|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
TCS NEW YORK CITY MARATHONOctober 30, 2015Nick ArciniagaNew York City, New York Q. So I read that Meb says that he's been around the world four times, 25,000 miles each time, so 100,000 miles. Where are you at? NICK ARCINIAGA: I'm probably approaching three times around the world. My lifetime miles, I think it was back in 2014, my wife baked me a cake for like 60,000 miles. And I think I've been doing about like 5,000 a year since then. So I should be pretty close to 70,000 at this point. Q. Why 60,000? Why a cake for 60,000? NICK ARCINIAGA: It was the first time like I let her know what my totals actually were. She was like, oh, let's have a cake for it. So she baked me a cake and wrote 60,000 on it. It's something that I've been keeping track of since I was a freshman in college. I might actually have more than that number, but I don't have all the data from when I was like in high school or anything. Q. What kind of cake was it? NICK ARCINIAGA: Usually the Funfetti cake, put some cool frosting on there. Q. How many times have you denied yourself cake over 60,000 miles? NICK ARCINIAGA: I'm not a huge cake fan, but whenever it's offered, I'll go for it. I never deny myself a dessert. Ice cream is what I go to, though. Q. Did you do anything for 50,000? NICK ARCINIAGA: No, I didn't have anyone to celebrate at the time when I hit 50,000. I usually keep track and keep the numbers just for my own personal stat sheet. Q. How does that 5,000 break down for you? NICK ARCINIAGA: It's basically running just under 100 miles per week and throughout the year and just basically like I usually have trained between 100 and 140 leading up to the marathon. A lot of the bulk comes in the three months before a marathon and relax a little bit a few months afterwards and get highs and lows throughout the year. It's just constant training. I don't take more than a few days off at a time. It's just getting some mileage in every day. Q. So in any given week, how do you break it up per day? NICK ARCINIAGA: Usually I do a lot of doubles. It works out to be 14 miles a day. I could be up to 24 miles in a single run, and then some runs will be like 4 miles. So just highs and lows to make sure the body is able to recover and feel good throughout the week. Q. How often do you do that 24? NICK ARCINIAGA: Every other week or so, just a long run. Sometimes it will be a hard long run. Sometimes just a speed time on the lake with a longer duration but easier pace. Q. Do you ever get up to 26? NICK ARCINIAGA: I've been up to 28 a few times as well. That's the highest I've been on a single run. Q. How have preparations gone for this? NICK ARCINIAGA: They've been going pretty well. A little bit of a setback back in late August. I had a hamstring strain, kind of set me back. I had to take a few days off for that and have the next few weeks be a gradual buildup. Leading into this marathon, I've been training like I would for a half marathon. Mileage is a little more, but I've been boosting the workouts to get the intensity high. Hamstring has been good for a few weeks now. I'm not worried about that. I'm just worried how I'm going to be feeling in the later stages of the race. I'm just hoping my experience gets me through the last 10K. Q. How much has your training been based on trails? NICK ARCINIAGA: I'm on trails the majority of the time. Q. No, the Olympic trials. NICK ARCINIAGA: Oh, the Olympic trials. Leading into this race, I'm actually kind of glad I've been doing lower mileage. After this race, if my legs are beat up, I can take a few weeks off, two weeks probably, and still have 13 weeks to train for the trials and kind of gradually get my buildup going in quite a bit. My legs aren't going to be too beat up from the training going into this race, so I won't need too much time off mentally, just more physically at that point. Once my break is over, just starting that 13‑week cycle, which I usually have 13 to 15 weeks leading up to any marathon where I'm just solely focusing on that. Q. Do you have a specific goal for this Sunday? NICK ARCINIAGA: This Sunday, I want to finish top five. Last year I was tenth. The field's a little bit thinner this year. They're still pretty top heavy, but I'm hoping just to run a smart race. If I could run it close to a PR or even better, I could crack into that top five. Q. What's it going to take you for to get on that Olympic team next year? NICK ARCINIAGA: Similar thing. I've got to be top three there, obviously. It's just going to be running basically the equivalent of a PR on the L.A. course. I've heard it's very flat. So probably going to take about a 2:09 to make the team, but there could be five guys that could run 2:09 that day. It's just luck of the draw really. There's 20, 23 guys on my list that have the potential to run that on that day. I'm not going to be writing anybody off, just going to have to wait and see how the race actually plays out and hope I have it that day. Q. So then did you learn much from the race here last year? NICK ARCINIAGA: Not much at all. Really the conditions just threw the pace off and like threw everybody off. Like I was just feeling uncomfortable from the start. Like the cold weather with the wind was just throwing me off. So like there was a lot of surging going on with the lead group. Every other mile I'd fall behind 50 meters and have to catch back up. I kept doing that all the way to 18, when I finally got dropped from the lead group. At that time, it was Yuki, myself, and Ryan Vail. We were trading leads as much as we could to get ourselves to the finish. Our pace was slowing down immensely, but Ryan and I managed to pull off a ninth and tenth place finish. Even though it was a little slower, it was still only five minutes behind the leaders at the end of the race. So it was good or bad day. Really, with the conditions, it wasn't a big learning experience. It was more just like tough, gritty type of race. Q. You were in the lead at one point, pretty late‑‑ halfway point? NICK ARCINIAGA: No, it was about 50 minutes into the race. We made the right turn from eight to nine miles. The wind ended up being at our back, and I had just caught back up to the lead group at that point. With the wind to my back, like okay, I'm not going to put on the brakes with these guys. So I caught up to them. I'm just going to coast right on by. Ended up getting maybe a 10 meter lead. It wasn't too big of a