON.. ALSO I LIKED HOW HE BROUGHT UP LANCE ARMSTRONG.
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