Jorge Torres on His Marathon Debut at New York

Great article by Duncan Larkin for Running Times Magazine

In the era of 22-year-old, gold-medal marathoners like Sammy Wanjiru, American hopeful Jorge Torres may be a bit of an anomaly by choosing to debut at the ripe old age of 29. Even more of an anomaly is Torres choosing to run his first 26.2 miles in New York, one of the most challenging major marathons. But there’s a method to the madness. Torres, an eight-time All-American at the University of Colorado and a 2008 Olympian in the 10,000m, has been training this year under the watchful eye of former marathon world-record holder and NYC champ Steve Jones (AKA “Jonesy”). Look for Torres up there with the other American hopefuls contesting for the national title.

Running Times: I recently talked with your training partner Jason Hartmann. He told me that your coach, Jonesy, told him before his Twin Cities win that he was “ready.” Did he tell you that as well?

Jorge Torres: What he told me, he told Jason. He said I’m ready to go. I finished my final workout for New York City last week, which was last Tuesday. It was the hardest workout out of all my training. After I nailed it, he was like, “You are good to go.”

Jonesy has won New York City and has held the world record. So was that a pretty good blessing, then, wasn’t it?

JT: Oh yeah. Jonesy is going to tell you the way it is. He won’t blow any smoke up your butt. He either tells you you are ready or not. After I finished the build-up stage and the hard workouts, he told me I was pretty much good to go. He told me I had done all the work and it was time to relax.

Did he tell you anything else about NYC? I know when he ran it he pushed the envelope from the beginning. Did he tell you anything like that? Did he share any tactics with you?

JT: He pretty much told me that he doesn’t want me thinking too much about the race. He wants me visualizing the atmosphere and all that, but he doesn’t want me actually visualizing the race and getting too worked up about it until two to three days beforehand. He doesn’t want me spending my energy on it. He told me to stay relaxed and rest up now that the work is done, and don’t get worked up about it. He might talk to me about the actual race-day strategy closer to the race, like three days before. He just doesn’t want me to spend any unnecessary energy.

You ran the Great North Run in England, a half marathon, last month in 62 minutes. That was a tune-up race, right?

JT: Yep. The purpose of it was to get a longer race under my legs while I was doing high mileage. I used it as a hard training run during my work-up phase.

I heard you lost your bag on the way there. Is that true?

JT [laughing]: How did you know that?

I got my sources, Jorge.

JT [laughing]: Yeah, I lost my bag.

So did you get your bag before race day?

JT: I got it the night before my race. It was a short trip—pretty much get in, get out. I usually don’t check in my bags, but Jonesy was like, “I’m going to check in a bag.” So I decided to check one in too, which was one of the most idiotic things I’ve ever done. So sure enough, my bag doesn’t show up. The thing is, I’m a pretty relaxed guy so I took it well.

Did you have your race-day flats in there?

JT: I had everything in there. The only thing I had on me was my laptop and a sweater. All I could do was change my top. I had to wear the same thing over and over. I took it pretty well. I don’t let little things bug me. If it had been race day, it might have been a different story. I figured it would show up. They knew where it was.

Other than the bag debacle, were you happy with your performance at the Great North Run?

JT: Overall, I was happy with the performance. The main reason is that it was just a build-up. I mean I was just building my miles up and getting all the experience. As long as I came out of the race feeling comfortable, confident, and thinking that my pace there was long-term—26.2 miles. I knew if I could finish strong, I could run 26.2 miles that way. And I did finish strong. I got into a pace; I got into a rhythm. I practiced not to surge hard. You know in 10Ks you can surge hard and play the mind game, but all my teammates, Jonesy, and my brother, Eduardo, tell me that I make a mistake of surging early and eat it in later miles, so I tried to make it nice and easy—steady.

So you are saying that you got to play your cards more slowly in the marathon, right?

JT: Exactly. Even when I was coming down the home stretch, this guy [Chema] Martinez, a guy who has run 2:08, pulls up next to me. I had been running by myself the whole race from mile 2 to pretty much the last mile. So Martinez comes by me and surges past me. I had a decision to make. Jonesy had been telling me to practice steady-pace running. I said to myself, “You know what, let him go. You are just here for practice.” I knew that I was there to run the race at a good solid pace and I did that. As soon as I finished the race, I knew I could do it for 26.2 miles.

So you are saying it was a great learning experience for you there.

