Shannon Rowbury, the bronze medalist in the 1500 at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin, will run the Continental Airlines Fifth Avenue Mile in New York on Saturday. She was a very close second to Britain's Lisa Dobriskey on Fifth Avenue in 2008. Rowbury is also the 2009 USATF champion in the 1500. Her personal bests are 2:00.94 for the 800, 4:00.33 in the 1500, 4:20.34 for the mile, and 15:12.95 for 5000 meters. Rowbury was seventh at the 2008 Beijing Olympics in the 1500; it was the highest Olympic finish ever by an American woman at that distance. She won the 3000 at the 2008 USA Indoor Championships in 8:55.19. At the 2007 NCAA Indoor Championships, competing for Duke, she won the mile and placed second in the 3000. Originally from San Francisco, Rowbury was a national scholastic champion in the 800. She is now coached by John Cook.Was last year’s Fifth Avenue Mile your first one ever?
Shannon Rowbury: Yes. I’m pretty sure it was. I’d done some road races, but never that road mile.
We don’t know what you expected from the Fifth Avenue Mile, but it turned out to be extremely fast. Tactically, was it just hell bent from the get-go? Were you actually even thinking in terms of quarters like you normally would on the track?
I tried to think of it in terms of quarters. There was a girl, Rose Kosgei, who took it out and helped make the race quick. I just went with the flow.
The times were faster than what you do on the track. What do you think is the reason for that?
SR: It’s a net downhill, so that helps. And it’s fun, it’s different, there’s a great crowd. I just went into it ready to run hard, and sometimes that helps.
You’ve stayed in London since your last race. Why is that?
SR: Well, I was back (in England) from the World Athletics Final (in Greece) on Monday of last week. Living in San Francisco, I would have flown out there on Tuesday or Wednesday, been there a little bit, and then have to fly back all the way to New York and then all the way back home. It just didn’t really make sense to do that much travel. Every flight takes a lot out of you. We (Coach John Cook’s people) have a great set-up here in Teddington, where a lot of the parks are. It’s southwest (of London). I enjoy being here. I love it here. I’m going to be sad to leave.
Will you give yourself a break after the Fifth Avenue Mile?
SR: I’ll probably have a month off before I get going again. I’m looking forward to having that rest. It’s weird when the season comes to an end. Part of me doesn’t really want to stop. The other part of me is “okay, it would be really good to have a break.” And that really depends; it varies from day to day. Yeah, this will be my last race and I’ll head home. I’m excited. I was happy with how the season turned out.
Does that actually mean no running at all for a month?
SR: There will probably be some running. I don’t really talk with Coach Cook about the off time until it’s time for it. I’ll find out in the next week or so what that’s going to look like. I’m sure there will be some running, but it will probably be low key.
What kind of things do you look forward to do in your time off that you can’t do at any other time?
SR: Mostly, I just try and catch up with friends. I’ve been away from home for three or four months. It’ll be nice to see my family and my friends and just kind of catch up. That’s probably the most important thing to me.
After your winter trip to Mexico, were you mostly doing your training in the San Francisco Bay Area?
SR: Yeah, mostly in March and April. We travel around a lot. In May, we went to altitude again. In June we were in San Diego, and then (after USATF Championships in Oregon), I flew to Europe.
It sort of began with you last year, and continued in 2009 with at least three other women we could name, but one of the biggest differences for U.S. women’s middle distance running now is that in international races, if an American came in eighth, they used to think that was wonderful. But now you’re thinking “we can contend, we can get medals, we can even win.” To someone who’s followed this sport for awhile, it’s an enormous and significant change. Why do you think it’s happened at once with several people?
SR: I think people are wanting to train harder. It’s something that feeds off of itself. You see one person have success and it makes you want to achieve at that level and it makes you think in different terms. I know I was inspired by Shalane (Flanagan) and Erin (Donohue) when I was working with them. Hopefully, I’ve inspired people as well. There’s been this change in mentally that’s been slowly building and it seems like it’s rarely taking off. I don’t know that there’s any one thing you can attribute it to, but there’s just this whole aura and atmosphere within U.S. distance running that’s really changing and it’s just cool to be a part of that and to see that.
And the change in attitude of people like you or Anna Willard, Christin Wurth-Thomas, or Jenny Barringer is so different from even the recent past, when it seemed people had nice college careers, they liked running, they wanted to keep doing it, and they wanted to be just good enough to keep their contracts. You and the women I mentioned seem to think “this is my life, let’s make something out of it, let’s really distinguish ourselves.”SR: For me, anything that I do I like to try to do to the best of my ability, and I don’t see the point of making a career for myself or spending so much time to be mediocre. I try to put all of myself into it. And achieve as much as I can. I don’t really know any other way of thinking.
