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NEW YORK ROAD RUNNERS MEDIA CONFERENCE

August 14, 2009

Paula Radcliffe

MARY WITTENBERG: Paula, good morning. Can't wait to see you in a couple hours.
PAULA RADCLIFFE: You, too. Morning.
MARY WITTENBERG: To all of our friends in the media, we're so pleased to talk to you. Every time we plan a race we have our UK media in mind as we are always hopeful to bring Paula and ultimately always looking to bring Britain to New York.
Through the years Paula has come to love New York, and I will tell you that New Yorkers and New York Roadrunners, all of us have come to love Paula, and that special relationship continues this Sunday. Paula as all of you know is one of those very rare athletes that transcends her sport in this case, and by the very weight of her numbers of her victories and her records and I really think in large part her persona, Paula has risen well beyond running to be a major figure in the sporting world.
Whenever we can, we seek to host Paula, and whenever we have the opportunity, that's a really good day.
Paula, we're looking forward to a really good race on Sunday and just are thrilled to welcome you back. Like Tiger here in the U.S. and like Grete and like Haile in running, she needs no introduction other than simply Paula. So welcome back.
PAULA RADCLIFFE: Thanks. I'm really glad to be here. I was running around the reservoir this morning and a lot of other runners out there, and it just almost feels like coming home to me in a little bit of a way, especially coming home in the sense that I'm coming back to racing because that's something that I've really missed. It's been a rough road since last November, going through the surgery and getting back into shape now, and I'm just very happy to be in the place where I feel that I'm ready to test myself over some sort of race.

Q. Could you tell us when you reached this decision? Obviously it was only announced yesterday or the day before should I say. Did you only make the decision this week? Have you suddenly found a form that has made you go out there?
PAULA RADCLIFFE: Yes. I mean, I think that's what happened. It's been a little bit complicated to explain, because in terms of fitness I think I've been -- I've put the work in, and cardiovascularly I'm in good shape. But because of the surgery I had done on my foot, that has been taking a little while to settle down, for me to settle back into normal biomechanics.
I'd say it was more of an efficiency question in my stride, where my foot just hadn't settled, and it wasn't really settling into that rhythm when I'm running, particularly on the road.
But at the same time it was very frustrating because my treadmill sessions were good, I knew that I was in good shape, and I wanted to be ready to race.
And then I've had a lot of work done on my foot the last ten days or so or two weeks, and really felt that it's very much started to turn the corner. Track session went really well in the week, and I'm starting to feel much better in my runs.
I don't just want to jump into a World Championships and put myself on the line in a World Championships, in a marathon especially, when there are questions about the efficiency of my stride. I want to test that out in a race beforehand.
Mary had sort of left the door open for a while that if I wanted to come here, that was available. So I just kind of emailed her like late Monday night, Tuesday, and said is there any chance that I could come in just to test myself.

Q. Would you mind me asking what specifically you would like out of the race on Sunday with regards to deciding when you're comfortable?
PAULA RADCLIFFE: Well, first of all, of any race, I just want to feel good, enjoy the race and run strongly and run well. But I think in terms of going into Berlin, I need to know that I hold the efficiency, I hold the foot strike consistent throughout and that I don't come out of it with any kind of compensation issues or anything like that; not in terms of injury, I just mean in terms of it costing me efficiency in my stride because this is the first test of this distance on the roads I will have done.

Q. We've been down this road quite a few times, especially you, and you don't want to go to the Worlds unless you're 100 percent presumably. When do you think you'll know? Will you know during Sunday's race? Will you know immediately afterwards? Or would you need a day for things to settle down before you finally sort of make the push, because presumably if you're going to come this time, you're going to come 100 percent?
PAULA RADCLIFFE: Exactly. I'll be the first to admit that this is an unorthodox way to prepare for a World Championship. To prepare for any marathon by doing a half marathon the week before isn't ideal, ideal preparation. That's why it won't be like eyeballs-out trying to run the fastest time I've ever run on Sunday.
It's more I would say how in both ways I come through the race, how I feel during the race, how controlled I feel, how confident, how strong I feel in the race, and then also how my body comes out of the race and how good I feel one, two days afterwards.

