Interview with Emily Brown

By Shannon Martin Morehouse

It was just last summer that Emily Brown, 23, joined Team USA Minnesota, and she has already achieved PRs and top-three performances. Last fall on the roads, she won the TC [Twin Cities] 5K in a PR-time of 16:19. Brown placed second (56:40) in The Women Run the Cities 10-mile, her debut at this distance, on September 28.

This winter, during the indoor track season, Brown has achieved PRs in the mile and 3000 meters. On January 26, she won the 3000 at the Minnesota Classic in a time of 9:10.6, not only a 17-second PR for her, but also a University of Minnesota Fieldhouse record. On February 23, Brown won the mile at the University of Minnesota’s Parent’s Day Open in 4:37.58 (second place was 5:05.24).

Brown, a West Allis, Wisconsin, native graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007 with a degree in nutrition. She was the only person in the school’s history to earn All-American honors in both track and cross country.

She is currently a graduate student at the University of Minnesota. This semester she is a nutrition intern, which equates to a 40-hour-per-week job. Still, due to incredible dedication, Brown is running phenomenally. Perhaps her most exciting (and surprising) performance was her third-place finish at the USA Cross Country Championships on February 16.

New York Road Runners stole a few minutes of Brown’s time with an e-mail interview. The steeplechase specialist tells us about her recent non-steeplechase successes, her internship, her excitement leading into the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Edinburgh, Scotland, and the upcoming outdoor track season. If you want to read more from Brown in her own words, check out her New York Road Runners online journal here.

New York Road Runners: You performed amazingly well at The USA Cross Country Championships. You crossed the finish line a second after Renee Metivier and a second before your teammate Katie McGregor. You looked strong at the finish. How did you feel?

Emily Brown: I felt really well throughout the majority of the race. I stayed pretty focused and kept working my way up, telling myself I would be happy wherever I finished as long as I just kept running. When we were coming into the final stretch I wasn’t sure what would happen if I tried to switch gears so I just tried to stay strong, keep my pace, and hope not to get passed.

NYRR: Did you have a strategy going into the race?

EB: I didn’t have a strategy. I just wanted to finish and hopefully have fun. The only strategy put into the weekend was how to get back and forth from the airport and home!

NYRR: Have you and Katie been training together regularly?

EB: Somewhat. I see her and the other women on workout days when I can leave my internship early enough to get to the track. Other than that, I don’t get to run with her as much as I would like.

NYRR: How was it to run a cross country race during the indoor season?
EB: I was a little nervous about the distance since most of our latest workouts have been shorter intervals on the track, but other than that it wasn’t too
different.

NYRR: Tell me about your dietetic internship. What do you enjoy most about it? Is it harder to juggle the internship with your running than it was to juggle classes with your running?

EB: It is definitely different than going to classes and running since the internship keeps me away from home pretty much all day, every day. I am in my longest rotation of the internship right now, which is 10 weeks at the hospital. I have gotten used to getting up at 4:30 a.m., doing a short run at the gym, working from 7:00 a.m. until 3:30 p.m., then rushing home to get to the track by 4:15 p.m. It is very busy but I enjoy my work and I know that the other rotations won’t be quite as hectic in terms of the time schedule, so I am looking forward to that.

NYRR: Do you implement your nutritional knowledge into your own regimen?

EB: I try to eat well but I also try to keep my “business” and my personal life (including running) separate. You can drive yourself crazy always thinking about “is this the right thing for me to eat?” I actually ate leftover pizza the morning of the cross country championships. I eat what I am hungry for, try to eat enough since food is fuel, and just try to pay attention to what foods make me feel good.

NYRR: Do you still keep in touch with some of your teammates from the University of Minnesota?

EB: I still live on campus so I do see them a lot in passing or at the track. They are some of my best friends and it is always a good day when I run
into any of them.

NYRR: Do you see yourself “moving up” in distance over the next few years?

EB: I know it is something I may have to consider. There was a time when I told my coaches I would never run anything 5000 meters or over on the track. Then again, track is a much different game than road racing or cross country so I will have to try a few races out before I make any definite moves.

NYRR: Since the steeplechase is your favorite event, do you ever feel that something is missing when running on the roads or cross country, or even when running a 3000 without barriers?

EB: I actually don’t love the steeplechase! I do it because when I started running track in college, I wasn’t as distance-trained as I am now so it was better for me to do something a little shorter. It was an immediate success for me so I stuck with it. I still have a lot of technical work to do to get better at it but I have been working on some improvements throughout the year. As for my recent races, it has been a relief to not have any barriers to go over!

NYRR: Are you excited to go to Scotland to compete at Worlds?

EB: Absolutely! I have only been overseas once, when I went to Paris for a week with my dad. I anticipate that this will be a much different experience and I am really looking forward to experiencing a new culture and hanging out with new teammates.

NYRR: What’s on your race calendar for the next few months leading up to the Olympic Trials?

EB: I am not planning on racing too much since I will continue to be busy with my internship through the Olympic Trials. I will definitely race World Cross and then probably just one steeplechase, possibly at the
Drake Relays, so that I can get the A-standard for the Trials.

Interview conducted February 22, 2008, and posted February 27, 2008.