Interview with Peter Gilmore

By Cecil Harris

It’s not likely that anyone will outwork Peter Gilmore as he pursues his dream of making the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team in the marathon. Other runners may have bigger names and more impressive resumes, but few can match Gilmore’s determination to succeed. A strong work ethic has enabled him to join the sport’s elite while studying for a graduate degree in finance.

Gilmore, 30, has completed 10 marathons since his debut at the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon in 2002. He has placed in the top 10 at the Boston Marathon in each of the last three years, including a PR of 2:12:45 while finishing seventh in 2006. He led this year’s race with 12 miles to go before finishing eighth—and first among Americans—in 2:16:41 on a cold, rainy morning. He also competed in the 2005 IAAF World Championships Marathon in Helsinki.

Born and raised in Pacific Palisades in Southern California, Gilmore moved north to attend the University of California at Berkeley and now lives in San Mateo. As part of his preparation for the Olympic Trials on November 3, he trains for nine weeks each year with Coach Jack Daniels at Northern Arizona University’s Altitude Training Center in Flagstaff.

New York has seen plenty of Gilmore lately. He ran in the ING New York City Marathon 2006, finishing 10th in 2:13:13. He’ll run in the NYC Half-Marathon Presented by NIKE on August 3. It’s all part of his strategy to get used to Central Park and New York’s bright lights before the Olympic Trials. He talked about his career and his Olympic dreams with MensRacing.com in a telephone interview before going out for a 20-mile training run.

MensRacing.com: I want to read a quote about you from Mary Wittenberg, the president and CEO of New York Road Runners: “Peter is in a position to motivate high school and college runners everywhere. This is a regular guy who is a workhorse and believes in himself. With little fanfare and steady progression, he has propelled himself into the upper echelon of USA distance running.”

Peter Gilmore: Wow. It’s great to hear those kinds of things about me. But I really don’t think I’m that different from most of the guys I run against. Everybody’s working exceptionally hard and nobody’s getting a whole lot of fanfare, at least compared to other professional sports in this country. Running has always been a self-motivation thing for me. You keep plowing away at it and, hopefully, you’ll accomplish the things that make you feel satisfied at the end of the day. If people take notice, that’s great. But you’ve got to be self-motivated.

MR: Brian Sell is another marathon runner who has the reputation of being an extremely hardworking, self-made star in the sport. Do you see a similarity between yourself and Brian?

PG: Yeah. Brian’s a great example of what it takes to succeed. He’s working at Home Depot and training his butt off, as he has for years. He’s always been a guy who I measure myself against. We’ve run a lot of races together. We’re about the same age. We both came out of college in the same situation, as guys who were not thought of as being at the elite level and we’ve worked ourselves up to that level now that we’re both close to 30 years old. There’s no reason why anybody coming out of college couldn’t do the same thing if they really put their mind to it. Not just the hard work but you also have to get into the right training situation. I think we’re both good examples of that. Our training situations are different, but they’re both good fits for us personally.

MR: What is your training routine like?

PG: Jack Daniels has been my coach since 2002. He’s based in Flagstaff, and starting in January of this year I’ve been going there for three-week training trips just to get a little high altitude. It was something that I thought might take me to another level. Now I’m comfortable going there to train. For me, what really counts is the U.S. Olympic Trials in November. So I did three weeks in Flagstaff in January, I just got back from another three weeks there and I’m going to do three more weeks there before the Trials.

MR: When you started training at altitude, what was the adjustment like?

PG: It’s really hard when you’re not used to running at altitude. It takes a while to get used to it, especially when you’re a little bit further on in your career and you’re used to training at sea level. You’re set in your ways. But at altitude, everything kind of shifts on you—the way you feel, the way you do the workouts. It’s an adventure. I think I’m getting closer to nailing it down. The next time I go back will be right before the Trials. Hopefully, that will give me an extra boost for the race.

MR: Are you looking forward to running the NYC Half-Marathon Presented by NIKE on August 5?

PG: Yeah. I am. That’s one of the things I started planning a year ago—to go to New York as often as possible for these races to really get comfortable traveling to New York and being in the city with all the excitement and really being able to focus in on what I have to do. The first three or four times I went to New York, it was basically a flop. I didn’t race very well. Whether it was the USA 8K or the NYC Half or even the first time I did the [ING] New York City Marathon, it didn’t go very well. I think it was because of all the excitement around. I wasn’t able to be myself and focus on the race like I have in other places. I think I got that problem partially ironed out at marathon last year. I finished 10th, did really well. This is all part of the evolution, just getting a little bit more comfortable in New York. I don’t want to be showing up at the Olympic Trials having anything but my best game face on.