JT: It was a great learning experience. One of these days I want to do a half marathon at a faster pace. There it was pretty much all practice.

Let’s now talk about your debut in New York. You are following the traditional approach, which is to do the marathon later in your career. You see guys like Sammy Wanjiru doing the marathon at such a young age nowadays. Why did you decide to wait so long?

JT: I guess you could say that I am a traditionalist kind of guy. It’s something that I’ve gotten from my mentors. One of them passed away. [Torres’ long-time coach, Greg Fedyski, was killed in a car accident last summer.] Even Coach Wetmore and Coach Jones have told me that the time would be right when I’m ready to start the marathon. Coach Fedyski once told me that, once I had a good base of mileage under me and I was older, I’d be strong enough to run the marathon. Same thing with Mark Wetmore. So I’ve taken all this advice from people in my running career and have listened to them. I didn’t get caught up in the hoopla of starting early and doing it for the money or whatever the reasons.

I know from talking with Jason earlier that Jonesy has you guys doing three workouts a week and tempo runs at paces faster than race pace. I also know he’s not a big technology guy. Would you consider him doing anything unconventional?

JT: To tell you the truth, not really. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve seen a lot of programs and have talked with a lot of my colleagues. I know there are a lot of different build-up strategies. I look at Jonesy’s training philosophy and it’s like what you said: simple. There is no high-tech scientific reason behind it. You go off your gut instinct. You go with it and you believe in it.

The highest tech thing we have is on our Sunday runs, Jonesy drives around in a car and hands us water and GU. That is the highest tech we go. The rest of it is him on a bike clocking us or keeping an eye on us with his stopwatch. There’s no reason to bring anything like altitude chambers into it. He just wants us to grind it out. I like that. For me, it works with Jonesy. I follow him and I believe in him. That’s kind of what I believe in. I joke around once in a while with my friends. I say that we are kind of like organic. We’re green. We don’t use any of the extra stuff; we do it the natural way.

That’s funny. I know you guys have your Fight Club house and that movie is all about Spartan simplicity, so I guess the Jonesy way goes with that as well.

JT [laughs]: I never thought about it that way, but you’re right.

You’ve indicated that you plan to return to the shorter distance events next spring. As you know, Ritz set the American record in the 5,000m after his intense marathon work where he built up a huge aerobic base. So are you going to take a page out of his book?

JT: I hope I do exactly what Ritz did. Ritz proved that you can do it. Just because I’m doing the marathon doesn’t mean I’m off the track. I still think I can get some good track times in. I know if I build up my mileage and build up my base, like I’ve been doing for the marathon, I can come back even stronger on the track. I know that Ritz’s talent was aerobic capability. He has an amazing aerobic engine. Obviously he’s been building on this engine over several marathons. He had this high base. He came back and ran 12:56, because of this huge amount of strength. He couldn’t run a 1:48 800, but he could just go out there and hit 58s to 64 [-second laps]. For him it was a good rhythm—a good pace. I’m hoping I can build something like that. I’m hoping I can build my base where running low 60s is not that big of a deal. And that’s why I’m going to run track next spring, because I will have that base.

You are from Chicago. Why not debut in your hometown? Why did you pick a hard course like New York? Was it due to your schedule or something else?

JT: It’s more timing and schedule. Obviously as far as cross country goes, I’ve been a strong runner. I’m sure 26.2 miles is going to affect me, but I know I can handle the hills as well. You aren’t going to go wrong debuting in New York City. Mary Wittenberg and the New York Road Runners put on such a great race.

The main thing is schedule, to tell you the truth. Unfortunately, I had to push back my training. I did want to debut in Chicago, because it’s my hometown, and it would be a fantastic opportunity to get out there and give it a good effort, but unforeseen things happened, especially when my mom, my coach, and my sister-in-law were in a car accident, and I was mentally not into it. When I got back from all that, I saw the schedule and I realized that Chicago was definitely not possible. I would have had to force myself to train in such a short period of time, whereas if I ran New York City, I could have a lot more of a calm and relaxed training style.

As you head into this big race, I’m sure Coach Fedyski would be really proud of you. What do you think he’d be telling you right now?

JT: Over the years, Fed taught us that if you get in good training, the race will take care of itself. He never really gave me big rah-rah speeches. Even when I was in junior high or high school, as soon as I’d finish my last workout, he was like Jonesy, he’d kind of give you this nod like you were ready to go—not much more than that. I think if Greg saw me finish my last workout, he’d give me the nod.