Interview with Clint Verran

By Sabrina Tillman

Hansons-Brooks Distance Project veteran Clint Verran finished 11th in the 2000 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Men’s Marathon, then fifth at the Trials in Birmingham, AL, in 2004. The 32-year-old physical therapist represented the USA at the 2005 IAAF World Championships Marathon in Helsinki, where he placed 22nd. In classic Tortoise and Hare fashion, Clint Verran’s patient perseverance has prompted him to race past several spent champions, including Olympic medalists, in the final miles of marathons. Verran brings this tried-and-true approach—a combination of time management and an aggressive final kick—to the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Men’s Marathon.

MensRacing.com: You are one of 13 Hansons-Brooks men who will compete in the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Men’s Marathon. Is it each man out for himself, or do you plan to work as a team?

Clint Verran: This is probably the first time in Trials history that we have 13 guys from the same team. In other sports, there’s big-time team tactics. The tough thing with the marathon is most of us have been training the whole year for this. A lot of us have given up running spring marathons because of it. It would be hard for one of our second-tier guys to sacrifice his race for another.

MR: How has the Hansons group dynamic helped you develop?

CV: I’m training more in the middle group because I’ve had experiences of running with Brian [Sell] and of running with some of the other guys, and I can run a lot of workouts with Brian, but it breaks me down. So I’ve found that I race better when I run at 80-90% with the big pack, and then going for it on race day. The way I race in general is an even pace—a strategic thing, a let’s pass everybody in the last three miles type of thing. I’m probably second on the team in total mileage. I average about 140 miles a week and during training I get up to about as high as 150. We started that high mileage training just before Brian got here. It was one of those things where Kevin gave us a training schedule that said 120, and we didn’t think that was good enough, so we did 140. When Brian came along, he just started doing what we were doing and he was successful. And he’s been able to go beyond that, up to 160, and he’s had good results.

MR: How does the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Men’s Marathon compare to the other Trials you have run?

CV: The field is definitely deeper this time. In 2004, I saw three guys: [Alan]Culpepper, [Dan] Browne, and [Meb] Keflezighi as the three best guys in the race. I said before the race—it’s these three guys, it’s their race to win or lose. Twenty-six-point-two miles is such a tough distance to go without messing something up—without having something go wrong. For all three of those guys to perform on that day was really impressive. For this race, the list is probably nine or 10 guys who have the track credentials, guys that have the experience.

I also enjoy that there was more pressure on Ryan [Shay] and I in 2004. You get nervous enough without being a favorite. When I took 11th place, then fifth place at the Trials, of course I want to do better than fifth [on Saturday], and the only thing better than fifth is fourth, third, second, and first. You can call us dark horses, but if you finish like people may think, you might not finish at all. To be somebody that nobody is expecting [to make the team] serves as a bit of a motivator. I don’t take offense to being called a dark horse—I’m motivated by it.

MR: Your team organized a Trials course simulation run in early October. What did you learn from participating, and how do you feel about the course?

CV: The good thing [about the course] is it’s undulating [in Central Park]. The physiology behind downhill running is that it puts a lot of strain on your quads. It’s just a very strenuous contraction. The good thing about [Central Park] is that you may run downhill for 800 meters, but that’s it. And when you’re running uphill, you’re using your muscles in a different way. I think what you need to do with those hills is not give up on them. I don’t see anybody giving up on a downhill, on a flat. But you have these big hills, nine or 10 times during a race, and most marathoners at some point give up—you give in or you settle for whatever you think you can get that day. With this race course, if you can postpone that for two or three more hills and not give in, you’re gonna get over that hill and then you’re gonna come down, get to a flat section and feel better. I look forward to [the race]. You can choose to have one of two mentalities: Victim or opportunist. There are 10 heartbreak hills on the course, and I look at it as an opportunity. I’ll wait until someone makes a mistake and then I’ll make my move.

MR: It’s been reported that one of your best attributes as a marathoner is the ability to hold a steady pace and then pick off runners in the final miles. This strategy has proven successful for you in the past; do you intend to approach Saturday’s race with the same mentality?

CV: I remember when I ran the World Championships in Helsinki, and, at mile 20, I looked at the side of the road, and saw Stefano Baldini lying in the grass, throwing up. It was kind of warm and humid there, but that’s the marathon for you. Todd Williams was one of my heroes—he was from Michigan—and I had posters of this guy on my walls. At the 2000 Trials in Pittsburgh, it was hot, and Todd mismanaged the race. It happens to everyone. I went by him at 18 miles and I had to do a double take. I thought, ‘Here’s my hero, and he’s struggling in this marathon.’ That’s the beauty of the marathon. Anybody can beat anybody on any given day. The marathon is really uncertain. It’s a long race where you can make a lot of mistakes—there are 26 opportunities to make mistakes in the marathon. A lot of times you can place pretty high just by doing things right.

With any marathon, you need to look at the first half or the first 15 miles as transportation—you want to get there in managed time, and that doesn’t mean that you’re pushing, but you want to keep the gap between you and the guys in the lead within a manageable distance. Obviously if someone has five minutes on you at 20, it’s going to be really hard to catch that guy. I think about it as managing time and then all of those feelings that you want to ignore in the first 10 miles of the race, all of the hype and adrenaline, the anxiety, you want to funnel that into your last six. That’s where you need to be aggressive. People don’t really think of marathon runners as aggressive, but sometimes just maintaining the pace you ran in the first five miles is going to feel really aggressive over the last bit of the race. That’s really what I’ve been able to do in my career—be aggressive. In 2001, when I was second at the USA Championships, I came down from the Bronx and into Central Park and I was aggressive; I passed people. And my PR is in Boston, and nobody thinks of that as a fast course because of the hills. I’ll always finish real hard.

Interview conducted October 31, 2007, and posted November 2, 2007.