The New York City Marathon is being advertised as your last serious marathon effort. Is that the way you see it?Brian Sell: Yeah, I think so. I'm 98 percent sure. I mean, if I go out and run 2:08 or something, I'll definitely keep on going. I've just been feeling a little more tired than I did back in the day, and workouts are coming a lot harder. I think it's a good time to wind it all up. I always wanted to run New York (the five-borough route, not the Trials course) and it's a good opportunity.
You did mention before the Boston Marathon in April that you were feeling about 60 in "dog years" for having put in so much mileage on your legs.
BS: Yeah, definitely.
And that was a 2:16 and change, so that wasn't one of your happier performances, right?
BS: No, it definitely wasn't. Every mile, I felt I had Lee Troop, the Australian guy, and then a Russian guy riding me like a rented mule. Running into the wind, it was physical, and then just having those guys on me was a mental drain. It was not enjoyable at all.
Well, there will be people in New York going at a fast early pace. Do you anticipate you'd be in a lead group in New York?
BS: I've basically just looked at last year's performances. Abdi (Abdirahman) was top American with a 2:14 low (2:14:17 for sixth). I think I'll probably go out through the half at 1:07 or so. That would be ideal. Unless I feel like I'm walking and run a 1:01 second half, I don't think a 2:08 is going to happen. I'd be really happy in the 2:14s. New York is a little bit slower course than a Chicago or even a Boston; it's maybe a minute slower than Boston. Yeah, I'd be really happy with a 2:14, considering that was top American last year.
This is your first time on the five-borough course, but since this is a USA Men's Marathon Championship, it's almost like a bit of a reunion of the Trials group at the top, with the exception of Dathan Ritzenhein, Khalid Khannouchi and Dan Browne. But you've got yourself, Ryan Hall, Meb Keflezighi, Abdi Abdirahman, and Jason Lehmkuhle. It's sort of like an old homecoming of sorts, isn't it?
BS: Yeah, it definitely is. You've got (Jorge) Torres stepping in for Ritzenhein, and a lot of other quality guys who are replacing. Meb is a different Meb than he was at the Trials, so he's definitely stepped it up. It's going to be a very similar race, competitively, to the Trials.
We know some of the appeal of the five-borough course, and it must be something you wanted to get in before your running career was over.
BS: Definitely. New York is the big one. Everybody knows the New York Marathon. Boston's got the long history. New York, with 40 years, hasn't been around half as long as Boston but it's probably just as well if not more well-known. It's definitely one that I wanted to do before I was done.
And you've heard the big crowds in Boston and elsewhere, but those are probably nothing like the ones on First Avenue in Manhattan that people have surely described to you.
BS: Yeah, I've heard about that, and I've been talking to Clint Verran on our team, who's run the actual New York twice before. He said "just let them carry you, don't get carried away, just them carry you." That's usually where a lot of 4:30 miles happen. I've heard what to expect a little bit.
Compared to the way you felt before Boston this spring, was this training cycle better in any way or was it even more weariness?
BS: It was better. Going into Boston, I ran a couple of 160-mile weeks, and it was kind of business as usual as far as marathon training goes. This segment, I topped out just below 140. I've been feeling better at workouts, but I don't have the huge mileage base. I'm definitely fresher going into New York. Whether I'm more fit or not, that will be determined on race day. But I definitely feel fresher and probably a little more positive, too.
At this point, there is a residual effect of all the mileage done over the last several years, in a way. The long-term base pays off and maybe it isn't as necessary to as much during this particular segment.
BS: Yeah, I hope so. I hope I can cash in some of the miles I've put in the last six years, for sure, especially at 20 miles or so (into the race).
Did you do anything like the "simulator" the Hansons group usually does (traditionally, it's been 26.2 kilometers (about 16 miles) at marathon race pace.
BS: We did a very hilly half-marathon in Rochester Hills here, just at 1:06:30 pace. My plan (in New York) is to go out a touch more conservatively, probably 1:07 flat, like I said. Rather than a 16-mile, 26K simulator, we just did a half-marathon because the course was very conducive to New York. It was a very hilly course, and the miles were already marked out and everything. It was a step in the right direction. I felt pretty decent on it. Running a little faster than we were supposed to helped, too. Hopefully, there's more left in the tank when we go out at the pace we're supposed to.