MR: The field will be so deep at the Olympic Trials. Do you see the Trials being a real mental struggle, a very strategic race?

PG: I don’t know. I’ve run on the course in Central Park a few times. Obviously, when I’m there for the NYC Half, I’ll run on it a lot more. It’s hilly, and the only other race I could compare it to would be the World Championships in 2005 in Helsinki. That was a loop course, a little bit longer than Central Park’s, six miles instead of five, and a lot of little rolling hills like Central Park. But Helsinki was strange—the hills didn’t really bother you until you got out there at 17, 18 miles and beyond. And then they might as well have been mountains. Those hills really came back to get you. The guys who did well were the ones who really paced themselves early and were prepared for the hills. At the Olympic Trials, you’ll have to look at every hill a little bit differently. You’ll have to give the course a little bit more respect. So in that case, I think the race will be more strategic. But at the same time, I don’t think you’ll see whose strategy worked until the last mile or two. Then you’ll see who is getting peeled off the pavement and who is running well and on the way to Beijing.

MR: While you were running in college, did you ever envision being in a position to compete for a spot on the Olympic Team?

PG: Not really. I was good at UC-Berkeley, but by no means great. I never was an All-American. I made one trip to the NCAA Championships. I always thought I was better than I had shown and I wanted to stay with it. After I graduated, I eventually settled at Stanford, on the Farm Team. At the time it was an excellent post-collegiate running club. Again, I was good but not great. A little bit of success. Jack Daniels was there, setting up an exercise physiology lab for the team, so I started working with him and I decided to try my first marathon in 2002. When I started training for that race, that’s when I knew running the marathon was something that was really going to work well for me. With my mentality and physical build, it was just kind of a natural fit.

MR: Are you able to devote yourself completely to running these days, or do you also have a regular job?

PG: For the last year, I have completely devoted myself to training. I was working until July of last year for a hedge fund as an analyst. It was a great job, but it was not something that I could continue to do and do my running. I could see the job taking over. That wasn’t something I wanted to have happen a year and a half before the Olympic Trials. Before that, I worked part-time as a special education teacher for three years. Not having a job was a big risk. I knew I might go broke. But I told myself, “This is my shot to make the Olympic team. I really have to do this.” While I ran the Boston Marathon last year and New York the year before against the best runners in the world, I was thinking, you know, what is their training like? What are they doing the rest of the day? And if you had the chance to do it like that, would you take it? The answer was yes. These guys aren’t worrying about having to do part-time work. So I got my act together, started working with an agent [Merhawi Management], who has been fantastic. We got some little endorsement deals lined up and it was enough for me to really focus on the training. And the timing was great because it’s one thing to do that for three months and then go into a big race. But it’s a whole different thing to have 18 months of that lifestyle built up like I’ll have before the Olympic Trials.

MR: Is finance what you plan to go into after your running career?

PG: I’m getting my master’s degree in finance right now. I’m taking classes at Golden Gate University in San Francisco. One of my professors had hired me to work for his outfit. The final exam is in August. So sometime after the NYC Half, I hope to get my master’s. Then I plan to run one more race, the New Haven Road Race, which is the U.S. 20K Championships, around Labor Day. Then in late September, I’ll go back to Flagstaff for three weeks to put the final touches on my training, and then come home for another three weeks to readjust to sea level. And then I go to New York for the Trials.

MR: Is there anyone you like to run with?

PG: Most of my training I do by myself. I run with other people here and there, but as I get older I find that some of the other guys get full-time jobs and it’s tougher to schedule runs together.

MR: Leading up to the NYC Half-Marathon Presented by NIKE, how much mileage will you do? And how much mileage will you do leading up the Olympic Trials?

PG: I’ll probably run 105 miles in the week leading up to the NYC Half and about 90-95 miles in the week leading up to the Trials. I don’t like tapering much. Then again, if I’m coming down from a peak mileage of 150 or more, then that’s not much different than what most of the top runners do.

MR: The way the races are set up this year, if you run in the Trials, you can’t compete in the ING New York City Marathon or the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon and you don’t get the money you would normally get from one of the major marathons.

PG: That is true. You have to pass up an appearance fee and all kinds of private bonuses. On the other hand, if you are one of the three guys who make the Olympic team, you set yourself up for a great situation personally and financially. It’s tough this way because it’s more of a gamble. Only three guys are going to get that bonus for making the Olympic team. And the guys who finish fourth, fifth or sixth are going to be fantastic runners. There’s so much talent in the race. We’ll just have to see how it goes.

