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ING NEW YORK CITY MARATHON

November 2, 2008

Kara Goucher

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

RICHARD FINN: Just a quick review of Kara's third-place finish today, it's the best American women's finish here in New York since 1994. It is the fastest American marathon debut by an American woman since Deena Kastor's 2:26:58 here in 2001, and it's the fastest time ever by an American woman here in New York, so quite an impressive marathon debut by Kara Goucher. If you could just give us some thoughts about the day and then we'll open it up for questions.
KARA GOUCHER: It was interesting. It was really fun. I know I can do a lot better. I had a few things go wrong. I had some stomach issues and some cramping issues. But as much as I was hurting the last five miles, it was awesome, so I'll be back for sure.

Q. Paula seemed to run a pitiless race today from the beginning, and after you came up to 16 or 17 miles she just picked up the pace. Could you talk about having to run against Paula?
KARA GOUCHER: Well, I was happy that Paula ran. I like to run against the best. I want to be the best, and you can't get there by running against -- you have to run against the best people. So I was excited that she was running. I knew it would be a more aggressive race since she was running, which scared me a little bit. But might as well jump in. She ran fantastic. She was so tough, and she just hammered us with about eight miles to go, and I caved.
But I was glad that she was here. I want to run against the best people and no hiding from anyone, so I was glad she ran.

Q. Did you have a plan going into the race, and how did the actual race play out versus your plan?
KARA GOUCHER: My plan was to kind of do what I saw Gete do last year and just tuck behind whoever was leading and just gut it out as long as possible. So pretty much that's exactly what happened.
I got broken -- I don't remember when it was, maybe eight miles to go, and I kind of slipped back into fourth or fifth, and then I kind of had to recoup because I was telling myself, it's 10K, you can do this, pull it together. So I kind of pulled it together and tried to stride out to secure third place.
The last two miles were a struggle. My body was shutting down. I had a difficult time getting my fluids down and my stomach was really upset, and the last two miles were really tough. But pretty much the race went how I thought it would, minus the tying up at the end.

Q. Given how strong the field is, did you think more people would be in it for longer than they were?
KARA GOUCHER: Yeah, I figured that there would be six, seven, eight women through about 20 miles, so it separated obviously quicker than that. But I was happy about it.

Q. What does it feel like to have the best American marathon debut since Deena Kastor? What a phenomenal debut.
KARA GOUCHER: Thank you. It definitely hasn't hit me yet that I ran faster than Deena. She's set the standard for American distance running. She's so amazing. It hasn't sunk in yet. It will later.

Q. Just wondering, when you were coming off the Queensboro Bridge, that is a place in the race you have literally never been there before, she's been there a lot. How difficult is it to know tactically what to do at that point in the race?
KARA GOUCHER: Yeah, I mean, my coach and I, my husband, we thought I could come here and we thought under the right conditions I could be competitive and I could even win, but I knew that there would be so much learning that came from this first marathon. That's why I said all along, no matter what happened today, this won't be my last marathon. I doubted myself a little bit here and there. I wasn't sure how I was going to handle it. When I hit 23 miles, I was like, wow, this is the farthest I've ever run, because I've never gone that far before. It was just a learning experience, and I will go away much more prepared next time.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about what Alberto Salazar told you and how he trained you for the race?
KARA GOUCHER: Yeah, I mean, he just told me that he believes I was built to do this, and he trained me the way he trained himself, and I just put all my faith in that. He wrote me a little note today to put in my backpack, and he just said, have faith, you're ready, and your team has prepared you well. I had so many people that helped me get ready. It's not just me out there. I have a team of six, seven people that helped me get ready. He just had me as prepared as possible. I knew I could handle the hills, I knew I could handle the course, I knew I could handle the pace, and it was really just getting my feet wet and getting after it.

Q. You had talked about sort of reconnecting with the city a little bit. Can you talk about that, the emotional aspect of running through these streets?
KARA GOUCHER: There definitely was. People were yelling, "the Queens girl," and I wanted to stop and give them all a hug. It was awesome. I haven't run that many road races, but people were cheering my name the whole time and they were saying Kara and Queens together. That's why even though I was cramping I can barely walk right now. I loved it. It was awesome. It was so awesome.

Q. I watched you in the finish taking your victory walk, and a lot of emotion there. You had said earlier this week that you were probably running with your dad in your head. Was he with you as you were running in that victory walk? How did it feel?
KARA GOUCHER: Yeah, the victory walk was -- it was a walk because I couldn't jog, but it was awesome, and it's just such a good feeling to be supported by so many people who don't know me and who are just so kind.
You know, I didn't want my dad and the heaviness of what happened to him here affect my race, but he did enter my mind a couple times around the 12-mile mark especially, just to be strong and that I wasn't alone. It was awesome. It was great.

Q. Can you talk about the conditions out there? I mean, you were tucked right in behind Miss Windbreaker to start.
KARA GOUCHER: Yeah, it was windy, and first-time marathoner, don't really know how my body is going to handle it, so I would have been crazy to go out and lead. That was the plan all along, just tuck behind whoever is leading and stay there as long as possible. I do feel a little bad that Paula did so much work, but then she killed us all, so it's okay.

Q. How strong were the winds?
KARA GOUCHER: It was really strong. I was texting my husband at the start before I started to warm up, and I was like, it's so windy. A lot of girls were freezing before we even got to the start. Once I got going I wasn't cold, but it definitely was breezy. There were points going over bridges, where I was thinking, this is really hard, it's really windy.

Q. Can you comment again on being from Queens and running in the New York City Marathon?
KARA GOUCHER: Yeah, I mean, I was born in Queens, and the marathon here -- the marathon here just holds a lot of importance to me because I was born here, because this is where my dad came when he came to the United States. This is where he lived. This is where he died. This is where my coach became who he is as an athlete.
I was so excited to run here and sad that it's over. It was awesome.

Q. When you crossed the line you were exhausted. What were the emotions like?
KARA GOUCHER: My body felt awful. My hamstrings and my butt and my lower back are still really, really tired, and I felt very nauseous and I felt awful. But there's part of me that's kind of excited because I felt so bad, and I still ran pretty good.

Q. Did you ever live in Queens? You said you were born there.
KARA GOUCHER: Yeah, I was born in Queens, and I lived there until I was about three and then I moved to Jersey and then I lived there for a year.

Q. Where in Queens?
KARA GOUCHER: I don't remember. I was just a little kid.

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