Interview with Sara Slattery
by Penny Sparks

Sara Slattery. (Photo by Alison Wade/New York Road Runners)

Sara Gorton Slattery, with little training under her belt, managed to best the best last weekend in Sacramento at the NCAA Track & Field Championships. She won the 10,000-meter race in only her second attempt at the distance. The victory earned Slattery her second NCAA individual title and 10th All-American honor; her first national title came in the indoor 5,000m in 2003. Slattery has had one of the best collegiate careers in the NCAA, and is the only runner in the history of the University of Colorado women's program to race on two national championship cross country teams, first as a freshman and again as a senior.

Slattery has won multiple Big 12 championships in both indoor and outdoor track. Her latest wins came this outdoor track season where she won both the 10,000 and the 5,000. The Big 12 meet was the first time she had ever competed in the 10,000. She was also the 5,000 meter champion at the NCAA Midwest Regional in May.

The Phoenix, Arizona native married former University of Colorado teammate Steve Slattery, the 2003 USA steeplechase champion, in January of 2004.

Fast-Women.com: Sara, congratulations on winning your second NCAA national title. Did you ever expect it to be in the 10,000?
Sara Slattery: If you were to ask me my freshman year what event I would have run my last season at the NCAAs, I'm sure I would not have guessed the 10K. Coming into CU as a freshman my better events were the 1,500 and 3K. I started to move up to the 5K my junior year at CU at nationals but still ran the middle distance events quite frequently. However, this year I made a big jump with the 10K, because I lacked the anaerobic sessions due to the foot injury I was dealing with. I made this choice, because I had a great aerobic base from all the crosstraining I did while I was injured.

FW: You were lacking the training that the other top runners had coming into this meet. Did that concern you coming into nationals?
SS: Not really. Even though I wasn't able to start running until March, my training progressed much quicker than I thought it would. I maintained my fitness very well crosstraining and did not have a lot of trouble getting fit once I started running. Once I started competing, each race gave me more and more confidence in my fitness and I had several good workouts that made me feel ready for nationals. By the time nationals came, I felt very confident and ready to race. The week going into nationals, I was just really anxious for the race to come.

FW: How did you feel and what were your thoughts during the race?
SS: The 10K is such a long track race, and there is so much time to think. In this 10K, as in most races, I try to stay positive and concentrate on my race plan. I just kept telling myself to stay relaxed, tuck in on the rail, feel good, and let the race unfold. Mark and I came up with a race plan beforehand that if the race was going at a decent pace to just tuck into the pack and feel good. We decided at 2K to go, if I still felt good, to start to make a move and pick it up. I felt good most of the way and stuck to my plan. There were times where I thought I could run faster and pick up the pace, yet I questioned doing it because it is a 25 lap race and you may not feel as good in three or four laps. So I told myself to just stick to the plan and feel good until the later part of the race, because I know I can kick the last 400 to 800 meters with any of those girls.

FW: When Caroline Bierbaum made her surge and broke from the top pack did you feel any panic at all or were you confident you could reel her back in?
SS: It's funny because at 2K to go, I started to break the pack and she went with me and surged much quicker. I was somewhat relieved that she was taking it. I felt very good at that point but didn't want to drop a 72 just yet. So I tried to keep her close enough that she didn't lose me and I could catch her with a lap or two to go.

FW: How did you like running the 10,000? Is it a lot different than the 5,000, and which one do you prefer?
SS: That is a tough question. I like running the 10K much more than I thought I would. I used to tell myself that I will never run a 10K on the track, it's too long. However, I seem to really like it. If you can get into a rhythm, and not look at the lap counter, it goes by very quickly and becomes very easy to hit pace and click off the laps.

However, I really love the 5K. It can be such an exciting race, especially with all the great women 5K runners we have now in the U.S. In the past two years, the US women have really stepped it up and made this event quicker and much more competitive. In the next few years, I really want to work on my 5K and 1,500m. I think I have a lot of speed that just hasn't been developed in the past few years. My main goal is to be competitive at the world level in the 5K within the next few years.

FW: How does your training vary when racing the 10,000 versus the 5,000?
SS: It actually didn't vary much from training for the 5K. I actually did more 5K pacing than I did 10K work. I can only recall one workout where I did 10K pace work. As I said before, I had a good aerobic base from crosstraining and really had to work on getting fit anaerobically on the track. Mark did a great job with my workouts this season and really individualized my training as well as my teammates' for nationals. We did a lot of 800s and 1,000s at 5K pace to retrain my body to feel the pain of racing hard. I knew if I could run my 5K pace well in workouts, 10K pace would feel much easier. I did, however, increase my mileage a bit from the past to keep up my aerobic base for the 10K. For the past few months, I have been maintaining about 75-85 miles per week.

FW: What event will you be running in at USA Outdoor Championships the end of this month? How do you feel your chances are for going to the World Championships in Helsinki?
SS: I plan to run the 5K at the USA Championships. I think it will take a pretty good race for me to go to the World Championships. I think I can definitely be in the top five at the championships and top three would be awesome. In order to go to Helsinki, I will have to be top three and make the world standard which is 15:08 and would be a 16-second PR. I am just going to go there and get in the mix, race smart and try to be top three.

