Interview with Pat Tarpy

The third result that appears when you type“Pat Tarpy” in the Google search bar is a series of photos from the 2005 Millennium Mile race. Those pictures depict a gutsy race run by a relatively unknown collegiate runner from Yarmouth, Maine. In that unforgettable race, Pat Tarpy, then a senior at Brown University, raced alongside Canadian Olympic 1500-meter runner and 2006 winner of the Continental Airlines Fifth Avenue Mile, Kevin Sullivan. Tarpy seized the lead from Sullivan; Sullivan countered; Tarpy accelerated and held onto first—to the surprise of the onlookers. Until the last 200 meters, it looked like Tarpy was going to upset the favored Olympian. But Sullivan had another gear and made a final surge, passing Tarpy at the end.

Tarpy, 25, will have another chance to take on Sullivan and several top-level runners at the Continental Airlines Fifth Avenue Mile on September 29.

Though he may appear as an underdog on paper, Tarpy’s running resume is quite extensive. While at Brown, Tarpy was on the team that won the university’s first Ivy League Heptagonal Championship in cross country in 2003. He won the 2005 Outdoor Heptagonal Championships in the 10,000 meters. A four-year member of Brown’s cross-country team, he was the men’s team co-captain when he was a senior. In 2006, Tarpy represented the United States in the International Chiba Ekiden. The U.S. team went on to place third there. In Maine, Tarpy holds the prestigious honor of being the state’s first sub 4-minute miler. (Tarpy ran a 3:54 at the KeyBank New England Mile Race in Portland on June 17, 2007.)

Tarpy holds the following track PRs: 4:01 for the mile; 3:41.3 for the 1500 meters and 13:42 for the 5000 meters. He recently set his road 5K PR at the 18th CVS Caremark Downtown 5K (the USA 5K Road Championships) on September 17, taking third there, running a 13:53. He is currently a graduate assistant and pursing his MBA at Providence College.

Editor's Update: Pat Tarpy ran a strong race, finishing in sixth place with a time of 3:57.1.

Mensracing.com:  This is your first Continental Airlines Fifth Avenue Mile--what are your expectations going into the race?

Pat Tarpy: I don’t really know much about the race other than what I’ve seen online. I’d like to go under four minutes, and I’m not really sure where that would put me in the field.

MR: You recently ran under 14:00 at the U.S. 5K Championships in Providence. Tell me about that experience.

PT: I live in Providence so I had a home-field advantage. I’ve run that race a couple times and have been pretty disappointed so this year I ran more of my own pace the whole time. For some reason, it felt really good the whole way. I was thinking I was going to be in for the win until about 800 meters to go when I sort of faded.

MR: Did I catch that you thought you’d be in it for the win up to the last 800 meters?

PT: At two miles the whole Brown cross-country team was down there as well as a bunch of guys from Providence. I was running with the leaders and everyone was cheering for me. I was like, “Man I’ve never felt like this at two miles in the 5K,” then of course 600 meters later, I didn’t feel like that at all. It hit me hard. Still, I was running with guys that I’d never really run with before.

MR: You mean guys with Kip-prefix names?

PT:  Yeah, like Boaz [Cheboiywo] was there; I was a foot taller than him. I definitely had a home-field advantage. After the race, those guys asked me, “Why did you have 35 fans cheering for you?” Someone called me Hollywood during the race. It was a fun day.

MR: Did you train on the course?

PT: Yeah. I’ve run the race twice. It’s right downtown and the roads are busy, but I know all the roads and at the finish there’s a bit of a hill so I’m pretty familiar with everything. But there’s the advantage that I slept in my own bed the night before. It’s not like I was in a hotel. There’s nothing like sleeping in your own bed.

MR: Would you consider it one of the best races of your career so far?

PT: Yeah, I’d say so. For me personally, I think I run on the roads pretty well compared to the track and I think it’s because I don’t have to think very much. I don’t have to look at splits or what lane I’m in. Given that, I don’t think I run as well on the track. I probably beat more people at that race than I should have. I was right up there in the front.

MR:  Do you feel that your 5K training has made you well-equipped to race a mile?

PT: I think for me, I’ve been training for longer, 5K and 8K-type stuff. I then throw in the mile workouts and that’s when I run better for the 5K. Hopefully I’ve got enough to hang in the mile. I’ve done a couple workouts that have been pretty quick for me. I’m feeling pretty good about it.

