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photo by Victah Sailer/Photo Run |
Ryan Hall had stunning breakthroughs on the track in 2005, winning the 5000m at the NCAA Championships in 13:22.32 in front of his Stanford teammate Ian Dobson's 13:22:54, and then placing third in the 5000 at the USA Championships, behind Tim Broe and Dobson, with a time of 13:16.03--29 seconds better than his personal best through 2004. Hall ran 13:59.86 to finish in 16th place in a first-round heat at the World Championships in Helsinki. He came in second at the 2003 NCAA Cross Country Championships, helping Stanford to the team title. Hall was also a national scholastic mile champion while attending high school in Big Bear, California, a third place finisher at Foot Locker Cross Country, and a two-time California state cross country titleist. Hall, 23, is married to runner Sara Bei, another former-Stanford standout. In November, Hall ran a 13:22 opening 5K leg to help the United States earn third place behind Kenya, and host-nation Japan at the International Chiba Ekiden. Hall and Dobson will be part of a starstudded two-mile at the Reebok Boston Indoor Games on January 28, featuring Craig Mottram, Gebre Gebremariam, Sileshi Sihine, Jorges Torres, Alistair Cragg, and Boaz Cheboiywo.
Runner's World Daily: You did quite well at the Chiba Ekiden, considering what a long track season you'd had with the NCAAs and USAs and the World Championships. You still managed a 13:22 for your opening 5K leg. Had you trained continually since Helsinki or had you taken some kind of a break?
Ryan Hall: I took two weeks off after Worlds. I was really tired and beat up and needing a break. And then I was doing stuff because I was getting married in September, and then I ended up taking off the week of our honeymoon. I was doing some base stuff in-between. I've been up at altitude a little bit, but I hadn't done much real serious stuff, so I was kind of surprised Japan went as well as it did. But I seem to always respond well when I'm training at altitude.
RWD: Results: 2024 NCAA DI Cross-Country Championships?
RH: With Team Running USA, with Terrence (Mahon, the coach). My teammate Ian is up there now, and my wife's there, and Gabe Jennings (the former NCAA 1500-meter champ from Stanford) was up there. Meb (Keflezighi) was up there training with us, too, before he went to New York for the marathon.
RWD: Running in the Cold?
RH: Yeah. He ran a marathon and ran pretty well (2:19:32 for second at California International in Sacramento). We're excited to be training with him. I trained with him a little bit my freshman year of college. It's fun to have him back.
RWD: Do you believe he's going to emphasize distances much longer than 1500 meters at this point?
RH: No. I think he's just doing some base stuff and he'll be aiming at the 1500 come outdoors (in the spring).
RWD: How to Watch the NCAA XC Championships?
RH: Yeah. There are two laps on the track first. It was pretty flat, and then there are come good gradual downhills on it. The course kind of helped the time out a little bit.
RWD: When we talked in early December to set up this interview, you mentioned you had a morning workout to do and an afternoon one as well. Are you doing doubles primarily to get a lot of volume in at this point of the year?
RH: Exactly. We go for hour runs in the morning and then a half-hour run in the afternoon, and then we meet in the afternoon at a gym to do some type of drills or abs and weight work, so that's our typical "easy" day. We do workouts on the other days, usually afternoon runs, but I'm basically getting in good volume right now. One week at Mammoth, I was about 105 miles. Some people go higher than that, but I think that's good for me.
RWD: How to Watch the NCAA XC Championships?
RH: Indoors, we're going to race a little bit, maybe a couple of times to try and tune up for USA Cross. Then I'll run the 4K there and hopefully qualify for the Worlds and get to run that. Those are the plans for the near future. I've never done USA Cross before, so it'll be a fun experience, and it'll be fun to get to go to New York--I've never been there. I've always wanted to go, but on the West Coast, we don't do too much indoor stuff.
RWD: In 2005, a lot of collegians in the middle-distance and distance races upset the form charts and did very well against "open" competition. Obviously, that happened with you and Ian Dobson. You had your responsibility to do well for Stanford, but clearly had some aspirations beyond that. When you were still competing collegiately, were you thinking about maintaining a peak that could carry you further, into the USA Championships and beyond?
RH: We were really aiming at NCAAs. It started to become apparent after MtSAC (where he ran 13:31, in April) and in training, that we were going to have a good shot at the "A" standard (in the 5000) and possibly making it to Worlds. I remember one time in the weight room, after a workout, Coach (Andy Gerard) came up to me and said, "You know you can run the 'A' standard, right," and I was like, "Whoa, you think so?" I was kind of surprised, because I'd only run 13:45 coming into the season; I'd only run one 5000 previous to the season--I was pretty inexperienced in the event and just didn't really know what to expect. I was just taking it as it was coming. And then the NCAAs came and we ran as well as we had hoped to and we knew we were going to have a shot at USAs, and we just continued to feel really good through that time.