Q. So one or two days afterwards, so is there a deadline that you're being given by British athletics or the World Championships that says when you have to throw your hand in?
PAULA RADCLIFFE: No, no. I mean, I sat down with Charles back in May when I was just taking the first steps back on the ALTA G, and he kind of sat down and said what do you want out of this year, and I said, this is just a transition year for me back. I want to get back to racing, I want to get back to racing well. If things click I'd like to do the World Championships but I'm not promising anything, and at that point he was trying to persuade me to forget this year totally and come back to the World Championships in 2011.
But I said, well, I need to have a target to train for anyway, so it doesn't really matter to me if things click for now or for a full marathon, as long as I click somewhere. And then as things have got closer he's been chatting to me regularly.
Nobody has been putting pressure on me. Obviously the number of people we've had drop out of the British team, I want the British team to have a good showing in Berlin, so I'd like to be there. I want to be there for myself, to regain the title that I had in 2005.
But especially after last year, I don't want to put myself on the line not 100 percent, so that's why this was really the only solution we could see. That's why I'm saying I know it's unorthodox and it's late to be racing and to be making up your mind, but I couldn't go in without that confidence in my mind that I was going to be strong over the marathon distance.

Q. But bearing in mind that the marathon is obviously Sunday week, and you'll perhaps be in a position to make a decision by, what, Monday, Tuesday? Is there a cutoff point where you've got to say yes or no?
PAULA RADCLIFFE: I think there's probably more a cutoff point for me. In terms of final entries, I don't know when that is. I know Charles hasn't put any pressure on me. I'm booked on a return from here directly into Berlin. I'll see my CGAs there and try and get back into running.
Similar I guess in more ways to how it was in 2005 when I ran the 10K and then it kind of took me two, three days to get that out of my legs and to know that I was ready and I was ready to go. But that was intentional; I was always intending to do the marathon there. And I'd like to do the marathon now, but it will take like two, three days afterwards to be sure that my legs have recovered as they should do from the race.
MARY WITTENBERG: I should highlight, in opening, I assumed a level of everybody knowing at the front of our 10,000 runners on Sunday is a hell of a women's race and really something that I think has the makings of a historic race with Catherine, Deena and Paula lining up for the first time in many years here in New York or anywhere. And then we've got a host of really competitive runners surrounding them, including last week's Falmouth winner from Ethiopia, who is looking incredibly strong, and Rose Kosgei from Kenya and others. You see it on the website, and Richard has sent it all, but having the trio of Catherine, Deena and Paula here is something really special.

Q. I was just wondering, I'm not sure if you mentioned this, but how long have you actually been running outside now?
PAULA RADCLIFFE: Oh, for a while. I haven't got my diaries in front of me, but I was back to kind of normal 120-plus miles a week by around the 20th of June. So I was running outside by the end of May.

Q. Charles mentioned a while back that you had a problem with some sickness, as well.
PAULA RADCLIFFE: Yeah, that was kind of frustrating. I wouldn't say it cost me a whole lot of training, it was just that I was feeling rubbish in the training.
I got a bit of a bronchitis. I guess that was around June time, and kind of got back into training and was feeling tired but figured it was just normal training tiredness.
And then about three, four weeks ago, it developed into quite a bad sinusitis, which I think must have been lingering the whole time and just making me feel a bit suppressed. I went on antibiotics and as soon as they finished I could tell that I had been definitely sort of carrying something the past four, five weeks or so.
I was training all the way through that, it was just the sessions weren't as good as I would have looked, but the volume was there and probably the heart rate quality was there, but the times weren't as good.

Q. You mentioned in the past the bunion problem had been having a knock-on effect on other parts of your body. Now that you've had that surgery, do you notice a physical difference in your running stride?
PAULA RADCLIFFE: Not in my stride, but I notice a big difference -- for example, the last two, three years progressively getting worse at the end of my long training runs, like my two hours, two hours plus runs, my foot has been sore, and that's been a fact of life. I'd sit, kind of limp around for the rest of that day, get back into running sort of managing that.
And that isn't happening now, which is great. I'm not getting any of that soreness. I'm kind of struggling with my efficiency now. It was more than bunion surgery that I had; it was the first three toes were like broken, corrected and restraightened. And the second one had a little bit of a complication; it got a bit of ischemic reaction; one of the veins got blocked by accident. So it's got a little bit more scar tissue, which means that at the moment it's sitting a little bit higher. So what was happening was as I went to toe off, it was actually acting as a brake because it was hitting the ground and pushing me back momentarily.
That's what I mean when it was costing me my efficiency. What we've been able to do because it's at the stage of recovery it's at is really get into that scar tissue the last couple of weeks and dig into it and get it more mobile. As I'm doing that, I'm finding that that's really helping me go exactly back to where my stride was kind of 2002, 2003. But it's just kind of getting everything else to settle into that.
But definitely I feel very positive. In the long run it was absolutely the best thing to do to have the surgery. Probably I should have taken the big plunge and done it a little bit sooner because I'm not noticing the soreness and the pain in my back and other compensatory things that have been kind of jumping in every time I manage to get to a good level of fitness and racing the last couple of years.

