By Peter GambacciniPhoto by Jiro Mochizuki/Photo Run
James Carney will run the USA 20K in New Haven, Connecticut on Monday, Labor Day. He won the 20k in 2008 in 59:11; in 2009, for reasons he describes below, he was ninth in 1:00:21. He'll be doing the Bank of America Chicago Marathon on October 10. Carney was the 2008 USA Half Marathon champion in 1:02:21. In April in Rotterdam, he set his marathon personal best of 2:15:50. He had been 14th in the USA Men's Marathon Trials in November of 2007 in 2:16:54; it was his marathon debut, since he'd qualified based on 10,000-meter times. Carney, 32, is a New Balance athlete and is now a member of Team USA Arizona in Flagstaff and is coached by Greg McMillan. He was sixth in the Olympic Trials in the 10,000 in both 2008 and 2004. He ran his 10,000 best of 27:43.64 in 2007. Carney attended Millersville University, a Division II school, and Penn State, where he earned a masters degree in finance and logistics. Carney's other 2010 races include a second (to five-time winner John Korir) at the Bellin Run 10K in June in 29:23, an eighth in the 10,000 at the USA Track and Field Championships in 29:32.50, a fifth in the USA 10K, part of Atlanta's Peachtree Roadrace, in 28:57, and a fifth in the USA 7 Mile at Bix in 33:21; he was third in 2009 in 33:17. He was also part of a Team Colorado that got second to Ethiopia at Bolder Boulder. In high school, Carney was a 103-pound wrestler. "It's a great sport," he recalls. "It teaches a lot of mental tenacity."
Let's ask you, to start, about this New Haven 20K. You won it two years ago. Did you go back in 2009?
James Carney: I did. I didn't have a great race last year. I was leading through about halfway, just very aggressive. Most of the times that works out for me. Being aggressive is kind of the plan. But I paid the price for it last year and I blew up and ended up running pretty slowly. In the last 5k, I was probably running over 5:00 a mile at some point. But, you know, I went for it, and it didn't turn out the way I liked it, but more often than not, it does work out.
What can you say about the New Haven course? Aren't there one or two hills in it?
JC: The first half of that course went very, very quick. And then you get out by the water and the wind starts whipping, and there are a couple of little grinding hills in the second half. If you look at them, they don't look like much, but it's where they hit you that's tough. It's very, very difficult to run the second half of that race faster than the first half if you run the first half at all aggressively. I have negative split there, but we were just jogging the first half.
You mentioned how you usually run aggressively, and we found a comment online in which you recommended to other runners that they use "controlled aggression." Can you define "controlled aggression" as you usually practice it?
JC: It's being just on that edge of blowing up. And I'd say that your body, more often than not, will never go over that edge. Occasionally it will, like it did to me last year at New Haven. But it's just being really really aggressive but not going over the edge of it turning negative on you.
Can that idea be applied not just to the 20ks and half marathons you do but to the marathon as well … he asked, knowing that the man's experience has been a little different there?
JC: (Laughs). My experience, true, has been (different), exactly. But yeah, I think so. You just have to be a little bit wiser about it. That edge is a little bit harder to find in the marathon because there are more factors than just your aerobic threshold. There's fuel to be taken into consideration, and if you're going to run out of fuel before you get to the finish line. I'm sure I could go run 4:50 (per mile) pace in the marathon and it's not going to be put me in aerobic debt, but fuelwise, you're off to a 2:07 marathon pace. That's a different ballgame, isn't it?
Was your 2:15:50 at Rotterdam pretty evenly split or were you wearing out in the end?
JC: I went out in 65:50 for halfway, respectable, but it wasn't even like I even slowly slowed down. It wasn't like a gradual decline. It was more like I went from running 5:00 pace to running 5:20s all the way home. I definite had a headwind in Rotterdam from about 20k to 32k, about seven miles straight into a headwind, so that probably didn't help me. It was a good experience, and I think I walked away from that having learned a lot.
The last time we spoke you were still in Colorado. Were you part of that fledgling group that Alan Culpepper and the Torres brothers (Jorge and Ed) were putting together?
JC: I was never in that group. They were being coached by Steve Jones. I was always coached by Brad Hudson. even when they left, I stayed with Brad for a couple of years. I was doing a long distance thing with him. And then just recently, this spring, I started coaching myself for a little while until I could find a better situation.
