Interview with Marla Runyan

By Beth Whitney

Marla Runyan running the 2002 ING New York City Marathon.

Marla Runyan, 37, of Eugene, Oregon, took an unusual early career path to her current position as one of America’s top distance runners. Starting out as a multi-events specialist, she competed as a heptathlete while at San Diego State, where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in education of the deaf and a masters in education of deaf-blind children.

Runyan finished 10th in the heptathlon at the 1996 Olympic Trials, breaking the previous heptathlon 800-meter record with a time of 2:04.70. Legally blind as a result of Stardgardt’s disease, Runyan also set numerous Paralympic records the same year. After two years away from the sport owing to injuries, she returned to track and field, but this time purely as a distance runner.

A two-time Olympian and three-time outdoor national 5000m champion, Runyan is a versatile athlete with strong personal bests at all distances, including 4:02 for 1500 meters, 8:39 for 3000 meters, 14:59 for 5000 meters, and 2:27:10 for the marathon, which she set at her debut in New York in 2002. Runyan recently set a 10,000-meterPR of 32:11.92 at the Oregon Invitational, her first race after a year away from the sport, during which time she and her husband (and coach), Matt Lonergan, became the proud parents of a daughter, Anna, on September 1, 2005.

Two weeks after her stellar 10,000-meter performance at the Oregon Invite, Runyan ran a solid 15:15 at the Oregon Twilight 5000 meter event. Runyan has served notice that she’s ready for another outstanding season. We caught up with her a few days later to talk about her recent return to the world of competitive running and her plans for the upcoming year.

Fast-Women.com: Congratulations on your recent 5K in Eugene. What was the weather like? Was it as windy as it was for your 10K?
Marla Runyan: Oh no, not at all. The weather was actually much warmer and just kind of breezy. No, I would say the 10K was a freezing Arctic wind—there had to have been a wind chill in the 30s, and there had to have been a 30-mile-an-hour wind on the backstretch. It was ridiculous. The 5K was a lot better—kind of breezy and a bit warm.

FW: I read a recent interview where you said you’d come oh so close to retiring completely at the beginning of the year.
MR: Well, through the winter, I had a hard time. Ever since 2000, really, I’ve had hip problems, [iliotibial band] problems in both legs. Now I don’t really have the [iliotibial] problems, but everything else—the lower back, the glutes…it switches legs. It will be in my right leg for six months and then switch to my left leg. I’ve had it for several years, but most recently it’s gotten much worse, and it’s just been very difficult to maintain. When I de-condition or go on a break from training, the condition actually gets much worse. So I don’t think it’s running related; it’s a structural problem in my back or something like that.

I thought the pregnancy might make it better [laughs], but it didn’t. I’d had such an extreme de-conditioning, obviously, since I took a year off. That, combined with all the changes that happen—your pelvic bones separating and your muscles and ligaments stretching so much and being extended—meant it took so much time just to be able to go for a run. I couldn’t even jog. What would happen is, I would be able to run one day, and it would be so bad that I’d have to take five days off. I couldn’t get anything consistent, and it was, really, a four-month struggle. It went on for four months of, “Will I ever be able to train?”

I basically had to train through it. If I sat around and waited for it to go away, I’d never go anywhere. So I just trained through it and tried to get stronger. It’s kind of a catch-22, since training, in a way, does make you stronger, and would help the condition, but the condition was so bad I couldn’t train. But I kind of trained through it eventually and reached a breakthrough by the end of January. I would say we were training consistently beginning in February. I was starting from the bottom and working my way back up. I didn’t have any idea if I’d even be able to race at those early meets that I ran. I’m actually very happy. That was, really, only two months of consistent training, two-and-a-half months, and I was able to run those races, so that was very encouraging.

FW: It must have been especially frustrating since you trained through your pregnancy, right up to your delivery day.
MR: Exactly. It really made me start to wonder if any of that crosstraining was worth it.

FW: How much were you able to draw on the insights and experiences of other female athletes who trained through their pregnancies or came back from childbirth quickly? Were you able to have any back and forth with anybody about that?
MR: No, I didn’t. I had talked only a little bit with Sonia O’Sullivan. I remember when she had two daughters—I knew she did a lot of crosstraining. She took spinning classes on the bike, and, well, I never really enjoyed that. I can say, though, that I think I could have done a lot more running through my pregnancy if I hadn’t had the hip problems. My hip problem is pretty unique to me; I don’t think it was the result of the pregnancy. I talked with Joan Benoit Samuelson a little bit that spring, and her recommendation was that I run as long as I could. She said she ran the day she delivered. She also told me don’t be afraid to nurse as long as you can or want to. I was unsure about the nursing and how that would affect running. But I’m still nursing, so I discovered that you can do both, running and nursing, and make it work. It doesn’t seem to be a huge hindrance at all, so it’s working out okay.

