Desiree Davila, 26, of the Hansons-Brooks Distance Project, who was fifth at the 2008 Chicago Marathon in a personal best 2:31:33, will represent the U.S. in the women's marathon on August 23 at the World Championships in Berlin. She was 13th in the 2008 U.S. Olympic Women’s Marathon Trials in April in 2:37:50 after moving into fourth in the late stages. She placed second in the 2008 USA Half-Marathon Championships in Houston in January in 1:12:10 and she was 11th in the 10,000 at the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials in Eugene in 33:18.56. Her 2009 race results include a fourth at the USA Half Marathon in 1:12:24, a 13th at the USA 15K in 52:02, and a personal best 32:25.78 for 10,000 meters on the track at the Brutus Hamilton Invitational in Berkeley, California. Davila competed twice in the World Road Running Championships, placing 43rd in 2006 in Hungary when it was a 20K and 34th in 2007 in Italy when it was a half-marathon (it is now the World Half Marathon Championship). She played soccer in addition to running in high school and attended Arizona State University, where she was a Pac-10 runner-up in the 10,000 in 2003 and third in the 5000 in 2005. She was tenth in the 5000 at the 2003 NCAA Championships.
We saw a brief blog by you today that indicated the weeks of three-digit mileage (ie, over 100) for you before the World Championships are over by this point, right?
Desiree Davila: Yeah. we had a big workout last weekend. We'll do one or two moderate ones. But from here, it should be smooth sailing.
Was the big workout the "simulator" one the Hansons group often does?
DD: That's the one. We did a straight 16-mile tempo. My friend has been training with me a little bit, so he was there for that and helped me out quite a bit. He's a neighbor and has been training with the guys for awhile.
Is it a pretty evenly paced workout?
DD: It's supposed to be all at (marathon) race pace. Personally, I kind of cheat and try to pick it up just a little bit and finish a little harder and hopefully, if all's going well, strong at the end.
Did the "simulator" run turn out pretty much as you wished?
DD: Yeah, it was actually, honestly, a little bit better than I expected. I had a couple of tough weeks right before that, so it was good to know that even going in a little bit tired, it went pretty well.
You had the fifth fastest women's marathon time in the country last year, and the people ahead of you are all over 30. It's time for there to be the another sub-2:30 breakthrough. I bet you think that, too.
DD: Yeah, absolutely. Actually, I think I've got a good shot. The rest of the team - obviously, minus Kara (Goucher), who's going to run well in front of us - could see a couple of sub-2:30s. I think that's kind of the goal for everyone (the other U.S. marathoners will be Zoila Gomez, Tera Moody, and Paige Higgins).
Was your last race the USA 15K in Jacksonville?
DD: I ran a 10k on the track a month after that. We were just trying to get under 32:30. I ended up running 32:25. That was kind of the focus for the last segment, to get a little bit quicker 10k time. That was at Brutus Hamilton.
You don't get to do too many 10,000s on the track. That must have been a huge personal best.
DD: I ran my PR at the Olympic Trials a year ago on the track (she was 11th). I'd say this was 40-something second PR.
Did you give thought to doing another 10,000 at the USATF Championships in June or would that have been unwise considering your marathon plans?
DD: I think we decided to skip that one and just focus strictly on the marathon. I would like to take the time to do an actual track season one of these years. But with there being the World Championships (marathon), it was easy to pass on that this year.
Did you, as you mentioned you might, go over to Berlin and take a look at the World Championships course?
DD: We did. It was about a month ago. It was pretty simple and pretty much what we expected. It's just flat and fast. I thought it was really beneficial to go over and get an idea of where the team hotel is, where the marathon course is, where they're going to take us for training out by the track, and just get the lay of the land and find out where we're going to be doing daily runs. It was really useful and I was glad we got the opportunity to go out there.
Are all of the places you mentioned with a pretty concentrated area in Berlin?
DD: It's actually pretty spread out, which was why it (her trip) was pretty beneficial. If you head out to the track to do a team workout, it turns out to be an all-day event, while you can find equally good places to run over by the hotel or by the marathon course, which is maybe a 15-minute train ride at most.
You've mentioned how after you've done a marathon, you've learned something each time. Chicago was a good 2:31 effort, but what did you learn from that, specifically in terms of areas that might be deficiencies?
DD: Going into that, the biggest thing was fueling issues, and I definitely have gotten that down, but I know it's something I need to work on and get a lot better at. That's coming along and it's still something that's being practiced quite a bit now. The other thing from Chicago was just learning how to close out a marathon and feeling really confident in doing that. I'm trying to do the same thing now that I did in training for Chicago, where I'm finishing off workouts instead of just hanging on and struggling at the end. The idea is to finish strong at the end of everything
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