Between the Boston Marathon and that half-marathon, were there any other races that you did?
BS: I did the Bellin Run in Green Bay, a 10K, and then I also did the Peachtree 10K (in Atlanta). Neither one of those were very good. I was just over 30:00 in both of them. Peachtree (on July 4) was very, very bad. It was very competitive this year overall and it was the U.S. (10K Championship), and I don't think I even cracked the top 15 U.S. Yeah, it was a pretty bad race for me.
Were you fading toward the end?
BS: I just felt horrible right from the gun. In 2007, I went down there and ran 28:58. I think Abdi won and Ryan Hall was second American. I think Lehmkuhle and I were third and fourth or fourth and fifth, something like that. It was a really good race and going in (this July), I had hoped to do something similar to that. There was kind of a parallel build-up to what I did for New York this year. But at one mile, I think I was 4:50 or so and out of contention. It just kind of spiraled down from there.
Of your Hansons teammates, it's Nick Arciniaga who's coming to New York, right?
BS: Yes.
Have you been doing a lot of work with him?
BS: I have in the last month and a half or two months. The first month of the segment was pretty rough. I just had a lot of pains in my hips. Things started to come around pretty well just under two months ago and I have been doing pretty much everything with him the last two months. He's looking very good. He's a very consistent performer. He ran 2:17 in Chicago in his debut (2:16:58 in 2006) and then he ran 2:16 and was top American at Boston a few years ago (2:16:13 in 2008). I think he's really ready to bust one. In the long runs, he's been really consistent, which is what you want to see in a marathon segment. The track workouts are nice to feel good one, but the long runs are what's much more telling for the marathon.
Your work situation switched from Home Depot to being back at the Hansons Running Shops. Is that a little easier on you? Is it less physically strenuous?
BS: It might be a little physically less strenuous, but I'm probably working five to 10 more hours a week in the stores, a total of 25 to 30 hours, and the drive is probably an extra 45 minutes to day. It's probably a wash, It's probably a little easier physically, but with Home Depot, it was a little easier to get home and get a nap right after work.
Has your application process for dental school gotten underway?
BS: It's done. I'm just waiting right now. I got all my applications in at about the end of August. I took my entrance exam in mid-August. Most of the schools have a rolling admission through late winter or early spring, so it might be March before I hear anything.
Which schools have you applied to?
BS: I applied the University of Detroit here in Michigan, and then Ohio State, West Virginia, Pittsburgh, Temple, and North and South Carolina.
So you'd be prepared to move if necessary.
BS: Yes. The best-case scenario would be getting into Detroit, because the housing market is terrible in Michigan right now so I could stay in the house that's worth about $100,000 less than what I paid it four years ago, and I could hopefully ride it out (until the market value goes back up). But I'm more than willing to move wherever I get in.
In an interview with Duncan Larkin, you talked about the appeal of dentistry as opposed to some of the other medical routes you could take. I guess in general, you figure dentistry could give you a sort of normal life in which there weren't as many disruptive emergencies. And there's an easy sense of accomplishment when a dental task is done, whereas in other fields, cases could drag on forever. Can you talk a little about some of the reasons why dentistry appeals to you?
BS: The biggest thing for me is that I've always been what I would consider mechanical. I like working on bicycles and engines and motorcycles and stuff like that, and the medical field has always been interesting to me and a field I wanted to be in. Dentistry is a nice bridge between mechanical ability and a medical practice, I guess. I do like the idea of going in and finding a problem, going in with the drill and cleaning it all out and filling it back in and fixing it. I like that idea rather than "take two of these and call me in the morning."
Another big thing is that I grew up in a church with an orthodontist and he would take his summers and go over to some impoverished countries in Africa and do dental work for two or three weeks. He'd do a slide show every now and then. It looked pretty cool. That's definitely something in the back of my mind, too, that once I get established, to do something to give back, too.
There's always been talk of you as a "blue collar" type guy who has excelled after some fairly modest high school times. I don't want to push the "blue collar" thing too much, but do you have an awareness that your success has given some hope to people who aren't, say, 8:58 two-milers in high school? They're plugging away and maybe when they get a little bit older and move on to the longer distances, they can have greater success, too. Have you gleaned, from the running public over the years, that you're important to people as that kind of example?