FW: I guess, except for the sleep factor. How much were you sleeping before when you were in high-level training?
MR: When you’re just training and you don’t have a kid? I think as a professional athlete, your whole life and your whole day kinda-sorta revolves around you. It’s a very self-absorbed, self-centered lifestyle, especially as a runner; as a distance runner in particular, you’re totally 100% aware of how everything you do affects your body. How much you sleep, how much you eat, what you eat, how many miles you run, and your workouts, and this, and that, and your long run and …Distance runners tend to be very meticulous. They plan everything out. You spend a lot of time thinking about yourself in a sense, and that’s not negative, but it’s what you have to do to be your best at your sport.

So now you throw a baby into the mix and it’s a whole other world. Like, for example, the day of the 10K, my husband was gone and my race was going to be a 10:00 race, so I was sitting here with Anna in her highchair at 7:00 feeding her baby cereal and looking at my watch thinking, “Okay, I’ve got to get my uniform on, and start my warm-up at 9:00…” and I was thinking of how different my life is now. I go through a regular day with my daughter and then, “Oh yeah, by the way, I’m going to run a race tonight.” Totally different, and, in fact I even nursed her an hour and a half before I got to the starting line; I was nursing her in the warm-up area. And I sort of laughed and chuckled to myself, “Well, this is different,” because I’m usually sitting here getting nervous and everything else. It’s major; it’s just a major change.

I’m not complaining by any means, but I think the misconception that people have is that the pregnancy and the delivery is the hard part. Like, that you’re going to get fat, and you can’t come back from that. But that isn’t really the hard part. The hard part is, how you adjust to a whole lifestyle with the baby. That includes things like now your time isn’t about you; it’s about your child. Your sleep is completely disrupted. I remember after huge long runs or big, big workouts on the weekends, I could come home and have, like, a 10-hour sleep. I’ll never have that again [laughs]. I get about six or seven hours [of sleep], but it’s in blocks—I get three hours, and then I have to get up, then I get another three hours. So I don’t have that continuous long sleep. I really miss that. After about six months, I think the challenge isn’t about coming back from a pregnancy, coming back from a delivery, it’s, “How do I become a professional athlete with a child?”

I think as a woman—I don’t want to say anything bad about dads here—but I think as a woman, it’s even more challenging. You have the nursing factor, but women—you’re the mom. Moms are instinctively driven to put themselves to the side and say, “I’m here for my child, I’m here for my family.” Men are usually, “I’m going to provide for my family by pursuing my goal.” They’re two completely different mindsets, I think. And so it’s almost an oxymoron to be a driven, professional female athlete and at the same time be “super mom.” You can do it, but I think it takes the right attitude.

FW: It’s funny you use the word “driven,” because one of the notes I’d made to myself was to ask you if you think “driven” is an apt description of yourself.
MR: Um, yeah. I think I can be. Whether it’s being a mom now or being 37 years old, or whatever it might be, but I mean, I remember not that long ago, maybe 1999 or 2000, so six or seven years ago, I would think, eat, sleep running. I didn’t want anything to do with “normal” life, or worrying about a mortgage or anything else. I just rented a really cheap apartment, ran as many miles as I could. I wanted to go live in the woods or in a cabin and run every day, and not have anything to do [laughs] with regular life.

And now here we are, a total 180, complete opposite, with owning a house and having a mortgage and having a rental property and dealing with being a parent. It’s now completely the other way. So I think I am driven, and I’m still a competitor, for sure, but I have a different perspective of everything, I think. I don’t look at every race as a do-or-die situation. I look at every race as just a race. Certain races are more important than others, and certain races are the main goal of a season, but every race isn’t a priority. I have three goals with every race I go to, three different things I want to accomplish in that race. That may change. I have a better perspective—my daughter’s going to be at the finish line, the sun’s going to come up tomorrow, and I’m back to the real world.

I think I’m driven, but now I’m more driven in situations where it’s needed. Like, maybe running nationals, or maybe running a fall marathon. Those would be highlights of the year. So that’s where I want to be at my best. That’s where I want to be my most competitive and my toughest.

FW: How closely were you following running, and all the records dropping, while you were on the shelf?
MR: Well, I personally don’t really look for those things. I personally was too busy setting up the nursery; I was going for hikes by my house; I was enjoying my time. Being pregnant last summer was one of the funnest times of my whole life. I had so much fun, and I couldn’t wait to meet my daughter. I was so excited. I wrote her letters on the computer that I want to give her when she’s older. I just couldn’t wait to meet her; this person who was going to enter the world. I was just so much in my own world in that respect.

