	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

ING NEW YORK CITY MARATHON

November 3, 2011

Ben True

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

BEN TRUE: This will be my last race of the year. It's more of a fun race. I'm just coming off taking the time off after running the 10,000 mile at Minnesota. I started to go back out after the Trials from last year, so this is just going to be a fun race to enjoy myself.

Q. So you've actually already ended one season, and this is the beginning of your next season more than the other way around?
BEN TRUE: Yeah.

Q. Interesting. How long did you take off?
BEN TRUE: I took two weeks off.

Q. When you say off, completely off?
BEN TRUE: Completely. I didn't run a step. It was one of the longest two weeks of my life. I hate taking time off. I would play it day by day, and my coach was like, no, you need to take at least two weeks off. For 14 days there will be absolutely no running.
I made it, but it was pretty close. I was driving my girlfriend insane, because as my energy levels, in the beginning she said I went through all the stages of classic depression. At first, I was very manic, just bouncing off the walls. Then slowly became more and more depressed because I couldn't run, and figured I'd never be able to run again.
Then finally when I was able to start jogging again, I resumed my normal personality. I think that those two weeks were harder for her than they were for me.

Q. What did do you to try to occupy yourself?
BEN TRUE: I went out hunting a bunch with my coach, and other than that, I tried to do little projects around the house to try to make myself busy, raking leaves and just tried to fill my time. But it was a lot of twiddling my thumbs and counting the hours down to when my break was over.

Q. Did you have any success on the hunting trip?
BEN TRUE: Mild. We're going duck hunting, bird hunting, waterfowl, so we got a few geese.

Q. Do you have any more success on the household projects? That part should have made your girlfriend happy.
BEN TRUE: Yeah, but the problem is all the leaves were falling, and I'd rake it all, and two hours later it looked like it didn't get raked at all.

Q. So that gave you more to do.
BEN TRUE: Exactly.

Q. You had a fantastic year. What would you say the highlight of this year was?
BEN TRUE: I think the highlight was really just right at the beginning, being able to make the World cross country team, and making the first World Team. Kind of coming off of a disappointing year with the track club right after I graduated and really not being able to run anything of what I wanted to do, it was a nice first real race.
I knew I was on the right path and things were kind of a preview of what's more to come. It was nice to have a good race. My confidence and everything else just really started to get better with that race.

Q. Any lowlight this is year?
BEN TRUE: Yeah, two major lowlights which kind of put a bad taste in my mouth the whole season. One of those was I wanted to run a fast 10K, and so I raced on pace, my first 10K on the track really was a race that I should be able to run fast.
I was in very good shape to go run fast, but that particular day I just didn't have it. I ran a very disappointing race.
The other disappointment would be at USAs, not being able to make the world team. That was really disappointing just because when I was in the race, I didn't feel like I was competing. I was just in a race.
Whenever I feel like I'm not competing in a race, even if I feel like I'm being a competitor in the race, even if I get third or fourth or fifth, as far as I feel like I'm actually being able to race as well as I want to race, then I'm happy with it.
But a race like that, where I just wasn't in it from the beginning, I never felt like I hit my stride. Those two were really kind of put a downer on the season. But I'm glad I had some other success to make it a good season overall.

Q. From the outside, people think this is the most fantastic season for you. From the inside, you're looking for ways it could have been better?
BEN TRUE: Yeah, every day.

Q. Did you learn anything from either of those experiences to actually make that better?
BEN TRUE: Yeah, I just learned that going into the major races where I really want to hit it hard, I really need to work. At no race this year did I really go in peaked and prepped and ready to race fast.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297