You mentioned at the beginning of this Chat that you considered this to have been a very successful track season for you.
SR: Oh yeah, definitely. For me, going into the season, I wanted to medal at Worlds and win U.S. Championships. Those were the two goals of my season. I was able to do that. I’m very happy that I was able to perform on those days. It’s hard; there are 365 days of the year, and there are maybe five days that really matter for the qualifying and then the finals for these events. So many little things could really change or be off, and you really have to get the timing down. I would have loved to have broken 4:00 this year (in the 1500) and have broken 2:00 in the 800, but you have many opportunities to try and run fast times but you only have a few opportunities to try and medal at the big championship meets. So I'm really happy with the way that the season turned out and that I was able to bring my best performance on those important days.
There was a comment by you after the World Championships to the effect that "as far as I'm concerned, I came in fourth" (winner Natalia Rodriguez of Spain was disqualified and the next three 1500-meter runners moved up in the standings). Do you actually feel that way?
SR: It was interesting. After those interviews, I was at the press conference with Jamal and Dobriskey (Maryam Jamal of Bahrain and Lisa Dobriskey of Great Britain, who moved into the gold and silver medal positions). They asked Jamal the same question and the way that she phrased it helped me to take a little more pride and find a little more joy in having the medal. The way she framed it was that with the pushing and the fall (Gelete Burka of Ethiopia fell), it really changed the dynamic of the race. With the fall happening, it made it more challenging for herself and for all of us to perform at our best level in those last 200 meters. It's so hard when you're in the most crucial part of the race. You're already running at your max and then you have to leap over something. In retrospective, it changed things for me, having to deal with that in the last bit of the race. Anytime there's drama surrounding a race, whether it's at a little rinky dink meet or at the World Championships, it's never fun to have to deal with that. But I'm proud to be a bronze medalist.
You mentioned there are five days during the year when you have to be at your best. But you do a lot of races in Europe. When you're racing perhaps twice a week, it's pretty hard to make every race count, isn't it?
SR: Yeah. In some of my performances in the middle of the summer, I didn't race as fast as I would like to or place as high as I would like to, but we were in pretty heavy training, getting ready for Worlds. It's tough, because when I look at my performances, the only races I was ever peaking for specifically were U.S. Championships and Worlds. The other races along the way, yes I would have loved to have run better than I did, but at the same time, it does make me happy to see that I was able to bring it together for the ones I was focusing on. There's still, of course, fine tuning that you have to do. At the end of the season, you reflect and figure out what you could do better.
We saw one of your Flotrack workout videos, one that had more to do with drills rather than actual running. Most runners tend to be tight through the hips and upper legs, but you display this extraordinary flexibility. How much work goes into that, and how important do you think that is in terms of range of motion and stride length?
SR: I'm fortunate that I always had pretty good flexibility and I think my dancing (Irish dancing in her younger days) did help my ability to learn technical things and be detail-oriented in terms of foot placement and learning the drills and doing them properly. For me, it's been very helpful in helping maintain my form when I'm getting tired and all sorts of things.
For Americans, 2010 is not a year with a major international championship. How will that affect the races you pick? Might you try some other distances? Since there's no major championships, might there be more risk-taking in the races you do select?
SR: I certainly look at this next year as a chance for some experimentation and working on my weaknesses. I have to sit down with Coach Cook and plan that out. It's definitely my goal to test myself at other distances.
Have you been surprised to see that people like Jenny Barringer an Anna Willard can excel from the 800 all the way up to the 3000-meter steeplechase (and in Barringer's case, even the 500)? Do you think this is an example you'd want to follow - not do the steeplechase per se, but maybe the flat 3000?
SR: Yeah. I feel like I'm one of those people. I haven't broken 2:00 yet. but I'm very close to being very good at the 800. I did a 5k this year. The conditions weren't the greatest, so it wasn't as fast as I hoped (but she did win in 15:12.95 in Berkeley, California). I've always, in high school through now, felt you pick a specific race in the season but also try and develop longer and shorter as well and give yourself a big range. I'm not surprised to see other women who are capable of the same thing. I think it's a sign of a great athlete if you can have a big range, 'cause it really shows that you've developed yourself fully. I'm hoping next year I can show that I have that ability as well.
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