FW: Did you run today?
ML: I ran 10 miles this morning at 6:00 am.

FW: Tell me about your recent half-marathon experience at Houston where you placed third. I just interviewed Zoila Gomez and she told me that you were not in the lead pack—that you worked your way up later on in the race.
ML: I don’t remember exactly how it happened. Zoila and I were together until about mile three or four, maybe. Actually, it was mile three. After that, I was on my own for a while. Between mile three and eight, I couldn’t feel anyone behind me. I could see the next girl--that was Samia Akbar. She was a ways ahead. But I just slowly kept working my way up towards her. Or she kept coming back—I don’t know which one it was. But I passed her before the turnaround which was at mile eight. And then from mile eight to nine and a half I was kind of on my own. The girl who ended up in fourth [Alvina Begay] came up on me like a bat out of hell. She made a very distinctive move on me and I went with her. But I was hesitant because it was a pretty good clip and we had more than three miles to go. I went with her for a half mile and then kind of let go a little bit where she was only ten feet in front of me. When I had a mile to go, I knew that I was going to be alright and I just kicked by her.

FW: You placed in a national championship. Do you consider this to be one of your best races?
ML: Someone at the press conference asked me that too. It’s hard to gauge because I don’t really know half-marathon times. I don’t really know what a very good time, or a decent time, or a sub par time is. It’s easy to say, for like, [the] Twin Cities [Marathon] I was under the Olympic ‘A’ standard by a few minutes, so to me that’s awesome. But for the half-marathon, I don’t really know how to gauge it. I know that I placed very well and I ran faster than I was expecting and I felt better than I expected. I know it was a great race. I just don’t know how it compares to my marathon time.

FW: What this your debut half-marathon?
ML: Kind of. I ran one last summer when I was getting into training after [the] Boston Marathon. And I did it basically as a workout so I ran like 1:18-flat. That’s like 6:00 per-mile pace. My miles splits in the marathon were faster than that. It was a very low key race with not much competition. I was on vacation so I kind of just jumped into it.

FW: You got $4000 from your showing in Houston. What are you going to do with it?
ML: I don’t know—probably invest it. I guess [I can] use it to live in Philadelphia which is expensive [laughing].

FW: Did you have a race strategy at the Houston Half-Marathon?
ML: My strategy going into the race was to hit 5:40 per mile. I wanted to average 5:40. Based on my workouts leading up to it, I knew it was going to work out. It was just a matter of the course and the race. I knew everything was going to pan out that day. So going into it, I knew I wanted to go out at 5:40 or a little faster. I wanted to ease back to 5:40 eventually and see where that put me.

FW: But you averaged 5:33 per mile so you never really eased back.
ML: Yeah. I felt good. I’m usually pretty good at gauging my pace. I’ll automatically back off if I think it’s too hard.

FW: I want to move on now to the marathon. You debuted at the marathon in 2005 with a 2:49 at the Philadelphia Marathon. You then ran a 2:40 at the Boston Marathon in 2006 and then you dropped it down to a 2:35 at the Meditronic Twin Cities Marathon last October. How did you do it? You aren’t coached right?
ML: [Laughing] My two coaches from high school are my coaches now: Tom Mittman and Steve Sherwood. Tom is in Iowa and Steve is in Oregon now.

FW: I had read in a previous interview that they weren’t your official coaches before the Twin Cities Marathon.
ML: No. Before Twin Cities they were coaching me, but before Boston they were kind of helping me out, giving me pointers here and there, but nothing too serious. I would e-mail them occasionally and talk with them on the phone, but after Boston I was like, “I’m going to take this seriously.” So we got in contact very frequently.

FW: So they are giving you workouts?
ML: Yes.

FW: Do you still run for the Philadelphia Track Club?
ML: Yes.

FW: How much of an influence does the club have in your running?
ML: There are a lot of people in the [Philadelphia] Track Club who have a lot of experience. I feel like if there are questions, they are definitely helpful and are great training partners. We do a long run on Sundays. There are usually only a few girls, but we’ll go with a big group of guys, so that’s good because I’d never run my long runs as fast if it weren’t for them. And I get gear and shoes from [the club] because they are sponsored by Puma. It’s very helpful. I love the situation. It’s great.

