Nate Brannen | | Q: What has been the most challenging aspect in your attempt to reach your country's qualifying mark
Brannen: "Outside of the ankle injury, which set back my training several weeks, I'd say just getting into the right races and having the right conditions in place to run a fast time. Weather really plays a big part in running fast. Both Willis and I knew we were capable of hitting those standards when we started training; the only thing preventing us from accomplishing it was potential injury and inadequate conditions."
Q: What is your opinion on the tougher Canadian qualifying standards
Brannen: "I think the reasoning behind it can be justified. They want to send a competitive team that has the ability to finish among the top 12 in the world. However, I think it hurts developing athletes. When they look at the tougher standards, it can discourage them to the point where they won't even give it a try. Ultimately, we're going to lose people from the sport when we really want to gain people. We're taking away from athletes who could potentially be Olympians or national champions. Two Canadians athletes -- Simon Whitfield and Perdita Felicien -- would not have made it in 2000 with the tougher standards, and one went on to win gold in the triathlon and the other is a two-time world champion. They both said that the opportunity to compete gave them that much more confidence. I certainly wasn't going to win a gold medal in Athens, but the experience would have been huge going into 2008."
Q: How much weight lifting do you incorporate into your training regime
Brannen: "This past year was the first time lifting legs for me; I had only done arms before. I typically lift three days a week -- twice working both upper body and legs and once working just arms. When I start racing, I'll drop that down to twice a week, working upper and lower body both times. It's nothing heavy, just enough to add a little more strength."
Q: Without the qualifying standard, do you still have a chance at Athens What are your plans for the remainder of the summer
Brannen: "The plan was to go to the trials and obviously hit the standard or not hit the standard. If I didn't hit the standard, I was going to continue on racing and just try to run fast either in Europe or find some races in North America. After the race, though, I was feeling pretty jet-lagged from going to Europe and discouraged by not making the time and kind of decided to call the season quits, end early and start training for cross country."
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Nick Willis | | Q: Can you tell me about your stretch and strengthening program I guess it is performed in the evening before retiring for the night.
Willis: "I guess I've figured out just through running that you've got to pay observation to how your body's feeling and know which muscles are tighter and fatiguing more than others. So, using video analysis and getting your coach to watch you run as well as analyze how your feeling, you work out which muscles you need to work on, whether it's strength or flexibility. You need to work on your weaknesses rather than your strengths to balance it out; that's really helped me with injury prevention. I probably devote 30-40 minutes a day to stretching, and I think that's been one of the main reasons why I haven't been injured over the last three years. In terms of strengthening exercises, I have a basic routine in the weight room, but there's a number of other things I do to increase my hip flexors and hamstrings, which are probably my weaker muscles. I think it's a matter a staying in a consistent routine; the main aim of any runner should be to find any means to stay injury free."
Q: I watched your 3,000-meter race at the NCAA Indoor Championships, and I noticed how relaxed you looked even know I know you were hurting so bad. Do you work on your relaxation or does is just come naturally
Willis: "Both my high school coach in New Zealand and Ron (Warhurst) have always worked on keeping me as relaxed as possible in workouts and training. I don't think I've ever really gotten to a stage where my form is out of sync. I like to be tired in a workout if I'm in a controlled motion, but if I'm so tired that my form loses total fluidity or I get out of sync, then I'll pull out of it. I'm always trying to work on looking and feeling as relaxed as possible. I don't really think about it during a race; so I guess as long as you do it in training, it will come out at race time. Ron's always telling me to relax, and I definitely do it a lot more when he's there. The last 150 meters in a race is usually the time when I forget I to relax; I still need to work on it more, but I definitely think that you run your best when you're able to keep your muscles as loose as possible to let the blood flow, so you don't stiffen up and get turtleneck, as Ron says."
Q: What approach do you take to base and strength training for cross country and track Which system do you prefer
Willis: "I'm a strong believer in getting as big a base as possible. Coming from New Zealand, it's always been the Lydiard system, where the bigger the base, the taller the pyramid. Within reason though, I like to push my mileage up as high as I can as long as my body is still responding. I'm at about 75-85 miles per week now during the cross country season. I use the cross country season as a launch pad for track rather than trying to peak for cross country. I think that's an aspect that a lot of runners neglect, and then they're burnt out by the time the outdoor season comes. So, ideally I'd like to push it up to 100 miles per week within the next few years, but at the moment I'm not ready for it. You can only work your speed as far as you can, but the stronger you are, the more relaxed you'll feel during a race to be able to use your speed at the end."
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Ron Warhurst | | Q: I've been injured most of my senior year, and I was wondering if you have any advice for a runner who has been in a slump for a year and is trying to get ready to run again
Warhurst: "The most important thing is to not overtrain while you're trying to get back into it. If an athlete has been injured over a given period of time and hasn't been able to train for 3-6 months and tries to do too much too soon, they will more likely than not get injured again. So, it needs to be a steady progression of upping the mileage in increments of 5-8 miles a week over three- or four-week periods."
Q: I've noticed that Nate and Nick's mileage dropped considerably when they started racing. Were they tapering for the trials and to run 'A' standards After this taper, will they build back up to prepare for Athens
Warhurst: "Nate and (Andrew) Ellerton had to taper before the trials in order to get the 'A' standard. Unlike the U.S. trials, if they don't run that standard, they're done; it doesn't matter what place they get at the trials. We just dropped Willis' mileage a little bit -- I don't really call it 'tapering' -- because we knew that if he made the standard, he'd have 5-6 weeks to upgrade his training again to build a base for Athens, which is what we're in the middle of right now." |
