|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NYC HALF MARATHONMarch 18, 2012Desiree DavilaKara GoucherMeb KeflezighiDathan RitzenheinNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK RICHARD FINN: We have our four leading Americans here. We have Kara Goucher in the middle, third place today; Desi Davila, ninth place on the ladies side. On the men's size, Dathan Ritzenhein, 14th; and Meb was 12th. Comment from each of the four up here and then we'll just open it up for some quick questions. DATHAN RITZENHEIN: Well, it was the first race back since the marathon trials, and the time wasn't that bad, but I would have never thought I'd be 14th place. So that kind of doesn't sound great to me. But amazing field because after about 30 seconds, 35 seconds, there was about 10 guys, so I tried to stay with the pack for as long as possible and at probably about 11 and a half miles I finally got gapped. It was kind of a struggle the last two miles. My legs felt kind of‑‑ didn't feel great, but aerobically I felt good, so coming off a marathon it's not a terrible first race. RICHARD FINN: Next up for you, Dathan, I think it's back up to the track, I think. Any thoughts how this leads into the track and when we'll see you on the track again? DATHAN RITZENHEIN: Yeah, so I'll just keep working my way down in distance now, and I've got all the aerobic background, so I just need to keep bringing the distance a little shorter, get back on the track, do some fast stuff, and I think I'll be ready. I think it's about two months after the marathon trials, so two months after that, it's not bad. It's a pretty standard probably first race for me back. RICHARD FINN: Kara, third place. I heard that, again, you were holding your baby at the finish line. It looked like smiles all around. Your thoughts about the race today? KARA GOUCHER: Yeah, this is my second year back and I had a lot more fun this year, I want to admit. I just wanted to come and run a hard, aggressive race. The race went out really quick, the women's race. I think my coach told me at about four miles I was the same distance behind Kim that I was at the finish. Going for the win was a little bit out of my league today, but I decided to kind of run my own race and take over the second pack at about five miles, and that was aggressive for me because I usually wait a lot longer. But I had a lot of fun, and great course, great atmosphere, and good return after the trials. RICHARD FINN: And I think you've said that starting April 1st you really will sort of hunker down and start the marathon training. KARA GOUCHER: Yeah, I travel to Mammoth, to Meb's hometown, April 1st, and that's a four‑month dedication I've committed to with my coach, four months out from the Olympics, so this was really just a lot of fun for me and a chance to dip down to 100 miles a week and have some fun. RICHARD FINN: Desi, your thoughts, and also looking ahead how this either sets you up for your Olympic training and again for the marathon? DESIREE DAVILA: I pretty much got everything out of this that I had hoped to. I look at ninth and I go, oh, that's not great. But I'll start looking at the numbers and go, okay, next time if I'm in better shape I can be here, I can run this time. This was really a starting point. I did about a month of decent work coming in here, and back home you have those cold mornings where you're running hard but you're not really sure what it means. I just didn't really know where I was at, and I knew that once I finished I would be excited about things, either looking at a result going, man, I've got a lot of work to do, or going, okay, pleasantly surprised. So it's a little bit of both, I guess. Time‑wise it's not far off from my PR, but ninth is never great. So I am going to walk away with both of those on my mind. RICHARD FINN: And when do you‑‑ do you also start your marathon training for the Olympics on April 1st, or is there some sort of three months, two months? DESIREE DAVILA: We'll be a little bit closer to the‑‑ I guess maybe a 10‑, 11‑week buildup, but I'll do some shorter stuff, work on some speed, take another tiny break and get going from there. RICHARD FINN: Meb, your thoughts on today and also again looking ahead to London. How does this sort of set you up or give you an indication where you might stand for London? MEB KEFLEZIGHI: It's always great to be in New York and be competing. The crowd was phenomenal. Yesterday was a jog in Central Park, and somebody yelled, "go USA, go Meb." It was a lot of fun, and today was the same thing. Like Dathan says, we were at the trials two months ago, and this was a good benchmark to see where we are and how we recovered from it. I'm very satisfied with the time today. With 1K to go it was all those guys, from Sam Chelanga and behind, were running together, and then all of a sudden I just didn't have the turnover, and that's what the marathon does to you after two months ago. I felt healthy and just excited to get to London and put on the training. I think I'm going to do a couple races, short races, and then come May, June and July it's going to be everything, hopefully run a PR and give it a shot, be competitive and hopefully be on the podium. But one thing at a time. Got to have fun, and the rest will take care of itself. Q. Kara and Desi, were you guys by yourselves most of the way? Did you have guys to run with? I know Kim and Firehiwot were ahead. Kind of walk us through where you were in the race. KARA GOUCHER: I was kind of in a group, a smaller group with a couple men and quite a few women. I think between four and five miles I decided to take over that group, and once I left the park, I never looked back, but I felt like I was completely by myself. And I kept hoping there would be someone, some sort of carnage from the men's race to sort of bridge the gap between myself and Kim, but there was nothing. Q. Basically a solo? KARA GOUCHER: It was, which I never do, so I'm actually really excited about it. DESIREE DAVILA: I was fortunate enough to have the carnage from Kara's pack. They were kind of stringing out in front of me, so I was like, thank you for whoever is doing the work up there that's giving me something to look forward to, and I caught a couple of people along the way, so thank you. Q. For all four of you guys, what was your initial reaction when you saw the pace taken out so fast? DATHAN RITZENHEIN: Well, right from the get‑go, the first three guys, they went off, and I thought that was just‑‑ that was not for me today. So I was content being with a group, because that was just‑‑ if I would have done that, I don't know if I would have made it probably 10K today. But we went pretty aggressively. We probably ran the opposite way of what we should have if we wanted to really run fast on this course. The park was definitely hard, and so I think for all of us having run the marathon, that's a little bit of a challenge because even if you keep the effort the same, changing the pace, going up and down the hills, our miles were like 4:30, 4:50. They were all over the place, and that's kind of hard to do, and I think that kind of took a little bit of stinging to my legs. KARA GOUCHER: Honestly with Kim in the race I kind of expected it to go quick. I didn't expect it to go that quick. I think I was 16 minutes through 5K and she was about 15:30. I just‑‑ my body doesn't work that way, at least not right now, so they were gone. DESIREE DAVILA: Yeah, same thing. I didn't even know that's what they went through the 5K in because I was well behind that. Knowing how the park rolls and where I'm at right now, I was just kind of focused on my own race, especially early on, and then was able to build on that throughout. MEB KEFLEZIGHI: I mean, everybody was talking about under an hour for the half here, and it was possible, obviously.  I know I was not going to go at that pace, so we were running 4:32, 4:28 at a couple of miles. What were they running, you kind of wondered. Once it got away, we were comfortable in that second group and tried to hang on to that and tried to make a move when possible. But the first three guys were by themselves early right away, and in a half marathon you can get away with it. RICHARD FINN: I do want to make sure that I note that Kara was our first American ladies finisher; Janet Cherobon‑Bawcom in fifth place was our second U.S. ladies finisher; and Desi was our third American finisher today. But all three in the top ten. Any other comments, questions? Q. Kara, what are your racing plans from now until trials? KARA GOUCHER: I'm not going to do a lot of racing. I've decided to try this marathon thing all out this time, so I'm looking at running either the 10K at the trials or the Grandma's Half Marathon the week before, but that's really it. I'm just training. RICHARD FINN: Thank you very much. It's always a pleasure to see all of you here. 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
|