However, my husband, he eats, sleeps, runs “running.” He was on the computer, checking race results every day, so he would mention to me here and there, “So and so won this race, or ran this time,” or whatever. It really only interested me if it was someone I knew, some of my friends, like Elva Dryer. I know that when she ran Bolder Boulder that year it was all exciting. We don’t have an interest in it, other than knowing how good friends perform, hoping they do well, that kind of thing. It doesn’t bother me that a race will come and go and I’m not in it. Five or six years ago? Sure, it would have bothered me! I’m far past that now. You can’t run every race. You have to be selective and pursue your own goals.

FW: You mentioned you are thinking about a fall marathon.
MR: I think so. Sure. If these next races go well, and if nationals goes well, I would like to end my track season at nationals and not look in to traveling to Europe or anything like that. Instead, I’d have a short break, and then start training again for the fall. I’d be looking at some road races in the fall and then a fall marathon. That’s kind of my tentative plan right now.

FW: After these two solid races back, you’ve got to be thinking, “Yes, I can make this new life/balance work.” Are you giving any thought to picking up where you left off with that great debut marathon of 2:27? Do you feel like that’s an event where you made a big splash at the beginning, and even though there are much faster times in you, so far you’re unproven at it?
MR: That’s how I totally feel. I ran 2:28:33 or something in Chicago right after the [2004] Olympics—it’s funny, most people don’t even know I did that race—and I was so proud of that run, because I came back from Athens very frustrated at that point. I’d been struggling a little bit, and I had six weeks to see if I could actually throw together enough training to run a respectable marathon, and I think I did it, you know? It was little volume—I’d been running the 5K and resting a lot in preparation for the Olympics.

So my three “respectable” marathons were New York in ’02, and then I salvaged a 2:30 in Boston in a very, very difficult race, where I had completely overtrained myself and got to the line dehydrated, just really made some mistakes going into that to begin with. So I was very proud that I finished that race, but I don’t consider it to be running to my potential at all. And then running Chicago in 2004, I felt that was a strong performance. But still, I think my potential is in the 2:25 range. I also learned after running Chicago, and having something to compare it to, how much harder New York is. Running Chicago, it literally felt like running a half marathon compared to what New York felt like. I now have a lot more respect for that 2:27 there, on that challenging course.

I love the hospitality of New York, and I love the marathon itself, but the dilemma is, I’d like to run a fast time. New York is probably not the place for that. I’m kind of torn as to where to run. But it might be a place to start. I might consider going back and getting a performance in, and then looking for a fast time in a spring marathon or something. I really don’t know, so we’ll have to wait and see.

FW: Looking forward to the next Olympics, is that distance going to be your focus?
MR: I don’t know [laughs]...I’m just trying to get through this year. I don’t know, it might be. I would have to get a few more marathons in before I would decide that’s what I want to pursue. I’m very frustrated with the 5K and 10K on the track. They are so competitive internationally. I mean really, even a 15:00 flat runner, running 15:00 or 14:50—those are very good times, especially in the United States. But internationally they are not going to hold up. You have to be running low 14:40s to be competitive. So it’s very hard when you dedicate so much of your training and your time and your life, and you get all the way over [to Europe], and you’re not even really in the race, because those girls are running so much faster. That’s very frustrating.

I don’t know which way to go. You can look at that in any race and it’s the same. The 1500 you have to run 4:00 or better, and the marathon you need to be in 2:21 shape, that kind of fitness to be a contender. Knowing how competitive it is in every event, I think my decision will be based on which event I enjoy the most, which event I can run my very best, and be the most competitive. We’ll go from that and make a decision.

FW: I have one last question. If Anna, somewhere down the line, decided the thing she wanted most to do in life was to become an elite runner like her mom, would you encourage her, and what kind of advice would you share with her?
MR: Oh my word. Um, well, I would never discourage her, but I sure would hope she’d pick a less painful sport. I say that jokingly, but it is a very painful sport at times. I think I would encourage her to be very patient with running. It all depends on where she is in her life. Are you talking about high school, are you talking about college, are you talking about after college? I think distance running is a sport of maturity, that’s my belief, and I don’t think you’re going to be the best distance runner you can be at 13 years old, or 14 years old, or even 18 years old. I think your best years of running are going to be in your mid to late 20s, or even, for some women, the early 30s. I just don’t agree with taking 13 year olds out and running them into the ground, and making them so miserable they hate the sport. I would never want that for any child. So I guess anything she wants to pursue, if she’s passionate about it, she should. But I would want her to have patience, and I would want her to enjoy whatever her dreams are, and not take it so seriously that it stops being fun.

Interview conducted on May 11, 2006, and posted on May 31, 2006.

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