Shalane Flanagan
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T&FN iNTeRvieW Shalane Flanagan lready the American Record holder in the Country, the 8K Championships and the by Sieg 5000 (and the indoor 3K), Shalane Flana- big 10K at Cardinal plus the Trials and Agan didn’t just move up to the 10,000 in Games, of course. You’ve been very careful Lindstrom the Olympic year. with picking your spots. She bounded up, erasing Deena Kastor’s AR Flanagan: Yeah. I have a really with a 30:34.49 race in her debut 10K before hard time going out to race just for the winning an electric OT duel with Kara Goucher, sake of racing. I really have to have, then overcoming a brutally untimely case of food for better or worse, a very tangible poisoning to earn the goal—whether it’s to break a record, Flanagan In Olympic bronze. win a championship. A Nutshell The Tar Heel I have a hard time toeing the line alum also placed 3rd if there isn’t something at stake, •Personal: born Boulder, in the Trials 5000, because otherwise I figure I may as Colorado, July 8, 1981; 10th in the tactical 5 well be training so I gain that extra 5-5/113 (1.65/51) in Beijing and added level of fitness. Maybe I don’t get as •Schools: Marblehead the USATF road 5K much race experience but I think in (Massachussets) HS ’00; North Carolina ’04; now title to wind up her long-term development it will save represents Nike year. Better than me a little bit. •Coaches: Michael Whit- fair-to-middlin’ in T&FN: How did you manage that tlesey (North Carolina), a distance she says transition from the emotional peak of John Cook (pro) she was never sharp the Trials to the ultimate peak at the •PRs: 1500—4:05.86 for in ’08. Games? (’07); 3000—8:33.25i AR While rival Flanagan: I was pretty much use- (’07); 5000—14:44.80 AR Goucher tacked on less that week after the Trials—10 days (’07); 10,000—30:22.22 a marathon debut in almost. It was a little hard to get back AR (’08) New York (see p. 29), into training with intensity because •Major Meets: 1500—1) Flanagan, held off for here is the culmination for a lot of ACC, 10)NCAA ’01; 1) now—although she athletes and I felt it was extremely ACC, 3)NCAA ’02; 1)ACC, definitely wants to hard to get back and get psyched up 5)USATF ’03; 6)OT ’04. explore the 26-miler, for training. 5000—1)ACC, 2)NCAA, 2) in which her mother, But my husband and I through USATF ’03; 3)OT, 11h)OG ’04; 1)USATF, 7h)WC ’05; Cheryl Treworgy, talking to coach [Joe] Vigil and coach 1)USATF, 8)WC ’07; 3)OT, ran 2:49:40 for a WR Cook decided to go back to altitude 10)OG ’08. 10,000—1)OT, in ’71 and her father in Colorado Springs, at the Olympic 3)OG ’08 Steve ran 2:18. Training Center, and just focus and get •World/U.S. Rankings: Come the new reinvigorated with the trails. 1500—x, 6 ’03; x, 9 ’04; x, 2 year, Flanagan will Coach Cook didn’t come. It was ’07. 3000—x, 5 ’03; x, 3 ’05; head to altitude in just my husband and me. But we x, 1 ’07. 5000—x, 4 ’03; x, 3 Mexico with two do a lot on our own so we manage ’04; x, 1 ’05; 10, 1 ’07 other members of ourselves pretty well. There was just coach John Cook’s a bunch of Olympic athletes in general group, Olympic milers Erin Donohue and Shan- at the Training Center that were go- non Rowbury. There they will train, as in ’08, with ing to be going to Beijing. So it was retired marathoner Germán Silva. kind of an exciting place to be, to be T&FN spoke with Flanagan just after NYC honest. You had wrestlers, you had Marathon Weekend, on which, she explained, she swimmers and all that. stayed home with husband Steve Edwards in Chapel We were there two or three weeks Hill, celebrated Halloween with her nephew and and we flew directly to the training grilled in the backyard. camp from Colorado Springs. T&FN: What kind of training did Flanagan: It’s been kind of a big celebra- you do? tion the past two months more than anything. Flanagan: We went back to a little Coach had us take off close to a month. At first bit of strength and kind of relied on when he told me that, I thought, “There’s no that we’d do most of our speed once way I’m going to be able to do that,” but I we got to Dalian. I just got in some actually really needed it. I really enjoyed my good quality tempos and good quality time off. I went to visit friends and family all stuff on the track—longer repeats. over the country. T&FN: What do you mean by longer T&FN: Looking at your season, you didn’t just repeats? go out and race randomly. You ran USATF Cross Flanagan: I’d have to look back and 30 — January 2009 Track & Field News GiANCARLO COLOMBO/PHOTO RUN see what I did [laughs]. Maybe I was just praying to get through a run. The not necessarily long-long repeats, first one I got through without a pit stop was but I remember specifically one Thursday night, and then I raced Friday. It was workout that gave me a signal cutting it close. Literally within 24 hours things that I was getting into the kind of changed for the better but if I had gotten sick form that I needed to be. Because any later it would have been too bad. I’d done it earlier in the year right T&FN: What did you do to try to recover? before Stanford and that was a Flanagan: I couldn’t get an IV because they good indicator of what I was go- claimed that that was illegal; like I would be ing to run, and this one was even trying to cover up some type of drug. It was faster than the earlier one. kind of limited: just good Imodium and some I think we did—I want to say, 8 electrolytes was about all I was allowed to quarters in like 70 with very little take. But I had a good feeling warming up that rest, 60–90 seconds. At altitude I I think things are going to be fine. may have had to give myself a T&FN: Coach Cook mentioned after the race little bit more rest. Then I think that Amy and Kara were using ice vests during I had maybe a 3K kind of time their warmup. He asked if you wanted to use one trial in between and then 8 more too and you replied, pardon my French, “[expletive quarters at 70 or faster. deleted] it—we don’t need an ice vest.” So just to be on my legs that Flanagan: His language rubs off on me. You long—for me the 10K is the mix a Bostonian with a guy whose language pounding—with decent quality is not PG-rated [laughs], so it makes for an was the goal. interesting mix. T&FN: So you were supremely But I had never really, to be honest, used an prepared and then just before you ice vest. Nike was nice enough to buy one for me were to fly from Dalian to Beijing for and I’d used it a little bit in Colorado Springs the 10K, you got food poisoning. but it wasn’t part of my normal routine and Flanagan: Yeah. We had decided to fly out on Tuesday and The Medal-Winning Strategy our race was Friday After her travails in just reaching the Beijing starting night. Monday night line, Shalane Flanagan employed a simple race strategy to I woke up and was earn her 10K medal: just extremely ill. My “My goal going in was just to be top 6 and at one poor roommate, Amy point when the front pack broke away from me I [Yoder Begley], heard remember saying, ‘OK, I’m in 6th position; I’m going me get up and down a to defend this position like my life depends upon it. million times and we If I can pass some people, so be it, but I’m going to had to fly out early defend this spot.’ that morning. Coach Cook felt like it was going to be an honest I was just trying to race. So I was kind of prepared. And I knew when it get myself composed went it was a solid move. I knew it wasn’t one to just so that I could even let them go; I knew it was a solid move considering get on a flight. the people that were at the front. I thought, ‘There’s So I was meeting no way I’m going to just let people take off.’ ” with my coach and She moved up to 3rd by the end but appeared unsure some doctors at 4:00 whether she had medaled. Was she just looking for confir- or 5:00 in the morn- mation or really unsure? ing, trying to get “I pretty much knew, but it was like a NASCAR some medicine in me race out there.