	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

TCS NEW YORK CITY MARATHON

October 30, 2015

Laura Thweatt

New York City, New York

Q. So I read that you were roommates with Emma Coburn in college.
LAURA THWEATT: Yeah, she's one of my good buddies.

Q. What was that like?
LAURA THWEATT: It was awesome. Emma is a great friend of mine and really down to earth. You would never know she's as good as she is. She was one of my favorite training partners. We get along really well. It was a good time.

Q. Did you guys push each other to get better?
LAURA THWEATT: Yeah, especially in cross country because we did all the same training for that. We could really push each other and make each other better. And on and off the track, we would do some of the same events, but she obviously steepled. She still is, she's out there cheering for me and has always been really supportive and encouraging. She was one of the people that told me to continue my running when I graduated from college.
So I owe her a little bit of that too.

Q. Do you guys still talk a lot today?
LAURA THWEATT: Yeah, we still keep in touch. She lives in Boulder. Occasionally, we'll get together and do a run. We'll catch up over dinner and just kind of keep in touch. We're both busy. So I don't see her as often as I'd like to, but she's definitely one of my good friends. We continue to just keep in touch and support one another.

Q. What's she like off the track?
LAURA THWEATT: She's awesome. Like I said, she's really down to earth, really just a caring person, really sweet, humble. That's why I love her. She's just great because she's got so much humility, and it's never just about her.

Q. Did you have any activities or stuff that you guys like to do together?
LAURA THWEATT: A lot of it‑‑ a lot of our time was filled with running at The U, but we'd get dinner together or coffee. We'd binge watch HGTV. Those were good times, stuff like that.

Q. Is she a dirty roommate? Anything we should know about her as a roommate?
LAURA THWEATT: No, she'd kill me if I gave you any dirt on her. No, she was great and nice and clean.

Q. Was Jenny Simpson there too?
LAURA THWEATT: I overlapped with Jenny a year and a half. Her fifth year, we were on the same cross country team.

Q. That Colorado team was pretty stacked.
LAURA THWEATT: It was, yeah. We were definitely a strong team my junior year. We didn't quite have the Nationals we were hoping to have. Kind of a tough day for a lot of us. But it was a great team.
You learn a lot running alongside someone like Jenny.

Q. What did you learn from her?
LAURA THWEATT: Just, again, someone who has great humility. She always had a great perspective, whether the race went good, whether it went poorly. She was always able to stay positive and keep looking forward. She never let the lows get her down. So you can definitely take away a lot, I think, from someone like that.
As far as keeping perspective in this sport, you're going to have highs. You're going to have lows. And it's just how you deal with them to keep moving forward and progressing.

Q. Your marathon debut, there's no PR next to your name, but you could be a favorite for that top American spot. How are you feeling going into the race?
LAURA THWEATT: I'm feeling as good as I think anyone can feel going into a marathon. I'm really excited, a little anxious at the same time. Just not quite sure what to expect out there. But I prepared well for it, and I'm confident in my training. I got to the start line healthy, which I think is half the battle with marathon training anyway. So I'm just ready for it‑‑ ready for the gun to go off.

Q. You've had your ups and downs when it comes to injuries. What do you think was the lowest point?
LAURA THWEATT: I think one of the lowest points was in college, I had a fair battle with stress fractures. And the end of my sophomore year, I'd had two mediocre years, not quite hitting the expectation I had for myself going into college. So it was kind of a frustrating point whether or not I should keep going and pursuing it.
Luckily I did, and I managed to stay pretty healthy my last two years and really got the foundation going for my post‑collegiate running.

Q. You had success in cross country, and now‑‑ I mean, how does that help you in the buildup for a marathon?
LAURA THWEATT: Marathoning and cross country, at least from what I understand marathoning, they're a grind. It's tough. Especially a course like New York. It's relentless, you have hills, you have bridges. You could have terrible weather. It's strength.
So I think cross country really carries over into marathon training. Look at your greats, Deena Kastor, Shalane Flanagan. I mean they have a race. They're great cross country runners, they are great track runners and I think it carries over into the marathon. So I think each discipline builds on the other.

Q. How would this race set you up for trials? Is that something in the back of your head?
LAURA THWEATT: Not the marathon trials, no. My coach and I have said this is just going to get my feet wet. My no means am I a marathoner quite yet. I actually have unfinished business on the track. That's where the goal is going to be going into next year. This is going to lay the foundation and really give me good momentum going into the track next year. That's why it fit well into the schedule.