FW: How do you feel about closing out your collegiate career, and are you excited and ready for the next level?
SS: I am very happy with my collegiate career. There were some ups and downs along the way, but I don't regret anything that happened or anything I have done. I have had a few injuries and gotten sick during my career, but I have learned a lot from these experiences and I think they have made me a much stronger person and runner. I feel I have been able to accomplish a lot during my career, I have had the privilege of being a part of two national championship cross country team titles as well as winning two individual track titles. More important than running accomplishments, I have been very lucky to have great teammates and coaches at CU that have helped to make me the runner I am today. I love my teammates, they are very talented runners themselves who push me each day to work harder and are also some of my closest friends. Mark Wetmore, and Jason Drake [who is now the head coach at Washington State University] were the two coaches I worked with at CU. They both taught me a lot about running and have done an excellent job coaching me. J.D. was able to show me how to work hard and have fun while doing it. Mark has really made me work hard in my training to get to the level I am at and has done a great job of developing my talent in college.

FW: I have read you are going to be moving to Portland to train with the Nike Oregon Project that your husband Steve currently belongs to. Does this mean Nike is your professional sponsor or are you are still in the process of finding an agent and getting a contract?
SS: Actually, it is not set in stone what I will be doing next year. Steve has been working with Alberto Salazar this year to explore the Oregon Project as an option. I am not positive who I will be running for next year. My agent Ricky Simms, is currently finding out what my options are, and I plan to make my decision sometime this summer.

FW: What are your goals for the next level and how do you plan on reaching them?
SS: I want to have a long career where I continually improve. I would love to have a career like Colleen De Reuck and be competitive on the world level in my late 30s. During my career, I want to be the best in the world in the 5K and 10K. At the 2008 Olympics, I will only be 26, and in 2012 I will be 30. By this time, I should be at the peak of my career and hopefully will be able to compete for a championship medal. I think the key for me to obtain these goals and do well in this sport is to stay healthy, and be able to have continuous uninterrupted training.

FW: Sara, I want to shift gears now and ask you about the process you have gone through in your collegiate career. I know you have had to deal with a lot of injuries and mononucleosis twice while at the University of Colorado. Was it hard to keep having to come back time and time again in your training while trying to be competitive at the top level?
SS: That is a great question. My career has had some ups and downs. I have had a few injuries and gotten sick during my career, but I feel that much of this has been due to bad luck. I first got mono my freshman year and had a relapse the next year. And two summers ago I twisted my ankle on a trail and tore my posterior tibialis tendon on my right foot. It was hard at times not to get down about the fact that I could not do what I love to do, run. However, through it all I tried to keep a positive attitude and knew that my talent would not leave me.

FW: Why do you feel you have been injured so often the last four years and have you figured out a way to prevent or lessen the chances of getting injured?
SS: I do not feel as though I am injury prone. Most of the time I have missed has been from bad luck. However, some things I could have prevented had I listened to my body and taken better taken better care of myself. I have learned when to hammer in training and when to take it easy. I am much better at evaluating my body now than I was five years ago and I think that is an important skill to have when preventing injury.

FW: How did you manage to stay motivated and what was your motivation to keep persevering through injuries and illness?
SS: It is very hard at times to stay motivated when you aren't out doing what you love to do. But I knew I had to stay as positive as I could. It is a lot easier to accomplish things with a positive attitude than a negative one. I also knew that my talent would not leave me once I could start running again. I knew that I could come back as strong or stronger from those interruptions.

FW: How is your training progressing now that you are healthy and have been training strong for a few months? What are your goals for the future with your training?
SS: My training has been coming along really well. My fitness has progressed a lot faster than I thought it would and my workouts are getting back to being as good as they were when I was at my fittest in the spring of '03. I am very excited for the summer training because my husband Steve and I will be going to London to train and compete. There are some very good women who are a part of PACE, the sports agency Steve and I are with, that I can train with. I think that going to Europe and training and racing with these girls will be a huge learning experience for me.

FW: Do you feel your body will hold up to the demands an elite runner has to make on her body?
SS: Yes, I do. I think now that I am an elite runner I will have a lot more time to dedicate to my running. In college I spread myself pretty thin with my studies and involvement at school. I finished my degree in three years and worked on my masters the last two years. I was also involved in the Student Athlete Advisory Committee at CU. These things took a lot of time and energy out of my day. Now, that I am an elite runner, I will have a lot more time for training and resting.

FW: What advice would you give to incoming college runners that they can apply at the start of their career in order to be successful at the collegiate level?
SS: What I would tell incoming college runners is to work hard and be patient with their running and they will be successful in college. It can be a big transition from high school to college, but if they stay positive they can have a successful college career.

FW: If you could do anything different the last four years, what would it be and why?
SS: I am not sure I would change anything. I think that the mistakes I have made have helped me to learn important lessons and become the runner and person I am today.

(Interview posted June 17, 2005.)