MR: You’re at one of the distance running powerhouses in the Northeast: Providence College. Are you doing anything with the running program there?

PT: Not really with the undergrads. I see some of them around, but there’s still a few graduates that I run with. A couple of the guys on the team I’ll run with occasionally. I’m not coached by Ray Treacy [Providence College’s head coach].We all use the same track so we see each other quite a bit.

MR: What kind of specific workouts are you doing to get ready for the Continental Airlines Fifth Avenue Mile?

PT: The workouts that I like the most are running 1000- and 300-meter repeats. These are usually end-of-the-season workouts for me. I do the 300s with short recovery. The other day, I did a couple 800s and 400s. I’m not a speed guy at all. I feel like once I can get going, I can hold on for a while.

MR: For your 1000s what kind of rest are you taking between your repeats?

PT: I do 5 x 1K with a minute recovery. For the mile, I do 10 x 300 [meters] with 30 seconds recovery. Unfortunately, none of my workouts are jaw-dropping like Alan Webb’s.

MR: Are you sponsored?

PT: I am. I’m a Roads Scholar. That gives me a grant which helps with the travel. I also get gear from Reebok so that helps. But no, I’m not out buying houses and Suburbans. But I’m also not in an enormous amount of debt either so it’s pretty good. At first, I thought “it’s just gear,” but you’re running a lot and so you go through a lot of shoes and that helps a lot. Reebok’s pretty generous with me. When they first started giving me gear, I hadn’t broken 14:00 for 5K so I think they were being pretty generous and then the Roads Scholar thing is a huge help as well.

MR: Do you ever feel that the long winters and cold weather in Maine can inhibit your performance?

PT: It’s definitely a chore to run [in the winter in Maine]. I know that I personally shoveled the track one day during winter break in college and then it snowed the next day. To be fair to everybody in Maine, it’s not quite as bad in Providence, but when you go home it can be pretty depressing running. When I was in college, I ran with snowshoes on all the time. They only plowed one road in my town. It’s about as nice as you can get in the summer, but the long winters are pretty brutal. I would go cross country skiing for a couple of years in high school—you have to find other stuff to do. I definitely respect the guys grinding out miles in Northern Maine; it kind of wears on you.

MR: In 2005, you ran the Millennium Mile and nearly beat Kevin Sullivan. You even had the lead for a while, correct?

PT: Yeah, I have a tendency to get in over my head in a lot of races. Everyone makes fun of me about the pictures on mensracing.com from that race. I look like I’m going through a boxing match and he [Kevin Sullivan] is just chilling out looking at me. If you’re not going to go for it in a downhill mile in December in the middle of New Hampshire, then when are you going to go for it? It was only like $150 in prize money; it wasn’t a huge race. John Mortimer [the Millennium Mile’s race director] e-mailed me and said that everyone runs fast there so why not give it a shot. I didn’t have anything else to do. I showed up and saw Kevin Sullivan and I thought I wasn’t going to win. I tend to run aggressively in races like that.

MR: Will you run it again?

PT: I don’t know. That day was freezing cold and it wasn’t really that fun, but it was about as fun of a race that you can get in that cold. Last year, I went to New Zealand in December to visit friends so I wasn’t around for it. But I do tell everyone I know to run the Millennium Mile to get a personal best—you are pretty much guaranteed one.

MR: You took on Kevin Sullivan in a downhill mile in New Hampshire in the middle of winter and nearly beat him. Do you consider yourself an underdog going into the Continental Airlines Fifth Avenue Mile?

PT: Yeah. Running’s a sport where you know where everyone stands. You know what they’ve run. I pretty much know that if I’m going up against Bernard Lagat, I can’t beat him, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t make be better and drag me along to a faster race. I don’t go into many races as the favorite, but that doesn’t really bother me. But I did tell Alan Webb that I was going to beat him in the [Continental Airlines] Fifth Avenue Mile, but I hope he knew that I was just joking around [laughing].

MR: You never know

PT: Yeah, you never know. I don’t go into any race writing it off that I don’t have a chance, but I am little bit more realistic than to think that I can win every race.

Interview conducted September 23, 2007 and posted September 27, 2007.