A Brief Chat With Simon Bairu

By Peter Gambaccini



Simon Bairu, 27, who set the Canadian 10,000-meter record of 27:23.63 this spring, will make his 26.2-mile debut at the ING New York City Marathon on November 7 along with Tim Nelson, who was his teammate at the University of Wisconsin and is now part of the same Oregon Track Club training group coached by their former college mentor Jerry Schumacher. Chris Solinsky and Matt Tegenkamp also made the Wisconsin-to-Oregon move. While at Wisconsin, Bairu was the NCAA Cross Country champion in 2004 and 2005

Bairu won the Rock 'n' Roll Arizona Half Marathon, just his second career race at 13.1 miles, in 1:02:47 this winter, defeating American marathon ace Ryan Hall. Bairu was 13th in the 2010 World Cross Country Championships. He's the reigning Canadian champion for 10,000 meters and has been his nation's cross country champion seven times. Bairu was born to an Eritrean father and an Ethiopian mother who fled the war between their two countries and ended up briefly in Saudi Arabia, where Simon was born. The family then lived for a short time in Greece before moving to Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada when Simon was three. When we called Bairu, he told us "I just got back from driving Shalane to a massage" (Shalane Flanagan is also part of Schumacher's group and is also doing the ING New York City Marathon).

Are there workouts Shalane Flanagan can do with the guys – long slow runs, for example?
Simon Bairu: Yeah, usually the way we do it is we double almost every day. We'll do our longer run in the morning and then we'll do a 35-minute jog or shakeout in the evening before doing our strength work. So she'll do that with us once in awhile. For the longer stuff, at first her plan was to stick it with us for as long as she could and then blow herself up, but I think that was starting to catch up to her, so we kind of just do our own things on the longer runs and then try and coordinate the shorter runs together.

In this build-up to the ING New York City Marathon, are Tim Nelson and you working out together and doing the same stuff?
SB: Yeah, we do all our workouts together. It's kind of cool. We've been in training camp (together) for about eight years now. Nothing's really changed.

Some of these professional groups form with the idea of creating marathoners. When yours was formed, did Jerry Schumacher make it clear that there was a timetable that would lead toward your doing a marathon?
SB: Yes and no. Jerry had indicated to me, even when I was a senior in college, that the marathon was eventually going to be my event. But at the same time, he wasn't really pushing that idea. He just let me mature mentally and physically to the point where I wanted to do the marathon. For the longest time, I was kind of intimidated by the marathon and I didn't want to run it. I thought it was too daunting for me. But eventually, I started to warm up to it and we started doing some mileage and testing out how my body would react to stints of high mileage training. It just got to a point where we said "okay, we're ready for the marathon," and that's where we are today.

Have there been some things about the adjustment to marathon training that have been tough? I imagine you're doing longer hard runs than ever before, right?
SB: Yeah. You know, I was actually going to debut last year in New York and my body just wasn't handling the high mileage as well as I'd wanted to, and I just started to break down after awhile. It was got to the point where I couldn't do workouts that I was doing in college. We just decided to back off a little bit, take some down time, and just get used to the mileage without the intensity of it. That was probably the best thing I could have done, because this year, the training's just been phenomenal. I've been able to not only do the mileage but actually get in some high quality workouts along with the high mileage.

And you're making your marathon debut in New York City, which is not the easiest course in the world. What was the thinking on that, rather than doing something like Chicago?
SB: Because we didn't want the first marathon to be a time trial type of thing. My background has always been as a cross country runner. That's always been my strength. We wanted to find a tough course where you can have the hills and you can have challenges on the terrain, and that is New York for you. It's one of those races where a 2:09 can win it, and will win it most years. We knew it was going to be a tough race and there weren't going to be any rabbits in it. It's about as similar to cross country as a marathon gets.

You won the Rock 'n' Roll Arizona Half Marathon in January. The big news there was that you beat Ryan Hall. He was in marathon prep for Boston, but taking down someone that highly regarded is always a confidence booster, isn't it?
SB: Yeah. I have a lot of respect for Ryan. He's a great athlete. I'm confident I didn't get Ryan's best shot, seeing as he had bigger goals at the time. To be honest, beating Ryan or not beating Ryan was not really the point of that race. The training was going well, and just to be able to run 62:47 and feel the way I did was more the key than who I beat and who I didn't beat in a race. That was really all we were looking for, to get in a good pace and see how my body reacts to it.

When you ran your 27:23 for the 10,000, you weren't thinking about the marathon yet, were you? That was really a peak track effort, wasn't it?
SB: We knew before the race that that was going to be the end of the season for me and I wanted to make sure I went out with a bang. I think my legs were a little rusty, just coming off of World Cross Country. But the race was honest from the beginning and the plan for me was to just hold on for as long as I can and then finish strong at the end. I was definitely happy with it. We were peaking for that race, and after that, I took a month off.