FW: I’d like to go back to your marathon progression. Everyone wants to have this type of progression—this trend—that you’ve had. Is there any one element that contributed to this favorable trend?
ML: I honestly am surprised every race that I run that it keeps getting better and better because in college it was never like that for me.

FW: You ran shorter distances in college. Do you that you are more suited to run longer races like the marathon?
ML: Yeah. My coaches always knew that the marathon was my best event because they said I could always run a long distance at an even pace and stay on pace. As far as my improvement, I think the training has been going very well and my coaches have known me for so long so they knew how I worked out in high school, what went well, and how I raced. I think just them knowing me so well personally and as an athlete has made it a good situation.

FW: When I was doing research for this interview, I read that you have the 12th fastest time and are currently the tenth seeded runner for the 2008 Olympic Trials. It sounds like you are more serious. You have definitely gotten better. What’s it going to take to make the Olympic team?
ML: I think that I want to put a lot more time into my training. Right now I have to get up at 6:00 to run. My program is done at the end of May. I’m going to focus on finishing up school which will be done at the end of the summer and then running. I think I just need more time for all the extra rest and recovery and getting more sleep. I think I can run [a] 2:30 [marathon]. That’s the next step I need to take as well as training hard.

FW: Deena Kastor just announced that she’s going to run the Boston Marathon this year. Are you going to run it too?
ML: I don’t know. I don’t think I’m going to run the Boston Marathon this year. I haven’t really decided what I’m going to do next because it’s dependent if I make the Pan American Games Team which will be in July in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil or the world championship team which is [being held in] Osaka, Japan in August. I’m in contention, from my placing at the Twin Cities Marathon, to be chosen to run on either of those teams. It just depends who ahead of me declines. So I’m kind of waiting to make any long term plans until I find out about that.

FW: Let’s go to your training now. What kind of staple workouts are you doing?
ML: Typically when I’m training for the marathon, I’ll do a long run on Sunday. Before the Twin Cities Marathon, the longest I went was twenty [miles] once. Usually I’ll do one long one like 18 [miles] one week and then go back and do like 14 or 16 [miles] the following week. I’ll do a tempo run and then like an interval or fartlek workout during the week. So I do two workouts a week along with the long run.

FW: When you do your long run are you doing any part of it at marathon pace?
ML: Sometimes. If I am only doing one workout during the week, I’ll use the long run as a moderate workout. My coaches will sometimes have me do a set of a warm-ups, a set of five minute repeats (at marathon place) and then an hour run and then finish up with something at tempo or race pace.

FW: Tell me about your repeat sessions.
ML: Usually, I’ll run to a path that is all marked out. I’ll do like 1200s or miles or 2K repeats. I went on the track a few times before the half-marathon and did faster pace 1200s.

FW: How do you handle the recovery period between the repeats? Do you wear a heart rate monitor?
ML: No. I don’t use a heart rate monitor. It depends on what pace that I’m doing. If I’m doing fast intervals, I’ll do equal recovery with time. If I’m doing mile [repeats] I’ll go out at 5-whatever pace, then I’ll recover for five minutes. But if I’m going at a slower tempo pace or race pace, then I’ll do shorter recovery.

FW:Are you doing your workouts with the Philadelphia Track Club?
ML: I do most workouts on my own. Emily Kroshus, who ran for Princeton, she’ll do some workouts with me and there are a couple girls that when our schedules match up, we’ll do workouts together. Before the Twin Cities Marathon, I was doing everything on my own. Before Houston, Emily and I were trying to meet up as much as we could.

FW: Most runners improve their times and then just level out. Are you ever worried about this plateau?
ML: No. I haven’t really thought about it.

FW: You mentioned a 2:30 marathon is a goal for your next marathon. Let’s say you run a marathon before the Olympic Trials and run that time. That’s still probably not good enough to make the Olympic team because Deena Kastor’s maybe good for a sub 2:20 and then the next two spots are perhaps going to go to women running sub 2:26. Were this true, you’d have to make it to 2:30 and then make one more improvement after that to make the team. How will you accomplish this?
ML: I’m definitely taking 2008 seriously, but I’m thinking my best shot is going to be in 2012 or maybe 2016. I haven’t thought about plateauing anytime soon. It’s coming so easily now. It’s hard to imagine that I’d hit a plateau any time soon.