How did you connect with Greg McMillan?
JC: Among the elites, you definitely have your ear to the ground and pay pretty close attention to the results and who's doing what. The performances speak for themselves with the guys in Greg's group. You can look at Brett Gotcher's performance in Houston and Nick Arciniaga's performance in San Diego and even Andrew Lemoncello's performance in London and you think "man, I'm as good as these guys, why can't I put it together?" Finally, I had to bite the bullet. It's not a comfortable move at all. I'm getting older, and the older you get, the harder it is to uproot yourself. It was a tough decision and I left a lot of friends in Boulder for an undetermined amount of time here (in Flagstaff). But at the same time, I have unfinished business and I want to achieve things in the marathon and I want to be a player in the trials next winter (January 2012 in Houston). If Greg can get me on the same playing field as the contenders, then I'm a happy guy. And I've most definitely been playing around with different things in my training, and I think it's just small tweaks that need to be made. I've begun to make those tweaks and hopefully it will make a difference in Chicago.
Can you give us a couple of examples of those tweaks?
JC: By no means am I comparing myself to (Zersenay) Tadese (the Eritrean who's won the World Half Marathon and World Cross Country), but I think he and I have probably the same problem with the marathon. He ran 2:11 or something in London but he's a 58-minute half marathoner. How is this guy running 2:11? The problem is his engine's burning too damn hot. He did all his tempo runs at 4:40 pace or whatever, and that takes your body to burn through your fuel very quickly rather than doing that slow burn. It's weird, since I've been in Flagstaff. It's almost like the training's very easy (laughs). I feel like I'm not really training. Instead of running tempos at altitude at 5:00 pace or faster, I was running 5:20 pace, which feels ridiculously easy to me. But maybe it's just the process of making my body recognize "okay, well we're going to be out here for a long time, and you need to slow down the burning process." I've been doing that, and it's kind of on a wing and a prayer here.
I guess we'll find out on October 10. But I'm encouraged by what I see. This is exactly what they've been doing here for the last several years and they've had success in the marathon. Even Fasil (Bizuneh) has been doing this work for only six weeks, and he had a great performance last weekend (Bizuneh won the USA Men's 10 Mile in Flint, Michigan).
Are Fasil and Nick Arciniaga your regular training partners?
JC: Yeah, it's been really good since I've been here in terms of training partners, because it's been years since I've had any kind of consistent guys to work out with. Since I've been here, almost every single run, I have someone to run with, and I definitely at least have someone to work out with on a hard day. That's just been night and day with the difference. Even having Greg out there on a tempo, it's just so much easier having somebody sitting there driving next to me and encouraging me in the last several miles, yelling motivating things out the window, like things about Chicago, "this is what it's going to be like, just keep grinding," encouraging things – where the last couple of years, I've just been out on Magnolia Road (in Colorado) with my iPod.
After Rotterdam, you raced a few times and were probably already thinking about another marathon, Chicago. You didn't run the 10k times you ran a couple of years ago, but considering what your priorities are now, are you pretty happy with how those races turned out?
JC: Ah, it's fine. I know that I have that component of the marathon, I have that horsepower to accelerate. I can run even a lot better at races like Peachtree and even at Bix. I only ran four seconds slower than I did last year (at Bix) when I was doing all the track training. It's fine. My whole priority this summer was to try and get into track shape between marathons and then transfer that fitness into that slow burn that the marathon requires. And I think I did a fairly good job of it. I don't need an overwhelming amount of VO2Max to run a great marathon.
Is there a target time for the Chicago Marathon? From your comments, I know 2:15 is not something you're happy with. I'd imagine 2:12 or something better is what you're looking for at this point.
JC: Greg has us just going for it, man. It's a little bit nerve-wracking. I went out in 65:50 in Rotterdam and obviously I didn't close. We (Carney and Bizuneh and Arciniaga) are going to out in 64:30. I'm nervous. I know it's aggressive, but I've just got to get my head wrapped around it, and that's it. That's what we're going for. One of our guys is going to pace it probably through 25 kilometers. It's either go with it or you run by yourself. I guess their idea is you're going to die some, get a little bit of wiggle room and go out in 64:30 and maybe run the second half in 66:00 and all of the sudden you've run 2:10. I guess that's the idea. That's what Brett (Gotcher) did in Houston.
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