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ING NEW YORK CITY MARATHONNovember 2, 2011Josh GeorgeAmanda McGroryNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK Q. So, obviously, for a marathon runner, distance like this is going to take a lot more out of you than it is for you guys. Obviously, it's a shorter duration, so how much tapering do you guys do actually in preparation for a race like this? JOSH GEORGE: Really, well, for me for this race it's really just this week tapering in. So I mean, it's roughly similar to a runner, but we've done -- both of us ran Chicago last month. AMANDA McGRORY: We did a little tiny taper for Chicago, and then picked training back up again right after that, and then have been tapering off a little bit more. I actually did another marathon in Japan on Sunday, so I just got back in the country. So I did a taper before, a small, small taper before that like I don't know if I'd count it as a taper. It was like two days. And I'm tapering all this week. Q. Talk about racing two high quality races. Were you that challenged in Japan for the race? What was the competition like for you? AMANDA McGRORY: Tough, not as much competition there as there is here, but it ended up being a harder race than I had planned on because it was pouring rain. So that adds extra stresses on the body. Q. Now New York is something that everyone is going to show up to. You guys are going to be pushed pretty hard. Is this the peak for your season? Will you continue to race after this or is this it for the reason? JOSH GEORGE: For me, this is my last marathon of the season. I might throw something else in there, but it would just be for fun. Q. So what does downtime look like for you guys after you've completed a season? AMANDA McGRORY: There hardly ever is any, unfortunately. We take a little bit of time off. We'll probably get maybe a week out of our chairs after this race, I would think. But then both of us get a little bit stir crazy if we take too much time off, so unfortunately, it's getting cold in Illinois. Q. You guys are based out of Illinois? AMANDA McGRORY: We're both based out of Champagne, Illinois. So we'll move indoors and do a lot of training inside on the rollers which isn't quite as much fun. JOSH GEORGE: No, not at all. AMANDA McGRORY: It's a little shorter, little easier. We put in fewer miles, and as soon as it starts getting warm out again, we'll start picking it back up for the spring marathons, Boston and London. Q. Most runners based in the midwest are going to spend some time in altitude somewhere where it's drier or they're going to go down south. The guys that are based in Michigan will go down to Florida for a couple of weeks to break up some of that monotony. JOSH GEORGE: Unfortunately, we don't have quite the same options. I had a couple of years that I've run further away and gone to Australia and trained for a couple of months down there. Q. There is a big race series down there. JOSH GEORGE: There is, they have a race series in January every year, so I usually will try to hit up and stay a few weeks before and a couple of weeks after that series. But plane tickets are skyrocketing now, so that kind of makes those plans a little more difficult. AMANDA McGRORY: Last year we were in New Zealand for World Championships, so we had some training camps in Chula Vista at the Olympic Training Center, and then spent a little time in Sydney and then off to New Zealand. That was nice. I completely missed winter, which was fantastic. Then we got back in the middle of February, and it was post-world championships, so it was pretty easy for a couple of weeks. But our training environment at the University of Illinois is unsurpassed anywhere else in the country. So it's actually somewhat detrimental to us to leave the coaching and all of the support that's there. Q. What makes it unsurpassed? JOSH GEORGE: Well, our coach there is one of the best coaches in the world for wheelchair racing. His name is Adam Bleakney. He'll actually be here racing as well. He's a good racer in his own right. AMANDA McGRORY: Which is pretty cool. It gives him a unique perspective on things, I think. JOSH GEORGE: Right. So I mean, having him there is amazing. On top of that, the University of Illinois was sort of the birth place for adaptive athletics in the United States. The programs started back in the '50s, so they just have years of experience and build-up and support and facilities for everything we need to do. We have our own gym for weightlifting and all the equipment has been tinkered with and adapted to sports specific stuff for us. We have our own place to keep you are our equipment, our place to keep rollers, which is sort of our version of a treadmill. Just everything we need is there in one place. AMANDA McGRORY: On top of that, the caliber of athletes that are there. We have two world record holders, three former world record holders, a world champion, Paraolympic gold medallist. I think 10 or 13 on the team, 9 or 10 are on the National Team. JOSH GEORGE: Five or six of us medalled in Beijing. AMANDA McGRORY: It's unbelievable. Q. It's obviously the place to be? AMANDA McGRORY: For sure. Q. Talk about the community itself there. I know it's a college town, but with the accomplishments that you've achieved, there must be some notoriety. Tell me about that? JOSH GEORGE: There isn't as much. It's getting better in the sense that everyone's aware that we exist, which, believe me, that's a step in the right direction. AMANDA McGRORY: They didn't for a long time. JOSH GEORGE: That's a step in the right direction. But there is still a little bit of a disconnect between the community and what we do. We're starting to make some inroads. We're starting to get some more publicity and just build that awareness a little bit. I do a monthly radio show on a local radio station, and do some work on a local website. AMANDA McGRORY: We do lots of visits to local schools and programs. They're trying to do a better job of integrating our wheelchair sports program at least on the college side of things, the wheelchair basketball teams and they have the sports at the University. Q. We're entering an Olympic year as well, can talk about that as well. Do you feel like people will be more aware now that the Olympics are coming? For instance, a sport like swimming gets attention once every four years. This could be a good opportunity. JOSH GEORGE: It would be a great opportunity for us to make that push for a little bit more awareness. I don't really know if it's just going to come naturally. It will take a little bit more effort on our part to bring it along. AMANDA McGRORY: I think so. Q. You've been active in the community as far as school visits and other things. What has been your reaction when you go into these schools and talk to these kids what has been their reaction? AMANDA McGRORY: It's overwhelmingly positive. I think that it's -- we do something that is pretty unique that not a lot of people know about. So kids, teachers, parents, I think everyone's really shocked when they learn more about the sport and how competitive it is and how serious we are as athletes. JOSH GEORGE: Yeah, it's always amazing. Depending on the age of the kids, the younger kids just love watching what you do in the wheelchair. They think it's a fun toy. Then even the older kids realize it is a real sport and we are real athletes training just like all the athletes they see on TV. It brings a new appreciation from them. Even doing races like this, the crowds love to see us come through, which is kind of fun too. Q. Are you both based originally in Illinois? Are you from Illinois? AMANDA McGRORY: No, we're both east coasters. JOSH GEORGE: I'm from the D.C. area, originally. AMANDA McGRORY: And I'm from just southwest of Philadelphia. Q. I'm from San Diego, how is the Chula Vista center for your purposes? Is it good? AMANDA McGRORY: It's beautiful. It's fantastic for shorter distance athletes and people that train on the track. And leading up to World Championships, that wasn't a big deal, because most of the events were on the track. But it's a little bit more difficult for long distance training. The roads aren't the safest around the training center, so we need someone to come out with us. You can't go out on your own, which is an advantage for us living and training in Champagne because it's all farm land and it's all flat, so you can see for miles. JOSH GEORGE: It's a little upsetting, because they have some great roads and some rolling hills right around the training center, but then you have people in Jeeps flying around those corners and it's a little too dangerous to be out on your own, especially because we're so low to the ground, even with a flag on, it's easy to see right over us. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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