Interview with Caitlin Tormey

By Stuart Calderwood

Caitlin Tormey just keeps getting faster. At the U.S. Olympic Team Trials on April 20 in Boston, she placed 23rd among the very best of the country’s women marathoners in a time of 2:40:29, a big improvement over the 2:43:20 personal record that she ran in last year’s ING New York City Marathon. And she did it after worrying that she might not be able to run the race at all.

Tormey has been coping with a painful knee injury for months, and only extensive physical therapy allowed her to race the More® Magazine Half-Marathon on April 6, which she treated as a tempo run at marathon pace. (She looks prophetic now: She won that race in 1:20:13—almost precisely half of her Trials marathon time!) After another thorough treatment on Friday, she went to Boston hoping for the best—and got it.

NYRR talked with Tormey four days before her Trials race and followed up with her afterward.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008:

New York Road Runners: How’s your knee doing?

Caitlin Tormey: It really hurt today. It’s okay, though—I’ve had my breakdown about it, and now I can put it out of my mind. I mean, it’s the Olympic Trials—you don’t get many chances like this. I’ll just go up there and get on the starting line and hope it holds up.

NYRR: You looked very good at the More Magazine Half-Marathon—was it painful then?

CT: That’s funny that you should mention that. The day before that race, I literally couldn’t run to the end of my block. I was limping pretty badly. I went to a physical therapist who really helps me, and I had a two-hour emergency rehab session. He put about 40 acupuncture needles in my leg. Somehow I was able to go out and race the next day.

NYRR: Let’s say you get the best-case scenario and your knee holds up on Sunday. What would you be happy with as a performance at the Trials?

CT: Anything under my personal best. If my training had gone differently—if I hadn’t had the setback—I’d be more specific about a time goal. But it’s been really frustrating: My work gave me a sabbatical to train for the Trials, and I’ve only had about three weeks of injury-free running that whole time. If I’d had a solid training period, I might have really gone for a fast pace.

NYRR: You’re facing a big decision after the Trials: the ZAP Fitness coach [Pete Rea] has asked you to train with the team [based in Blowing Rock, NC], so you’ve basically got to decide whether or not to be a professional athlete, right?

CT: Well, luckily, Pete has been very reassuring about that. He just said, “Don’t worry about after the Trials.” I’m just concentrating on the race for now, and then I’ll take a couple of weeks to recover and then we’ll talk about it. It is a big decision. I owe my company a lot for giving me this time off, and I’m grateful to ZAP Fitness, too. It’s a lot to think about.

NYRR: You’re starting to get a lot of attention for your running. You were the first local runner in the ING New York City Marathon last year, and then you won the More Half. Is the attention okay, or does it feel like pressure?

CT: I don’t mind it at all. I mean, people paying attention to what I’m doing? That’s great. To get support for your running, people usually have to race a lot, and I haven’t done that—I don’t race very much at all. Now that I’m doing pretty well, getting press for it, well, that’s how you make contacts, and I like giving interviews.

Monday, April 21:

NYRR: Congratulations! How are you feeling?

CT: Great. Well, my knee’s pretty banged up, but I can give it a rest now. The whole weekend was really exciting. The BAA [Boston Athletic Association, who hosted the Trials] did a great job—we were treated really well. The morning of the race was very nerve-wracking, but when I got out there, the nerves went away.

NYRR: What was the race like? Did you run in a pack most of the way, or by yourself?

CT: The race went out pretty fast, and my teammate Caroline Cretti and I just hung back and worked together. We were in a pack for a while—the third pack, really, and there were a couple of packs behind us. I’d decided to go out at about 6:07 per mile, and I just stayed with that. I didn’t get ruffled letting people go out ahead—I thought a lot of them were probably running too fast. Then I ended up running by myself for most of the race, and that was tough because it was quite windy out there. 

NYRR: Did you pick a lot of people off later?

CT: Well, I was in about 70th at halfway—

NYRR: —and you ended up 23rd? You must have had a blast—you passed about 50 people!

CT: Yeah, at about 15 miles, they started coming back to me. 

NYRR: What were the course and the weather like?

CT: Good. Very flat—there were a couple of steep little hills in the first two miles, but we only ran that part once, and they were no problem. Then it was four times around a six-mile loop—pretty much flat, a couple of slightly rolling sections—and the weather was perfect, except for that wind off the Charles River.

NYRR: So, you’ve run four marathons now, and you’ve gotten faster every time—your first one was a 2:48…

CT: …and then 2:45, then 2:43 at New York, and now 2:40.

NYRR: Well, I hope you appreciate this one for a while and get rid of that injury.

CT: Yeah, I’m definitely going to rest up before I rush back out there.

Interview conducted April 15 and 21, 2008, and posted April 24, 2008.