Partly this depends on what you do in New York, but you might have some choices to make regarding what events you want to do at the 2011 World Championships and the 2012 Olympics.
SB: Working with Jerry, we always take it one race at a time. To be honest with you, New York's going to determine what I do at Worlds next year. Right now, the focus is New York. After New York, if it seems like I could be a serious medal contender at the World Championships, I'll think about that seriously. But right now, I haven't really decided whether I'm going to do the 10K or the marathon.

I don't know how close knit the Canadian running community is, but are you friends with Eric Gillis and Reid Coolsaet and will you be watching with a lot of interest to see what they do at the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon on September 26?
SB: I definitely will be. I see those guys at meets and I talk to them through e-mail once in awhile. I know Eric Gillis had a really good (marathon) debut considering that he held back a little bit. That's always a good sign. I think Reid Coolsaet will do just as well as Eric, if not better. Those guys are pretty similar. Its going to interesting to see how Toronto goes.

There's a lot of continuity in your running life since you started at the University of Wisconsin. You're still with Jerry, your coach, and still with some of the same guys. There aren't too many world class runners who've been with the same bunch of people that long. It's like being part of a family, isn't it?
SB: Oh yeah. There's really an emphasis on team. As individual as the sport is, we care about what the other guys are doing. And that helps me. If I'm doing something wrong, Matt Tegenkamp or Chris Solinsky is going to pull me aside and tell me "start doing this more, or start doing this less." Just having guys on the team who not only care their own interests but other people's interests really helps you excel. Another thing that's great about that is we all kind of do the same training. So when we see that training pay off for someone, we know we're all going down the right path. Seeing how great Chris' summer has been ( Solinsky set a U.S. record of 26:59.60 in the 10,000 and ran three 5000s under 13:00) gives me the confidence that we're doing the right thing here and I just have to keep buying into Jerry's system and I'll be alright down the road.

You moved to a few different countries before you were three years old. Do you remember any of that at all?
SB: No. It's one of those things where you look at pictures and hear the story so many times that you think you remember. It might be like a false memory. I've definitely heard plenty of stories about my time in Greece and I've seen pictures. I'm able to make a picture from those things, but I really don't have any memory from Saudi Arabia or Greece, to be honest.

When you see Meb Keflezighi, who is originally from Eritrea, win in New York, do you feel any kind of fellowship with him?
SB: Oh yeah. Meb has always been an inspiration for me. Growing up, before I even knew who Meb was, the Eritrean community in Regina used to call me Little Meb. He's known all over North America. Being able to race against him for the first time (in New York) is actually going to be pretty awesome for me, and that's something I'm looking forward to. He's had a lot of success as an Eritrean-American and I'm hoping to duplicate that success as an Eritrean-Canadian.

We applauded when Solinsky and Tegenkamp broke 13:00 for 5000 meters, but they almost have to do that to even make an American national team now. Since Canada has fewer runners of that caliber, is there less pressure on you?
SB: The thing with everyone in our group is we put more pressure on ourselves than anyone else ever could. I really feel the same amount of pressure because I expect great things for myself. I'm here in the States representing Canada. That's the way I look at it; I'm representing an entire country, in some ways. The pressures I put on myself are a lot greater than anyone else, and I know for Chris and Matt, it's the same thing. For as much pressure as you think there is on them from the media or other people, the pressure they put on themselves is probably ten times worse. I think that's kind of what fuels us.

Well, that quote you had up with your KIMbia bio, "everything is possible for those who believe," it seems like that's a key element of your group. Americans, not long ago, used to aim at running 13:20 for 5000 or barely breaking 28:00 for 10,000 and those were considered major accomplishments. Obviously, you guys have much stronger belief in yourselves than that.
SB: It all comes back to Jerry. Like you say, we're fortunate to be with him for so long. He's always tried to instill in us not to have any barriers in our running. Breaking 27:00 for Chris Solinsky–before the race, people would have told him how impossible that is. But for him, he was just running, he was just going to run as hard as he could for 25 laps. And that's all he did. He wasn't really thinking about the time.

It's the same thing for all of us. We don't set those barriers. I truly believe I can put myself in a situation where I can win New York in my debut marathon. To some people, that sounds a little odd, considering I've never run a marathon. And they might say "why put that kind of pressure on yourself?" It's not the pressure I put on myself. I'm breaking down those barriers that have been set up. You're not supposed to aim for a win in your debut marathon. At the end of the day, it's just running. And that's all you do…There's so much intrigue behind the New York City Marathon. At the end of the day, I'm just happy that I can have this as my memory of my debut marathon. That's going to be pretty cool.