Re post: Interview Amby Burfoot, Author, Editor Runner's World

Thomas:  Amby, The San Francisco Marathon is less than two weeks away. You logged more than 100,000 miles racing and training and have won the Boston Marathon. Based on your experience what should our San Francisco runners be thinking about or doing in the two weeks leading up to race day?

Amby:  Ok. Well obviously since we are down to two weeks I thinks it’s time for a serious taper. I think that most anything you can do from a training perspective now can lead to bad results if you are not careful.  If you are undertrained and you think you need to keep going on your training and push, or even if you are race ready and have trained for the event, now is the time for a substantial taper. Rest. Sleep. The best way to run a strong marathon (or half) is to be as healthy as you can possibly be the moment you are standing at the start line-even at the expense of a few extra miles of training. It’s more important to strong and healthy for the race.

Thomas: Great advice. How about for our half marathoners, or even first time marathon runners, what kind of strategies should they have to not only finish, but once they gauge how they are doing in the race how can they tell when to run faster, or throttle back to achieve their goal?

Amby: sure. For any of those first time runners in San Francisco who are not familiar with that adrenaline rush. I would advise them to go out slow—I know it’s hard to do that with all the excitement of the other runners and all. But if you go out too fast and then don’t feel good, you will have a long way to run to finish and there is nothing you can do. If you however, go out on the slow side, you can of course pick up the pace and capture any time back that you need to hit the time you were hoping for. It doesn’t really matter whether you are a first time marathoner, or half marathoner, the most important thing in the early miles is to repeat a mantra that says stay relaxed, don’t push and shove to get through the crowd, if you lose a few seconds on your pace in the early miles, you can get it back later.

Thomas: In San Francisco we will have some 25,000-30,000 plus runners. It’s hard not to get caught up in the excitement of race day and just want to rush out and start running fast just to keep up with everyone around you.

Amby: It is hard! Even for someone like me who has run over a 100,000 miles and it feels like that many races (laughing).  The race environment is so exciting, and you have been focused for so long and now the day, the race is here! You been training for days, weeks or months and you’re just so pumped up you feel all of that adrenaline- the body knows it and so does the mind. You want to run and you simply don’t realize that you are running faster and expending more energy—energy that you will need later. So I think it’s a great time to find your proper pace, line up in the right place at the start line, find those pace leaders or folks you are running with,  whether it 7, 8, 9 minutes, whatever it is and then just really relax in those early miles. Take in some of the sights that you will be running by.  Appreciate the great city you are running through, and all of the fun people you are running with—some will probably be dressed in costumes and having a great time. And don’t forget all those fans out on the side of the road cheering and taking pictures.

Thomas:  You are heading over to London (in addition to all of your duties at Runner’s World) for the Olympics. When you think about all the great track and field athlete’s and events that you are going to see, which ones are you most excited about?

Amby: Yeah! All of it! There is nothing more exciting to a track fan than to attend the Olympics. The principal things for me as a connoisseur of distance running is of course this wonderful rise of Galen Rupp in the 10,000 and 5,000 meters. And now we finally put him on the biggest world stage when he is fitter and faster than he has ever been before and we will answer the question: Can he run with those incredible East Africans from Kenya and Ethopia-or not? And of course the marathon will be most thrilling to me. The British have clearly set up a very photogenic course.  The runners will pass Buckingham Palace, The Tower of London, it’s just going to be a great race past so many historic landmarks and there is such strong competition in the respective fields. I’m really looking forward to it.