BS: I would say a little bit, yeah. I get e-mails every now and then from kids in school who say they were inspired. A lot are from guys working nine-to-five jobs that say "it's nice to feel like I have something in common with you 'cause you still work" - not necessarily nine to five, but I still work to pay my bills. So I've definitely had e-mails and stuff from people like that. I think it's great. I hope I do inspire some kids to give it a shot, even after college. If you have a desire and the will to put in the work, anything's possible. We need that in American distance running. For the Kenyans and the Ethiopians, being a runner is like being Alex Rodriguez or something. They're making a boatload of money to run. I'm sure there are all talent levels. I don't know what guys' PRs might have been in high school, but I'm sure there were guys who were nowhere near what (Haile) Gebrselassie or someone like that was in high school but aspire to be that. Who knows? I bet there are stories from Kenyans that are 10 times as inspiring as mine - from some Kenyan who was a 9:50 two-miler and now he's running 2:06 or something like that (for the marathon). We need that in America. We need people to be inspired to go after it because you never know what you might be able to do until you give it a shot.
When you were in high school and college, doing things like the two-mile and the steeplechase, were you already thinking that your best running future lay with the marathon?
BS: Not really. I thought I was a miler in high school, to be honest. I had a guy on my time who was better in the two-mile than me; he was a 9:42 guy and I wasn't able to break 10:00. So I kind of focused on the mile and won that at Districts a couple of times and made States in the mile. Not until I got out here to Hansons, and when I led the Olympic Trials marathon for 20 miles or so in 2004 (he finished 13th), that was probably the turning point for me, where I thought the marathon was probably my best event. The first two or three years out here (in Michigan with the Hansons program), I thought I was going to run a 27:50 10K or make a World team in cross country. I was more focused on that.
Looking back, we'd get the sense you've accomplished as much as you expected or could want in running and maybe even more. There's not really any kind of regret of unfinished business, is there?
BS: No, definitely not. Making the Olympic team was big for me. That was kind of like, I guess, a weight off my shoulders. It just kind of changed people's perspective from "oh, you're a professional distance runner, what's that" to "oh, you made the Olympic team, cool." Even for my relatives and my family and my wife's family, that was just kind of a reaffirmation that all this time and stuff was worth it.
In the Olympic Trials, there was a lot of positioning back and forth, and the conventional wisdom was that if Brian is going to make the team, he has to be a frontrunner. It turned out to be different for you, coming back from behind and catching a couple of guys. Do you remember the feeling you had when you suddenly realized that you weren't going to be a fifth- or sixth-place guy, that you'd passed Dan Browne and whoever else you needed to pass and you actually were going to make the team?
BS: Probably the thing I most remember about the Trials is trying to look as smooth as possible going by Dan. He's a 27-minute (and change) 10K guy and I think he's broken 4:00 in the mile. I just had to try and erase any hope in his mind that he was going to hang on to me and outkick me. We watch running DVDs in the stores while we work; we have them on as kind of background, and we have the Olympic Trials on pretty often. It's just funny that you actually see that as I'm creeping up behind Dan and I enter his peripheral vision, I try to run a little taller and a little smoother and drop the arms and just look like I'm not even working. The minute I get 50 meters ahead of him, then the old form goes back to normal (laughs). So that was probably the big thing that was screaming through my head: "look comfortable, look easy, look strong. This is the spot right here, this is what you need, just one more lap (out of four, and you've got it." I didn't want to think I'd made the team until I crossed the line and was absolutely sure. Even that last two miles, I had my head down and was I was grinding just to try and hang on to that spot.
What kind of athletic person do you think you'll be from here on in?
BS: It will probably be more casual running. It's just tough to train for a 2:40 marathon after you've run 2:10, in my mind. I love mountain biking. I love road biking. I did a lot of that in high school and even in college. And running will always be a part of it, just a little bit of an outlet type of thing, get out in the morning before the kids get up and get five or six miles in and come home. One of my favorite times of the day is just in the morning after a run, making pancakes or an omelette, and just downing it and feeling really like I accomplished something in the morning and this is my reward. I'll keep doing it just for that, if nothing else.
Source: RunnersWorld - Thanks!
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