Q. I think most of what we need to know has been covered, but could we just compare how you feel? You've made late decisions before. How does this compare to previous late decisions? I mean, are you more sanguine, in better shape? Is this a more comfortable area to be in this time?
PAULA RADCLIFFE: Which ones are you comparing it to, to Beijing?

Q. Well, Beijing was a notable late decision. Compared to that, how would you say you were?
PAULA RADCLIFFE: I mean, it's night and day compared to last year. I've done the sessions, I've done the workouts, just that the tempo runs that I was doing on the road, because certainly on the downhill section of that I was losing just a little time; they weren't as good as I wanted them to be. I didn't want to put myself on the line with the quality of the field in Berlin unless I was ready. So it's more that I wanted that proof from being in a race now.
But I do have the knowledge that I've done weeks of 135, 150-odd miles a week behind me. I've got the background there. I was going into Beijing really just praying. It's nothing like that. In fact, if I hadn't have probably put myself on the line last year and not been ready -- not that I regret it because it was the Olympic Games, but if I hadn't done that, I'd have probably been more ready to risk it this year because certainly it's a race with a lot lower odds, better odds.
But because I have been to the World Championships before and I have won it and because I know it's a quality field, I just don't want to put myself on the line unless I feel that I'm ready. And particularly I don't want to push this foot when, as I say, things are going well coming back and I'm feeling really good about the future.

Q. Charles yesterday described it as an extreme decision. He rather defended it by saying that you're an extreme person who has to sort of deal with extreme situations, and I wondered what your response was to that.
PAULA RADCLIFFE: Well, like I said, I don't know if I accept extreme. I accept it's very unorthodox and it's not the ideal way. Normally what I would plan to do would be like a half marathon of this kind of quality, a good race like this, three weeks out from the marathon, because I feel that's the ideal place for it to be.
But like I said, because I do want to be in Berlin but I won't be there unless I believe I should be there, it kind of seemed the only way. I couldn't have done a tempo run in training this week that would have told me as much as this race will tell me. So it's just kind of going about it that way.
And I think, as well, in some respects, I'm very lucky in that the distances that I do being a marathon runner, there are other options, so it's really just kind of going out racing and then seeing what would be the best thing to do given that the two things I would have wished for at the beginning of this year out of this year would be to run in Berlin and to come back and run a full marathon.

Q. If for any reason you don't make it to Berlin, the plan would be what, do an autumn marathon?
PAULA RADCLIFFE: Yes. So it's not like this is just going to be my only race and then I'm going to have to decide whether that fits the year. This is just going to be my race now and then I'm going to decide what's next.

Q. What's your feeling in your own mind about this? Are you optimistic that you'll be here in Berlin?
PAULA RADCLIFFE: I think at the moment given sort of where I've come from this year and the kind of dilemmas backwards and forwards over the last couple weeks where I've been doing to runs almost as a test to see if I'm ready to go or if my foot would be able to go to Berlin, I've got to that point now where I'm really looking forward to doing this race and getting back out and racing. That's what I do, that's what I love doing, and that's essentially what all the training is about is getting out and racing.
And as Mary said, this is a great field here. It feels very, very natural to me to be racing in New York, and it just feels like a good -- New York has always been a place where I've come to kind of pick myself up and get myself back into it. It just feels right to me and it feels good to go out and race.
And like I said, I think things will be a lot clearer and help me make a decision rather than agonizing over a decision.

Q. If you do make it here, bearing in mind all the time differences and the traveling, would that have an effect on you and what you might do here?
PAULA RADCLIFFE: Not really. I mean, I think it's only a six-hour time difference back to Berlin. The race here is 7:00 o'clock in the morning. The race in Berlin is 11:00. It's not massive, and you've got a week to get over that, and it's something I do all the time in training. It's essentially similar to what I did the other way around last November where I raced Portsmouth and then flew out on the Thursday and raced New York.