But it was kind of really rough once we went to Europe. Having aimed at NCAAs and USAs, our cycle was pretty much over and we were needing a break. We were just trying to hang on through Europe. Ian did a better job than I did (Dobson was tenth in a first round heat in 13:27.16).
RWD: Races - Places?
RH: Two races. Once in London, a 5000 (he was ninth in 13:23/20 on July 22), and then a mile in Dublin. I was really bummed, because the whole season, I was thinking to myself, "I could really run a good mile right now," because that was what I'd mainly focused on. I was running miles in practice in 4:07 and stuff like that, so I thought I could run a really good mile and went to Dublin. I was starting to feel a little bit tired at that point, so I ran like 4:05. I think Ian ran 4:03 or 4:02. Ian ended up running 4:00 in Sweden (4:00.45 in Malmo).
RWD: It was you and Ian who really forced the race a bit at the 5000 at USAs, wasn't it? Tim Broe hung in and had the strong kick to win, but you two didn't just sit back and let the veterans handle the pace. Do you figure that's what would happen or did it just develop that way as the race got going?
RH: It just developed. It's funny; going into the race, we hadn't really sat down with Coach and discussed a specific race plan. We wanted to just kind of sit in, key off the race, and do what was best when the time came. When Tim went out hard and the rest of the field really wasn't following him, there was a point when I felt that we weren't really going all that fast and Tim wasn't really getting away from us. But he had 5 or 10 meters on us. I decided to go out there and see if we couldn't press the pace a little more and it felt good. Ian just went right with me. It just all worked out really well. It went the same way as NCAAs, basically, except we didn't win (laughs).
RWD: It had to be encouraging that you ran so well for so long, all the way back to your 13:31.58 (for sixth) at MtSAC in April.
RH: Yeah, I hadn't had a season that long since high school, because I'd kind of been struggling in college. I'd never even made it to NCAAs before (in outdoor track), so I was always done before June even came. For me, it was a real adjustment to go back to racing that late. It just shows Coach Gerard's training was planned out really well for us.
RWD: What were the problems you'd had in earlier collegiate seasons, and what was really different this year?
RH: I think it took me a while just to adjust to the whole college scene. In high school, it was really easy for me--I was from a small town--to just do my training and stay at home and go to bed early and eat my mom's home-cooked meals. It was a really simple life. And then I came to college and was trying to juggle all these different things, trying to take care of my body like runners need to to perform well. I just wasn't doing a good job of juggling all those things. I kind of learned every year a little bit more. I think moving up to the 5K was a good idea; that seems to be a better event for me. That helped a little bit, too, the type of training I was doing, and staying healthy.
RWD: And now you're married to someone, Sara Bei, who's also an outstanding runner, and went to the Ekiden with you. You were traveling on an international team with your wife. That's kind of sweet, isn't it?
RH: Yeah. It was really fun. Actually, we both did the first leg, too. I finished my leg and I jogged back a little ways and got to see her coming in, and we got to hang out before our races started. It was fun to do that with my wife. We feel like we're living in a dream world right now, just going on runs and settling into our apartment and stuff like that. I feel really blessed.
RWD: So for 2006, when there's no real outdoor international championship in track for Americans, will your emphasis mainly be to get your PRs down?
RH: That, and work it out so that we're fit at USAs and can run really well but not be at our peak, and then in Europe, really try and drop some good times and just try and get better experience at the international level, which Ekiden was really good for. It wasn't everyone's "A" guys, but it was an international field that we ran against and I got a little bit of a taste of it. I'll just try to prepare and learn and run some good times and get ready for World Championships next year (2007), and try and get on the podium at some point.
RWD: You're not on a college team anymore, but Team Running USA is a little bit similar, isn't it? You don't have to do as many races, but you do have a training group and some consistency.
RH: It's all the best parts of being on a team and none of the things that tend to hurt your athletic performances, like racing a lot or whatever else is really bad. It's been real nice. We keep a schedule. It's really nice to have a time to go to practice. I know it would be really easy just to let the day go by and suddenly it's 6:00 p.m. and you still haven't run, and, you know, that's your job!
RWD: Being on a World Championships team, and in the future, in the Olympics, must have been your dream, but it seems an awful lot has happened for you really quickly in your career. Does this make you adjust your time-frame about when to expect certain things to happen for you?
RH: Yeah. I was planning on coming back for a fifth year (of eligibility at Stanford) this year, and coming into last year, I wasn't even sure if I'd be able to run professionally. I hadn't really run any good times. I had one good cross country season, and that was about it. That's not enough to run professionally. I was really questioning how many more years of running I was going to have. When everything started to happen this year (2005), I felt really blessed. It was incredible, going from NCAAs (where he won the 5000) and then a week after that getting engaged, and then a day after that, deciding to run professionally, and then a week after that, USAs and qualifying for Worlds. It just kept coming. It was a pretty incredible spring and summer when you have all these exciting things that are usually spaced out over five years all happen in like three months. I felt really blessed.
