Interview with Kelly Keane
by Ian Chillag

Kelly Keane finished what she considered a disappointing 48th at the 2004 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. (Photo by Alison Wade/New York Road Runners)

Kelly Keane's previous two marathons didn't turn out like she hoped. Injuries left her with disappointing finishes at the 2003 World Championships and the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials. But after some careful tweaks to her training, she came into the HP Houston Marathon on January 16th healthy and ready, and it paid off. After a 21-mile duel with Violetta Kryza, the 32-year-old pulled away for the win and a four-minute PR of 2:32:27.

Keane grew up in West Islip, New York. She was an All-American at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. When she decided to get serious about her running, she joined the now-disbanded FILA Discovery USA Project, which counts bachelor/runner Josh Cox among its alumni. She credits the program with pushing her to the 2:36:24 she ran at the Ocean State Marathon in 2002, then a PR by 18 minutes.

She and her husband, former professional triathlete Travis Keane, now live in Texas. When she's not running, she works as a massage therapist.

We spoke on the phone in the afternoon. Mornings are no good — part of her marathon recovery involves sleeping in a bit.

FW: Give us an account of the way the race played out in Houston.
KK: Starting out it was really cold, actually. I train here in Houston, and it's been so warm, I was actually really cold — I didn't think it'd be so cold. [Because of that], we went out really slow, I think everyone was a little bit chilled at the start. I basically ran the whole race with this woman from Poland, Violetta Kryza. We went out together. The first 5K, I think we averaged 6:00 pace, which was really slow. I think the first mile was 6:15. But then, after that, we picked right up to my goal race pace which was 5:46, 5:47 pace. And we ran together, the whole way, all the way up until mile 21. I felt really good the whole way, but I didn't want to take any chances of pushing too soon, and then falling apart the last 10K. So I held back most of the race. My coach basically told me, 'Don't make a move. Just run with her,' because I was running to win. He said, 'Don't make a move until mile 21 or 22.' I kind of wanted to go earlier, but I was nervous, I wasn't too sure, I didn't want to blow it. So I waited till mile 21, and picked it up a bit, and she fell off pace, and I pretty much cruised it in for the last five miles.

FW: It's been about two weeks. How are you feeling?
KK: I feel great actually. I feel like I'm pretty much fully recovered. The first week I just did really easy running, didn't run that much. And this week I've just been running about an hour a day. My coach wants me to give myself two weeks, so by next Monday, this coming Monday I should be in full training mode, almost.

FW: And what's that like — 'full training mode?' Can you describe for us the training cycle that led up to your win in Houston?
KK: Yeah, my training, you know, depends on what race I'm gearing towards. If it's a marathon, then it's from about 12 to 14 weeks out is when I start doing the marathon training, and obviously increasing my weekly mileage. Coming up now, I don't know when my next marathon will be, so I won't be doing super high mileage like marathon training. I'm going to be doing some 5Ks, 10Ks, maybe some 20Ks, races in that range, so my mileage won't be much over 110, but the intensity will be there.

FW: Tell us about a key workout in your training for Houston.
KK: I really like to do my long runs faster than goal marathon race pace. Those are probably my favorite workouts, cause they're real confidence boosters for me. For example, I might do a 20, 22 mile run, and the last 10 miles might be 10 seconds faster than goal marathon race pace — even a little bit more, maybe about 15 seconds faster. So those workouts for me are real confidence boosters, those are my favorites.

FW: So four minutes is a huge PR, especially when your previous PR was not too shabby at 2:36:24. This must have vaulted you to being a more high-profile runner. What have the last two weeks been like?
KK: Actually it's been really amazing, just the support form my community, from my town here. All the newspapers, and the magazines calling me to do articles and features on me, it's really exciting actually, 'cause I've had some disappointing performances the past two years, so to finally have one that's so rewarding, it's been great. And now I'm looking forward to the spring and the summer and having a good solid racing season.

FW: It must have been nice to have the hometown crowd behind you there in Houston.
KK: Oh, it was amazing! People were cheering throughout the course, 'Go Houston!' Most of the people knew my name, so it was really exciting.

FW: Something a lot of runners find sad about the sport right now is that big PRs, even when they're achieved by athletes with impeccable records, are often accompanied by doping suspicions. Have you faced any of this?
KK: No, actually I haven't. I think anyone who knows me knows that I had been fit to run this fast the past two years, but I just unfortunately got injured three weeks before the race, so I never got to prove it. But I've been in this shape for the past two years now. And ready to run, really to run under 2:32. Sure, people are going to say that, but people are going to say what they want to say, and I know in my heart that I would never do that. And of course people are so quick to accuse people, and so [am] I sometimes. There's some people that I think, 'Oh yeah, maybe they are.' So I can understand people accusing [others], just because it's so prevalent.