deal. Once we turned back heading north when the wind was in our face, I hit the brakes so I could be back with the group again. Q. Did you actually think that you might ever‑‑ I mean, there was Kipsang and Desisa and stuff like that. NICK ARCINIAGA: I knew being in the lead didn't mean much at that point. I'm pretty realistic about my chances. I felt like there was no cost to being in the lead with the wind to my back. I have some momentum. So I can hopefully get my endorphins up and feel good and positive about myself and help me get to the finish. Q. Now, when you say 20 to 23 guys on your list might break 2:09, are you talking about 2:09 flat? NICK ARCINIAGA: No, a sub‑2:10. I think it's going to be a sub‑2:10 to make the team. Q. I assume it's guys who are the 1:00, 1:01 half marathon? NICK ARCINIAGA: That includes Diego Estrada, who has the potential to do that or Ryan Hall, who's been sidelined the past three or four years. It's guys who have the potential on any given day even though they haven't shown that recently. I'm not writing anybody off because that's how Meb looked in previous trials and made teams continuously. Q. What have been some of your key kind of workouts going into this race? NICK ARCINIAGA: Usually my long run is my biggest workout, just going out there and running sub‑6:00 per mile for 24 to 26 miles, and that's going to be at 7,000 feet altitude. So it's going to be a little bit more taxing on the body. I'll get a lot of Fartlek runs in there and get pace change runs to get my legs to feel what 4:40s and faster look like when I've got to surge with these guys in these big marathon races. Kind of trying to adapt myself to be able to handle different paces throughout a marathon. Q. Are you at all worried about the shorter turnaround from New York City to the Olympic trials? Not doing like Chicago, which was earlier, which a lot of Americans were doing. NICK ARCINIAGA: Right. I've considered that before, but I've also had a lot of success with the shorter turnaround. My PR was set 16 weeks after I ran the Chicago Marathon. So I figure, basically, as long as I can‑‑ that my legs recover well enough early on and get the proper training, then I should be ready to go at the trials, no problem. I've experimented a little with like eight weeks between marathons, and that wasn't quite enough, but I think 15 should be a decent amount. Q. When New York reached out, it took you five minutes to make the decision or took you a week? How long before you decided this was the right plan? NICK ARCINIAGA: It was pretty quick actually. After Boston, I was pretty disappointed with my result there. I went out with the leaders and running 4:40s from the gun. It was pretty aggressive for me. I didn't make it nine miles with the leaders that day. I ended up fading to 2:18. I think I was 14th place there. So I was pretty bummed. Then my hope was I actually would make the World Championship team. I was waiting on the selection process from that, or Pan‑American games and just get a U.S. jersey on. Q. It would have been based on the 2:18? NICK ARCINIAGA: No, the 2:15 here in New York might have got me in. Either way, the times were too slow. They don't take finishing top ten in majors into consideration. Once I knew I wasn't going to hear from them, New York for me felt like a really good option. Q. Are you disappointed at all in the field the U.S. had at the World Championships? Do you think you could have done well had you gotten in? NICK ARCINIAGA: I think I could have. I ended up getting hurt with the hamstring at the end of summer anyway. So I would have been kind of lame by the time Worlds came around. I felt like the guys who did represent the team, they're all guys I trained with in the past. They're good friends of mine. So I wasn't super unhappy they were selected for the team, but I was disappointed that Jeff Eggleston didn't finish and the other guys. They ran all right, but they were still in the 20s. I felt I could have done better than top 20. Q. We know why you're here. Would you have expected more people to be here? NICK ARCINIAGA: No, I expected it to be a small turnout. I knew Meb would be here. He does New York every year. You can count on him. I didn't think it would be too big of an American contingent here. Q. Just because the trials are coming? NICK ARCINIAGA: Meb ran this before he made the 2012 Olympics, and he won the trial. So if I want to follow in his footsteps and make as many teams or win these majors, I should do what he's doing. I've probably run, next to Meb, the most marathons in the U.S. at this point. This will be my 18th marathon right now. Q. And they've all been U.S.? NICK ARCINIAGA: Ran one at the World Championships in 2011. Q. Are there parts of this race thinking forward to February, like how I react to this course? Or is this a separate race? I'm going to run this well and take what happens on Sunday and look forward after that. NICK ARCINIAGA: I think it's completely separate. The trials is going to be a big pack of Americans running the same pace and running as hard as possible to do a 2:09. Tomorrow it could be 62 minutes for the first half with the conditions the way they are. They could be going for a course record. Or it could be, since the field is kind of thin, not be as aggressive at all and running a nice even pace, around 65 at the half, which would be great for me. I would very much appreciate being along with that. If they go out super aggressive, I'm not going to make the same mistake I made in Boston and go with them. Q. What's your immediate reaction when you hear of another good American performance like Luke? Do you say, wow, there's some competition? NICK ARCINIAGA: He's one of the guys I added to the top 23. Even though he had a decent half marathon going in, I hadn't considered him a 2:10. It's something I think about on my runs. How about this guy? Guys I shouldn't write off because it's a mistake to think somebody's just done. When I see a performance like Luke's or a training partner of mine, Matt Llano, he ran 2:12 in Berlin. I'm just glad that Matt didn't beat my PR. That's something personally I like to hold over people. I'm still a little bit faster. A lot of guys are still really young and up comers, like the guys who won the U.S. Championships this past year, Jared Ward and Tyler Pennel. They're both really great guys. I can see them making Olympic teams in the future. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|