Next Sunday, thousands of runners will converge at Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island for the start of the 40th ING New York City Marathon.The motivation for each and every runner will be different.
For the elite international athletes, there is prize money and glory. For the American men there is U.S. Marathon championship on the line. For a number of celebrities, there is the opportunity to raise funds and awareness for a number of charities. Others will run to support family members, to celebrate life after beating illness or simply to push their bodies to their physical limits.
Bolota Asmerom will be running in New York for the second year in a row to prove that...well, just because he can.
"I found my niche a long time ago," Asmerom said in a phone interview from his home in Oakland, Calif. "I'm a runner. I run every race, every distance I can run. I don't believe in specializing. I think specializing is not in my nature. I'm just old-school that way."
In an age when runners often fall into categories - "John Smith is a top-notch distance runner" - or are classified based on their strongest event - "Jane Doe is pretty good miler" - Asmerom is one of few that is proving to be competitive on an elite level across a variety of distances.
Asmerom said versatile runners are what drew him to the sport as a teenager.
"What brought me into the sport were those athletes who can do five events at the same time, like a Kip Keino who could have the world record in everything," Asmerom said. "I started my career right around the time when Bob Kennedy ran 12:58 (for 5K). That was the year I graduated from high school. Every morning I woke up and the first thing I thought was that I've got to run 12:58. But I also looked at Bob Kennedy as a whole. He's run 7:30, he's broken 3:50-whatever in the mile, he's done great 10Ks. He even attempted marathons later in his career. Bob was a runner, not as a 5K guy because that's where he had the American record."
Labeling a runner like Asmerom, who is solid in so many events, can be difficult (his personal bests). Where do you begin to pigeonhole a runner who, just this season alone, ran 3:40.84 in the 1500m, 7:45.89 in the 3000m, 13:24 in the 5000m, 13:58 in a 5K road race, 30:02 in a 10K on the road, and 63:06 in a half marathon?
One place you wouldn't start is with the 10,000m.
Last November, Asmerom finished a respectable 10th overall in New York, running 2:16:37 in his first-ever marathon. Yet he has been unable to finish a single 10,000m race on the track in his professional career. He tried for the third time this March at the Stanford Invitational but was only able to complete 20 laps of the 25-lap race, one more than he did in 2008.
"That still puzzles me," Asmerom said. "Last year I was like, ‘Now I've run a marathon, so I've got to be able to finish this 10k.' I came back and tried a 10K and got through 20 laps. I did one more than I did the year before. I was like, ‘Damn, it broke me again.'
"The difference between the 10K and the marathon is that in the marathon you have things to look forward to, You know you get a drink every three miles so that kind of breaks up the monotony of just running the same pace. Or you might get a hill, or go into a different part of town. When you're doing 25 laps, every lap is pretty much identical and that's a long time to be focused. I think that's the part of it that's most challenging for me."
Asmerom said he didn't have too much difficulty making the transition from running predominantly on the track to competing in his first marathon a year ago.
"The biggest challenge, mentally, are the questions like, ‘Am I really prepared? Am I going to hit the wall? After 20 miles, what's going to happen?'" Asmerom said. "Physically, you almost have to transform your body from trying to run 56s or 57s all the time to a person who your coach is telling you to run 72s. You're like, 'Seventy two seconds? What is that? I can run that backwards.' But then you realize after running 72s for like five miles, you're practically sprinting. Then you're like, ‘How am I supposed to keep this up for 26 miles?' Surprisingly, it all comes together. You just have to be able to trust in your ability."
He added that you also have to believe in the training that you put in, something he was not overly confident in last year. This time around, Asmerom said been able to maintain the speed he uses on the track while also developing the core strength and endurance needed to excel over 26.2 miles.
"Last year, I still had my track legs so I was going out a little too fast all of the time and not being able to finish those workouts because every workout was like 20 miles long," Asmerom said. "This year, I was able to just build on that and get a little more controlled and focused and kind of get the big picture. I am still able to do some pretty good 200s and quarters but I am still able to do those 23-, 24-mile runs and 12-, 13-mile tempos and I'm okay to come back the next day and do it again. My legs are not wobbling anymore and things like that."
That improved training has Asmerom entering this year's race with a more positive outlook.
"I want to put myself in a situation where I could potentially win," he said. "I'm not going to disrespect anybody in the field by saying I'm going to beat them. But the only way I can make sense of running 26 miles is for me to believe that I have the possibility of being competitive or being a contender."
Asmerom said his time goal is to break 2:12. He said that to do so it will be important for him to run with the lead pack for as long as possible.
"I tell other runners all the time that you want to be near the front all the time because that's where the energy is," said Asmerom, who coaches at the University of California, his alma mater. "There is a bubble around the top pack and you got to jump in it if you can and not settle for the second one or third one. I want to envision myself in the front pack. If I can stay in that pack for 20 miles, that's a win for me.
"Last year, a lot of people told me, ‘Don't go out the first half because it's all about the second half.' I listened to them but I still died the second half. I finished the race but I didn't use the best tactics because I took myself out of the front pack. I want to put myself in the mix. I think one of the biggest lessons I learned was that you don't want to create too big of a gap in the first half of the race because it's only going to get longer in the second half. If I'm not being competitive then I'm just out there tempoing and then it's not a race anymore."
This much is certain: With another respectable finish, Asmerom will prove once again that he is one of the most versatile runners in the American ranks.
And what could be cooler than that?
"This year, I've run every race from 1500m up now to the marathon," Asmerom said. "That's it for me, to be able to prove to myself that I can run every distance possible, and that I'm still competitive with the very best at the highest level. I opened with a 3:40 in my 1500m coming back from the marathon. That lets me know that I can run even faster in the mile and because I have that speed, I should be able to hang with the very best of them in the marathon also.
"I don't know if it's logical to think that way, but it's so exciting to be able to go from one of the shortest distance races to the longest one and still be able to compete and have respectable times. I thrive on that. One day, maybe I'll end up being just a 5K guy or just a marathon guy, but I don't know if I'll have a lot of fun. And if I'm not having fun anymore, what's the point?"
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