One of the things you explained last fall is that you did the training you'd normally do for a marathon but didn't do a marathon, you went to the World Half Marathon (in October) instead and had a good result there. Does that mean that you've already done the training in one cycle that would make you a lot better than a 2:10 flat marathoner?Dathan Ritzenhein: I wouldn't say that we trained for a marathon. It was maybe an abbreviated training cycle from the time of that 5k American record to the World Half Marathon Championships. We did some things that you would do in marathon training but we didn't get quite up to the full volume that we probably would because it was only a matter of about half a marathon training cycle. At that point, I was very strong and my training was going good and I had really hard workouts and that's the kind of stuff that we'll get back to as we sharpen up into that marathon time. But there will be a lot more foundational stuff as well.
How comfortable are you with the refinements made on your form and with running with inserts? Do you feel very comfortable out there running now with this new situation?
DR: Yeah. We worked on that a lot over the course of the winter. I got familiar with a big change for me. All the way to the time of the U.S. Cross Country Championships (in February), my form had changed a lot and I got to the point where I was comfortable running like that and being a lot more efficient in that way. And now, really, it's hard to go back to the old way. I couldn't do that. It doesn't feel as real anymore …. I feel really comfortable now, The inserts feel real good. There's still a little bit of refining on them, but at this point, I feel like when I train daily now, it feels good and my body's getting used to it.
Is there anything very obvious that you could explain about the change of form? For example, is it something like going from a heel-striker to not being a heel-striker?
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