FW: Your toughest competitor in Houston, Violetta Kryza, she won Pittsburgh in 2002, but then was stripped of her title after a positive drug test.
KK: She was! I didn't know that. Let me backtrack and say I was completely, completely disappointed in the Houston Marathon that they did not do drug testing. I e-mailed the race director, and I e-mailed the elite coordinators, from the minute I wanted to do Houston, and I said, 'Will you be doing drug testing?' Cause I really wanted them to do drug testing. And I was really disappointed when they said they were not doing drug testing.

FW: So that when you had a good performance, it would be legitimate, and so you'd be running on a level playing field?
KK: Right. Exactly. And to be honest, if people want to accuse me, 'She PRed by four minutes because of drugs,' I know in my heart it's not true, so it doesn't matter. But I want to know for a fact that my competitors are not. Because it's happened in the past that people have placed better than me, won more prize money than me, and then months later you find out they were on EPO. And it's so frustrating for me. And I just think once a cheater, always a cheater, and in my mind I don't have any respect for anyone who ever tested positive. I really don't. You come back to the sport, and some people welcome them back to the sport. Not me. I don't welcome them back. I think they shouldn't be back. I think they should be embarrassed to come back.

I really feel strongly about this. [Laughs] Obviously.

FW: Your husband is Travis Keane. He's a triathlete.
KK: He did compete for about, maybe, five years as a professional. But now with his work schedule he's gone back to amateur, because he doesn't have the time to train like a pro.

FW: With both of you having successful endurance careers, it must be nice that you two have an understanding of what that lifestyle is like.
KK: Oh, definitely. I think that he's always been a really successful triathlete, ever since we met. So he kind of understands what we go through. It's not easy to live with someone who's a professional athlete. His work is his focus now, and his training takes second place to his work right now. But my training is first for me, and he has to put up with a lot with me. It's definitely not easy [laughs]. But at the same time, it's so great to be married to someone who's so supportive and understands.

FW: For instance, what parts of the lifestyle are the most challenging for a spouse?
KK: Oh…there's so many! [Laughs] Just the structure, and the commitment that it takes to train, especially for a marathon. You're running twice a day. On weekends, well, can you go away together? Not really, cause you're usually racing or you're training hard. It's hard to take time out to do things together, as a couple. Your social life takes a back seat.

FW: You've had some injury problems in the past. You weren't 100% for the 2004 Olympic Marathon Trials, and that was a disappointing performance for you. But you seem to be in good health now. Talk about being injured the last couple of years, and what you did to make sure you were coming into Houston at your best.
KK: Yeah, the past two years have been a roller coaster. I'd get really fit, and then I would get injured. It happened twice. And basically what I did, I looked back at my training program with my coach really carefully after the Olympic Trials. We just identified some of the things I was doing wrong. There were a couple of things.

One, I was extending the program. If it was a 12-week marathon phase program, I was doing too much way early on, like three, four months out from the marathon. I was doing too much volume and too much intensity. So I was kind of doing the workouts harder than I should have been at that point.

And then the other thing is I was really trying to run high mileage. I was trying to run 130 miles, [maybe even] 140 in one week.

The other thing is I started seeing a chiropractor and I found out a lot of the reasons I was getting injured. I work as a massage therapist and I'm very right hand dominant, so my shoulder is elevated, and my whole right side was really compressed. So I had a lot of back issues that were, you know, going down and going into my legs, and that was causing a lot of my running injuries also. The chiropractor helped me out, helped me with back exercises. I think that really helped me overall, too.

FW: I've never seen you run. Is your right dominance evident in your stride?
KK: I think it was, before I started seeing the chiropractor. As I get tired, my right side kind of compresses, you could tell in my shoulders, my right shoulder would be depressed. Since I've been working with him it's been so much better.

FW: Greg McMillan is your coach. He helped you tailor your mileage down to a more appropriate level. I think one of the things coaches have to do with really talented athletes is help them hold back from doing too much in training. Is that hard for you, because it seems counterintuitive that if you run less, sometimes you're going to run faster?
KK: Yeah, I know, it does. But I have the mentality — I could run 300 miles a week mentally, but physically I just can't. So, for me, I need somebody to say, 'Okay, Kelly, this happened twice. This is what you need to do. You need to cut down on the miles, and shorten the program.'

FW: Speaking of high mileage, you were part of the now-defunct FILA Discovery program, under Dr. Gabriele Rosa. There was some talk when that program was up and running that Dr. Rosa pushed his athletes too hard. Did you have problems with that program?
KK: No. Actually, that's how I met Greg McMillan. He was helping out with the program. Greg did a great job. The training was really hard, but Greg really tailored the mileage to the individual. That was my first time that I PRed by 18 minutes, with the 2:36, that was right after the FILA Discovery program, working with Greg. So for Houston, what I did was Greg and I went back to how I trained for the FILA, in terms of the mileage. The workouts were very different, but I tried to follow the same mileage guidelines.

FW: Who are your sponsors now?
KK: New Balance, Fuel Belt, and Clif Bar.

FW: Did you run in elementary school, junior high?
KK: I started in seventh grade. I ran varsity cross country, and indoor and outdoor track.