FW: Your official job title is ‘sports information graduate assistant.’ What do you do?
ML: I work to promote Drexel’s athletic teams and media relations. I have to work with all the athletic teams—doing all the pre-seasons media guides. I help put on the events and take stats during the events. I write the post game stories and send them out to all the papers.

FW: And you’re also in school?
ML: Yes. I’m getting my masters in education administration.

FW: So you’re from Iowa, right?
ML: Yes.

FW: What are you doing in Philadelphia? Is it because of Drexel?
ML: [laughs] Yes.

FW: How do you like Philadelphia?
ML: I love it.

FW: Do you consider it to be a running-friendly city?
ML: I pretty much run the same routes every day, but I love it.

FW: Are you done running on the track?
ML: I want to do a fast 10K this spring, but I’d have to go to Stanford University, because that’s where I think the best races are. We’ll see.

FW: No cross country plans?
ML: I’m not going to do cross country. I can’t take that much time off work to get adjusted

FW: We’ve talked a bit about how you are best suited for long distance races. Would you consider the marathon to be your best event?
ML: I don’t know yet. I haven’t done enough to really decide. I love the half; it seems so short compared to the marathon. I don’t know what my forte is yet. I know longer distances are better for me, but I don’t know which [race] I’m better at yet, I guess.

FW: During the marathon itself, do you take gels?
ML: One of my coaches, Tom [Mittman] is an ER doctor. He said to take a gel every 40 minutes of running during the marathon. I didn’t take them that often. I think I took one at mile seven or eight and then at mile fifteen. I drink water at every water stop and the last five miles I take a sport's drink.

FW: What kind of shoes do you race in?
ML: I run in Puma racing flats.

FW: Did you run the marathon and the half-marathon in the same type of flats?
ML: Yes.

FW: Have you ever been injured?
ML: Yes, but not in a while. The reason that my training has gone so well is that I haven’t been injured in two years.

FW: Do you attribute the fact that you haven’t been injured to some sort of stretching routine?
ML: No. I never stretch.

FW: Never before or after a run?
ML: Nope.

FW: Do you do Pilates or any cross training. Do you lift weights?
ML: I don’t lift weights, but I try and do sit-ups. I just don’t have time right now to do all the extra stuff that I should be doing. After the half-marathon, my calves were sore and I didn’t stretch at all. I just let it go away [laughing].

FW: Other than the Philadelphia Track Club, you aren’t sponsored?
ML: No.

FW: Have you been approached recently by sponsors?
ML: No. Not directly. My coaches have talked to a couple agents, but I don’t have time to deal with sponsors right now. Eventually, that’s the goal: I’d love to be financially stable enough to just run and see how fast I can get. Right now I don’t have time to do any of that extra stuff.

FW: When you look at your training week ahead of you, is there ever one workout that you dread?
ML: I don’t dread one thing in particular, but there are days when I wake up knowing that I’m going to do a hard workout in the morning and I know it’s going to be twice as hard because my body is not awake yet. So it’s not like I dislike the tempos or the repeats or the long runs, it’s that I wake up tired and worn out. Actually, I really enjoy doing tempo runs, because it’s kind of like racing to me because I enjoy testing myself.

FW: What’s been the greatest running challenge in your life?
ML: I think of college. I can’t think of one thing. It just always seemed like a struggle. We were always training so hard. There was never a break. You were always pushing your body to the limit. I think that it gets you not only physically, but mentally. I think I was mentally burned out at races at certain points in college. And that was a struggle. Not once in the last two years have I not been excited and can’t wait to race. In college, I can count on one hand how many times I was really excited to race. Okay, maybe two hands [laughing]. And that makes it so much harder—not loving it, not enjoying it. And that was the biggest struggle.

FW: I imagine there’s a lot of women reading these interviews who are right on the edge of the Olympic marathon ‘B’ standard or maybe even right on the edge of a lifetime PR. You’ve smashed through huge chunks of PRs. Is there one piece of advice or one pearl of wisdom that you can share with these readers?
ML: Making it a priority and finding the motivation within. I don’t know how to tell someone to do that. If you really want it, you can do it. Being motivated is what gets me out of bed every morning.

Interview conducted on January 24, 2007, and posted on January 26, 2007.