Q. How does the uncertainty of a late decision alter your frame of mind in terms of nerves, anxiety, mental preparation for a major championship?
PAULA RADCLIFFE: I don't think you look at it as though you are doing it, and you just go at it like that until something says, no, you're not right to go, or you shouldn't. But at the moment I'm just looking at it as though I am. So it's not really a huge amount of uncertainty. I've come here, I've got everything in my bag ready to race in Berlin. I'm just looking at it like that.
It's not like each day with the dilemmas and worries in my head. I think I was more doing that ten days ago when I was trying to make a decision to be able to tell Charles yes or no. And I think now that we've put this plan in place, I actually feel calmer and better about it.

Q. You said no one is putting any pressure on you to compete, but how much pressure to you put on yourself to wear a British vest in a major championship?
PAULA RADCLIFFE: A huge amount, I think especially when you see that the team has been hit by a lot of late withdrawals and a lot of injuries and problems this year. So it's very important to me. To be able to sort of pull on that vest and to go out and to win a championship for Britain would be, like I said, one of my -- the main wish for this year, really, at the beginning of the year. And that never changes.
I've been in that situation. In 2005 I was in that situation, many times in European Cup I've been late out in the 5K knowing that I had to go out win the 5K for us to stay up. And I think it does bring out the best in you. I think you'd have to be very hard-hearted not to feel that and not to want to go out and do the best for your country.

Q. Do you have travel plans in place, flights booked, and obviously if things go well on Sunday that you know when you'd be flying to Berlin?
PAULA RADCLIFFE: No, we've booked Sunday afternoon or evening straight after the race we're going into Berlin, so I get into Berlin Monday morning.

Q. So that's one sign that you're optimistic. And when did you actually arrive in New York? Presumably you flew in from France?
PAULA RADCLIFFE: Yeah, we flew from Nice yesterday morning, so we got here yesterday afternoon.

Q. Are there any shades of gray about how you decide whether you're going to compete or not, or is it black and white, yes or no, and if it's black and white, do you have a certain mental target that you have to get to make it worthwhile competing?
PAULA RADCLIFFE: In Berlin?

Q. Yeah.
PAULA RADCLIFFE: Yeah, for me I have to be in shape to go there and win it. That's my sort of reasoning for going there is I have to be in shape to go there and win it. That's why I'm saying it's not like last year; I know I'm in shape to go there and perform okay, but I'm only interested in going if I can go there and say that I'm there and in shape to win it and challenge for the title.

Q. And does it make it that much more tempting, I know it's a competitive field, but there are certain people, like Mikitenko pulling out, does that make it more tempting to push yourself to get there?
PAULA RADCLIFFE: To be honest, I think it's such a strong field anyway. I mean, yes, Mikitenko would have been a big danger, especially because it was in her home country, and you always get that extra 10 percent by competing on home soil, but I think the shape that Kara Goucher is going in, the shape that the Ethiopian girls and the Kenyan girls are going to be going in, it's a very strong field, so you'd want to be 100 percent to put yourself in there, I think, or for me anyway.

Q. What are you doing to prepare for the New York heat?
PAULA RADCLIFFE: To be honest, I only got here yesterday, so I ran last night, and I've run this morning, and it's a lot more comfortable than it was running in Monaco. So I don't think at 7:00 in the morning it's going to be that bad. I think you just make sure that you're hydrated, but I can't see a huge problem.
MARY WITTENBERG: Thanks, everybody, and by way of wrap-up, I think it's an ideal situation. We've got quite a robust test, but we also have a major title. So in the end the pursuit of the title alone is quite significant.
Again, I'd just highlight with Catherine, Deena and Paula, we've got among them 19 World Marathon Major titles, three Olympic medals, 17 World Championship medals and five world records, so it's going to be a hell of a race, and with Paula in the field we wanted to make sure all of you could see it, so on www.NYRR.org, we'll have what's effectively a pro-runner cam. It won't be a full show, but we'll have a motorcycle on the lead women and a motorcycle on the lead men and a helicopter above, so it should get you the basics you need.
We'll also have an hour highlights show on here locally in New York that will be streamed the next day, as well, and you can link to that through NYRR.org to our local broadcast station here.
So it's going to be a big weekend. Paula said she felt it this morning. I'll tell you what, I continue -- I shouldn't be amazed, but I continue to be amazed that we announced Paula in the field, and everyone in the city, all the runners, whether they're 12-minute milers or 6-minute milers, the flurry of emails start coming in and people are excited. It's going to be a great weekend, we're thrilled to have Paula, and we're thrilled to have your coverage.
RICHARD FINN: We'll be back to you with details of Sunday's post-race conference call. Thank you, Paula, and look forward to seeing everybody in Berlin next week.

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