FW: Did you excel at a young age?
KK: I did. I was decent, but I definitely wasn't the best in the state or anything. In college, you know, I made it more of a focus. And then after college, I continued to try to focus on it, and it was hard cause I was working full time. But, yeah, I wasn't that great in high school, and in college I got a little better every year. My senior year I made All-American, but I wasn't one of the best, at all [laughs].

FW: I remember reading once about a defining run Deena Kastor took, a long run in which she had this epiphany that she wanted to step up to the marathon. Did you ever have a 'this is me' type run, a defining run?
KK: I remember this run, where I was training — I was actually living in New England at the time, but I was visiting a friend and training in Dallas, and trying to escape the cold weather in New England. And I was running around White Rock Lake, and you know, I'll never forget, I just had this feeling. I was finishing up a good, nice, long run. I was training for the national championships at the time, and I just had this feeling like…it was just like I realized how much running meant to me, how much I loved it — how much I needed it. I needed to feel like I was successful.

I can't really explain, but it was just a feeling of happiness, like I was really happy with what I was doing with my life. I remember when I was in college, and I had always wanted to continue with running and be successful, and my goal, my dream one day was to get a shoe contract, and now I have it. So that was one day I realized, wow, I'm really doing what I always wanted to do with my life.

FW: You mentioned you work as a massage therapist. Tell us a little about your life outside of running.
KK: I work part-time as a massage therapist, only maybe 10 hours a week. I try not to do too much 'cause it's so hard on the body. I coach a couple athletes, online coaching. And I run with my dog Pre [laughs]. That's about all I have time to do.

FW: It seems like your performance in Houston would make you pretty appealing to those selecting the US team for the World Championships marathon, to be held in Helsinki this summer.
KK: Yeah, actually, I'm very much hoping that they would select me. I would really like to go. It's held in August, which is actually really good for me because an August marathon in Finland, it might be a little warm for a marathon. And, I'm definitely a warm-weather runner. Sixties and 70s is nice.

FW: You did pretty well in the chilly weather in Houston, though.
KK: Yeah. I was really cold [laughs]. I was really cold the first four miles. My fingers were so frozen I couldn't squeeze my water bottles, so it was hard to get my fluids down. But then after five miles, I was fine.

FW: Tell us what races are coming up.
KK: I'm meeting with my coach in about a week, and we're going to iron out the details, and try and make out a plan. This spring there's a lot of fun road races, maybe the World's Best 10K, [I'll] probably do the Gate River Run, maybe the Azalea 10K, probably do the National Championships, I think there's a 25K in May.

FW: Do you have any role models, inside and outside of running. I mean, you named your dog Pre, so maybe…
KK: [Laughs.] Yeah, of course everybody loves Steve Prefontaine, how he ran. He really ran with his heart every race. I try to do that every race, to run with my heart.

FW: Other runners you look up to?
KK: Deena, for her success in the Olympics. It was extremely inspiring. I think she's great for USA Track and Field. Also, I have a twin sister, Kim Loeffler. She's a pro triathlete. She was 14th in the world at the Ironman World Championships. Her dedication and commitment is very inspiring to me. She trains between four and seven hours a day, every day. She is really chasing down her athletic dreams and making them come true. I admire her most of all.

FW: You've competed in triathlons. Any plans to go back?
KK: Definitely. Someday, maybe after 2008, when I'm older. I'll go back. I really enjoyed the ironman distance, the challenge of it.

FW: Do you and your sister talk shop? Is that a part of your training?
KK: Oh, my sister is my best friend in the whole world. We ran together in college at UMass-Amherst, and we trained together a lot when we lived together. We talk about six or seven times a day about training. We're very supportive. She's at all my marathons, I'm at all her ironmans.

FW: There are ambitious, reasonable goals, and then there are big crazy dreams — I know four-hour marathoners dream about winning the ING New York City Marathon, and I bet Paul Tergat fantasizes about what it would be like to run a 1:55 for the marathon. Any of those daydreams for you?
KK: Yeah, you have to have dreams. I hope mine are reasonable! [Laughs.] No, definitely, I have a lot of goals and dreams for the next four years, and I'm going to keep trying to work towards them every day.

FW: Like?
KK: I feel like it's very reasonable for me to break 2:30 in the marathon. That's my goal. And in 2008, my dream is to make the Olympic team. I learned a lot about myself during this last training cycle and I feel that it really helped me as a runner and [will continue to help] the next four years.

FW: Like what did you learn?
KK: Just basically what I mentioned before, that I don't need a really long marathon training program. And that maybe my max is 120 to 125, and I shouldn't go much above 120 for overall mileage.

And the other thing, I guess, is that there's so many times over the past two years when I felt like maybe I'm not cut out for the marathon, maybe I should go back to the 10K and do some shorter races. I knew in my heart I just loved the challenge of the marathon, and I never gave up on it. I'm really glad I never gave up on it.

(Interview conducted January 27, 2005, and posted February 3, 2005.)