MR: Do you worry about running a great race at the Trials and not finishing in the top three?

PG: I’ve run my whole career on gambles like that. I never had a lot to fall back on, so this is just another in a long series of gambles. I really have to go for it because I can’t afford to fail. The bonus money you get for making the team will be gone in a month or so, but to be an Olympian, that’s the reason you get into this sport in the first place. That’s a big dream of mine.

MR: You’ve finished in the top 10 in Boston three straight years. Would you like your chances more if the Trials were run on the Boston course?

PG: I guess so [laughs]. I think the Boston course really suits the way I train. Those hills really beat up your legs. By the time you’re running up Heartbreak Hill and then getting ready to plunge into Boston, your quads are ready to give out and you’re really hurting. I think being a higher-mileage guy and having that leg strength built up has really helped me over the years. Also, some of the success I’ve had there has had to do with how other guys have run because there’s only so much of the race that you can control. The first time I went to Boston, I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. Obviously, by this year, I knew what I was getting myself into.

MR: At the Trials, there will be runners with bigger names than yours and more accomplishments. Do you see yourself as an underdog in the race?

PG: I don’t think about being a favorite or an underdog before a race. I just think about the course, what I think the tactics and speed are going to be and how my fitness plays into that. I spend a lot of time thinking about what the pace might be through, say, the half-marathon mark, and also what I’m capable of doing. If I think there’s no way I’m going to run my best race if I don’t go out faster than 65 flat or 65:30, then I’ll put that limit on myself. A lot of that comes from experience and knowing, based on the workouts I’ve done, what I’m capable of on that day. And sometimes, if my limit is 65:30 and there’s a huge pack of runners at 65:15 or 65:20, it might be easier to speed up a little and run with that group. But if that group is, say, a minute faster, then it doesn’t really pay off. The marathon is not like a 10K where you can go out too fast and still probably be okay. In the marathon, if you go out too fast, you’re going to be walking or crawling in those last few miles.

MR: Other countries select their Olympic marathon runners. In America, we have the Olympic Trials. Do you prefer the American system?

PG: Well, there are two sides to that. Let’s see, how can I put this? If somebody had to select our Olympic team, there’s no way I’d be selected. That system would work against me. But I think 90 percent of the time a selection system would pick our best team. I want to make the Olympic team, and nobody’s going to be selecting me out of that group of eight or nine favorites. So I’m more than happy to put on the shoes and race for it.

MR: Is it fair to allow runners who have not completed a marathon but have achieved a “B” standard in the 5,000 or the 10,000 to compete in the Trials?

PG: I don’t have any problem with that. It’s going to be interesting. Hopefully, some of those guys will come out and test the waters. I think it’s going to be very educational for them, especially on a course like Central Park with the hills. The trouble that anyone would have running his first marathon as you get to the last six miles is going to be amplified by those hills. It’s a different kind of pain than you experience on the track.

MR: What will be the key for you to get one of those three coveted spots on the Olympic team?

PG: I don’t know yet. I haven’t seen the course enough to really think about it. But I would say my success would have more to do with showing up ready for the course. The New York course is really unique. It’s not like the marathon courses in Chicago and London, which are perfectly flat. There are a lot of hills and idiosyncrasies to the New York course, and the closer you can match your preparation to those factors the better you’re going to do. I also think that having a level head out there is going to be an asset. That’s something that comes with experience. You could see a race that’s a lot like the USA Cross Country Championships this past February, where Alan Culpepper—somebody who nobody was expecting to win—won the race, although people shouldn’t have been surprised. The reason he won is because he sat down before the race, turned his brain on and figured out that he was going to win by running the smartest race he could, considering the course and the altitude. New York is not at altitude, but the course is going to be tough, and tactics are going to play a big role. Maybe an aggressive tactic will help you make the team. Maybe a more patient approach will. The marathon is so long and so many things happen that you have to be constantly analyzing and re-analyzing the situation as you’re running: Do I cover this move? Do I let him go? All those factors will come into play. But I like my chances on this course more than if it were a time-trial type of flat course.

MR: We wish you well in all your races, and especially in your bid to make the Olympic team.

PG: Well, thank you. You have to really believe that you’re really going to be at that level before it happens. I’ve definitely believed it for a long time, and slowly it’s happening. And I want to see it keep happening.

Interview conducted July 21, 2007. and posted July 26, 2007.