Daily Herald Sports Special the Brown
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Q&A with Bernard Lagat By James Blum Sports Staff Writer
The men’s and women’s indoor track squads crossed paths with an all-time distance champion, Bernard Lagat, at the New York Road Runners Saturday Night at the Armory last weekend. In a time of eight minutes, 10.07 seconds, Lagat, 36, captured his fifth American indoor record. He has won two Olympic medals in his career, in addition to seven gold medals at various World Championships. Lagat started his career competing for his native Kenya, but became an American citizen in 2004. The Herald caught up with Lagat after his record-setting race. Herald: At what age did you first start to run seriously, and what did it consist of at that time? Lagat: Well, you know, the thing is I started running seriously after high school. I started training seriously but competing — I wouldn’t even call it competing because I was a college student and didn’t know much about anything ... I was 21 when I started competing, I would say, seriously. And then, of course, following up, coming up to Washington State (University), meeting my best coach, James Li, who has been my coach up ’til now. So everything has been so good, because from one coach who is really good in Kenya to another one who is even better in terms of coaching collegiate athletes and also professional runners.
long on the distance, in terms of doing the mileage, but now I can do longer mileage. So I am doing longer now, but I am concentrating on doing longer but also faster. If I do long, sometimes I split it into two, almost like I have a tempo run in there. I have to go all out, but still, at the end of it, I’m running 13 miles. And then we do track session once a week, sometimes twice a week, do purely tempo runs twice a week. So it’s those kind of workouts I do more than I used to do before. So it feels like my workouts are more distance now, more endurance paced because of my 5000-meter races. And so what should we expect from you in the future? What races do you have your eyes on? I have my eyes on the world championship 5000 meters. I’ll be running with strong guys now, young guys. There’s a guy from Kenya who ran 12:53 in 5000 meters last week. So those are the guys I’m expecting to meet, you know, the guy’s 20 years old and he’s running superbly fast right now. Very strong. So it depends
who I run against, but hey, I am out there pushing myself 100 percent in training. And do you have any thoughts on the 2012 Olympics? Yes — same thing and same approach as I’m doing for 2011 world championships is the same approach I will also be doing next year in 2012 as I prepare for Olympics. Of course, the more important thing is to be healthy, to be strong and to train well. At the same time, just pray that all goes well at the trials, that you make the team, because now the United States team is getting stronger. … They know that in order for them to be the best in the world, they have to race against the best. And you see the American guys going overseas competing at the very best level, and they do the best job. I’m proud of them all, and I’m happy that I’m in the mix of the American athletes that are doing well so far. So I’m going to be doing that knowing that it’s important, first of all, if I want to go to Olympics to run strong and to qualify for it.
Why did you decide to become a naturalized American citizen and compete for the United States instead of Kenya? What made me decide to do that is the fact that I was looking at my career and because what I’m going to do after my career is over is stay in America and, you know, work and raise my family in America. … I want to settle down, so when I start my family I could be able to stay in one place. And of course, being a runner, I would like to represent the United States to the best of my abilities, which I’ve been able to do in so many outings that I’ve been able to go, like world championships and even Olympics — even though I could not make it to the finals of the 1500, but made the finals of the five in 2008. Every experience I’ve had running in a 10-year period has been of great importance. So that’s one of the things that I actually enjoy in my career — representing the United States. What does your training consist of today? Well, it is a little bit changed. I used to concentrate more on not
Courtesy of Andre Zehetbauer
Bernard Lagat finished third in the 1500 meter event in the International Association of Athletics Federations 2009 World Championships in Berlin.
indoor track
Bears race in New York as national two-mile record set By James Blum Sports Staff Writer
As the Bears closed the book on their regular season at last Saturday’s New York Road Runners Night at the Armory meet, the record books were reopened — the Bears watched Bernard Lagat, professional distance champion, set a new American record in the indoor two-mile run. Although Brown did not bring home any records, the women claimed third place and the men finished seventh. Lagat’s impressive performance came during a special two-mile race at the meet, which also included high-school star Lukas Verzbicas, who was chasing the high-school two-mile record. Lagat broke the record, which had stood for 21 years, by five seconds as he clocked eight minutes, 10.07 seconds. “The pace started, you know, really nice and comfortable at the beginning,” Lagat said. “So that’s why I was able to do a 4:02 (mile) towards the end of the race.” Lagat was assisted in his efforts by pacing rabbits — two runners who helped him stay on his record-setting pace for portions of the race — but for the final laps of the race, Lagat was alone in his efforts. To put the accomplishment in perspective, both of Lagat’s miles were faster than Brown’s top one-mile finisher, Dan Lowry ’12, who ran 4:09.26. “This time around, it was different, you know, it was a special set of a race,” Lagat said. “And I knew that in order for me to get this record I had to be strong towards the end by myself.” Though he ran alone during the last laps of the race, the enthusiastic crowd of college runners cheered Lagat on. “The crowd was going crazy while he was running and after,” Lowry said. “We actually got a picture with him right after he did it.” Even when he was unsure if the crowd was cheering for him because he was behind or ahead of record time, Lagat acknowledged that the crowd helped push him. “Even towards the end there with five laps to go, they started banging on the sideboards,” Lagat said. “I was happy that I was able to be with them and run and get their support.” “The crowd was awesome,” Verzbicas wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. “The race was a good experience.” Verzbicas missed setting the high-school record Saturday evening by three seconds, as he ran 8:43.24. “Before the race, I felt great,” he wrote. “After though, I felt very bad for some reason. I must have had some sort of an allergic re-
action to the dust of the armory because I couldn’t stop sneezing for the next few days.” Although he did not break the record in this try, Verzbicas will compete in the 5,000-meter and two-mile at the New Balance Indoor Nationals in March. “When he came a little short of it, that’s the nature of it,” Lagat said. “I’ve tried to go into a race hoping to run a certain time, but I come short. But that doesn’t diminish my ambition, so I keep going and keep going and I told him the same thing as well.” Before and after the two-mile event, the Bears had several impressive performances of their own. The women accrued 84.50 points throughout the meet, and Brynn Smith ’11 won an individual title in the weight throw. “We had really good performances,” said Head Coach Michelle Eisenreich. Gabriela Baiter’s ’11.5 performance was another highlight of the meet for Brown, as she jumped 12.9 meters to capture second place in the triple jump. In addition, Colby Lubman ’14 earned fifth in the 400-meter dash with a time of 56.99 seconds. The women’s distance team also contributed to the third place finish with the 4x800-meter relay, earning second place overall. Firstyear runners Margaret Connelly ’14 and Heidi Caldwell ’14 claimed seventh and 11th place finishes in the 3000-meter run, which they ran to hit certain, controlled times according to Eisenreich. Though the men left the Armory with only 57 points overall, they did come away with two titles. Daniel Smith ’13 captured the shot-put title with a heave of 16.88m and John Spooney ’14 won the 200-meter dash in 21.94. The men also had some strong finishes in the longer events. Kevin Cooper ’13 came in second in the 1000-meter run. Lowry and Anthony Schurz ’12 placed well in the one-mile run, finishing sixth and ninth, respectively. “It was a (personal record) for me, so I’m pretty happy about that,” Lowry said. “It could have gone a little bit better, but two weeks out from (the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships), it’s a good sign of improvement.” The next challenge facing Bruno will be the USA Track and Field New England Championships at Harvard Feb. 20. “Not everyone is competing at the USATF meet,” Lowry said. “A lot of us aren’t competing if we are racing at Heps. We have a break week and then get some more speed work in.” The Ivy League Heptagonal Championships, hosted by Columbia, will be held Feb. 26 and 27.