Q. The five or the ten?
LAURA THWEATT: Not sure yet. Time will tell.

Q. Laura, when did you decide you would run this race or a fall marathon and why?
LAURA THWEATT: So I decided, I think, mid‑July is kind of when I was like, all right, let's do this. When I first thought‑‑ when we first kind of talked about it, I was like no way. I'm not doing a marathon. That wasn't part of the plan. That wasn't something we were going to look at until after 2015. But the more I thought about it and the more I talked with my coach about it, I was like, you know what, this is a great opportunity. I'm a big believer that you have to push your comfort zones to really see who you are as an athlete and to really develop. So I definitely think that's exactly what this is going to do for me on Sunday.

Q. Has Lee given you any great tips for the marathon? He's such a great marathoner.
LAURA THWEATT: He just said it's a grind. And like I said earlier, you really find out, especially in the later stages of the race, who you are as an athlete and whether or not you have that fight and that strength to keep competing regardless of how the race is going. So I'm prepared for that. I know it's going to be tough.
Again, I think a course like this really plays to my strength and just being able to kind of get in a rhythm and grind it.

Q. Is fastest American woman on paper is Alana, who's a teenager. I feel like, when it comes to the track, people were‑‑ like the veterans in the sport always kind of didn't want to get beat by someone like Mary Keitany. When it comes to the marathon, are you going to have that subconsciously? All right, I don't want the teenager to beat me.
LAURA THWEATT: You look at Mary Keitany or Alana, it's like, dang, they're so freaking good. You have to take age out of the equation because they're great athletes no matter how old they are. They're making all of us better and help the development of the sport.
As much as you have that in the back of your head, they're out there to push you, and they're going to race you the whole way.

Q. You have a great cross country background. New York is traditionally a cross country type course. Have you thought about that at all? Are you excited for that style?
LAURA THWEATT: Yeah, again, I think that's why this is such a good opportunity as far as the marathon. Again, not something I was originally thinking I was going to have on the docket this year. Yeah, it's a tough course. It's hilly. It's relentless. It's going to be a grind, and I definitely‑‑ that's why I love cross country.
You take time off of the equation, and you're just out there competing. You're out there racing your fellow competitors, and it's just tough. So I definitely think this is basically a longer cross country. That's how I'm looking at it.
But they definitely have very similar qualities that I think, hopefully, will play to my strengths.

Q. Is there anything in training that you've learned about yourself that maybe training for other races in the past you didn't know? Training for the longer stuff.
LAURA THWEATT: Yeah, it's definitely a grind and a lot of strength work. My training was pretty similar to what I'd normally done in buildups for 5 and 10Ks, just longer long runs or a little bit more mileage.
Again, not only physically are you developing and getting strength from it, but mentally I think it's really going to prepare me for the training I'm going to have to do and the competing I'm going to have to do next year if I want to fight for a spot.

Q. I know talking to Lee, it seemed like the track would be the focus next year.
LAURA THWEATT: Yes.

Q. How do you think this will benefit you?
LAURA THWEATT: The strength you get from training a marathon and then racing a marathon, I'm hoping it will give me the edge that I need to really go out there and give it my all. Especially with the 10,000, you know, my thinking is, well, okay, if I can race 26.2 miles, I should be able to get out there and run 25 laps and not be quite as intimidated as sometimes I feel like I am when it comes to the 10,000.
So that was kind of my goal with all of this is to really get a strong foundation, especially coming off injury this spring. I just needed to kind of get going. This definitely did it.

Q. And the field here, it's a world class field, all World Marathon Major fields are very strong. Do you think it's the most competitive race you've ever been in? Are you looking at it as a new opportunity to face some of the best in the world?
LAURA THWEATT: Like my coach was saying this morning, this is really as big as it gets outside of the Olympic Games and the World Championships, which is true. Look around at the field we have. We have world champions. We have marathon champions. We have Olympic champions. It's going to be incredibly deep.
World Cross Country was definitely that. That was definitely an eye opener for me in March. Just really getting my feet wet with competing against the best in the world. So I'll get another opportunity to kind of see how I stack up on Sunday.

Q. I'm sure motivation going forward in the Olympic year?
LAURA THWEATT: You've got to learn not to let that intimidate you. Especially when you have eyes on making the team. You've got to compete against the best.

Q. Laura, you're building a big case for this being an extended cross country race, competition, and throw time out the window. The flip side of that is you and Lee have probably got your pace style down to two seconds per mile or something pretty damn close to that.
LAURA THWEATT: Surprisingly, we don't.

Q. Really?
LAURA THWEATT: Yeah. I think part of that is‑‑

Q. I thought he was a good coach.
LAURA THWEATT: Or at least we haven't talked about it yet. He did New York last year, and, again, going back, it's a tough marathon. It's a grind. It's hilly. The weather can be anything. So we didn't really put a time on it as far as pace‑wise. Obviously, I'd like to run at least the Olympic "A" standard in the marathon and have that just kind of down pat, but outside of that, it's really just about racing the race and just being competitive in it.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297