An Interview with Matt Lane

Matt Lane will compete in the Papa John's 10-Miler, a USA Championship, in Louisville on April 15

April 12, 2006

Matt Lane, who had considered running the Boston Marathon on April 17, will instead compete in the Papa John's 10-Miler, a USA Championship, in Louisville on April 15. Lane was fourth at Papa John's in 2005 in 48:13. On February 26, he was third behind Kenyans Paul Bor and Jynocel Basweti in the Colonial Half-Marathon in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1:07:58. Lane made his marathon debut last October in Chicago, running 2:17:32 for 14th place. Elsewhere on the roads in 2005, he was fifth in the USA Half-Marathon in Houston in 1:04:18 and third in the USA 15K in Jacksonville in 44:08. Lane was fourth in the 5000 at both the 2000 and 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials. He ran a career best 28:00.01 for 10,000 meters in 2004; his 5000 best is 13:25.38. At William & Mary, he was the 2001 Colonial Conference champion in the 1500 and 5000. Originally from Yarmouth, Maine and now living in California, Lane is married to the former Erin Sullivan, the 1997 and 1998 Foot Locker Cross Country champion who attended Stanford.

Runner's World Daily: Are you doing the Boston Marathon this month?

Matt Lane: No, I'm not. I got an almost football-like injury, an MCL (medial cruciate ligament) strain on the inside of the leg. We've gotten it resolved now, but not enough where I could get the training and the workouts going to be able to be in the kind of shape I'd wanted to be. I didn't want to go there (Boston) in less good shape than I was even at Chicago.

RWD: How did this injury occur?

ML: Usually, you don't get an MCL strain from running. Actually, the first time I ever felt it was the night before the Chicago Marathon. There was some tightness and something weird going on. I think pounding on it for the entire marathon, it flamed up. I told Tom Radcliffe, my agent, that I wasn't running. He handles everything to do with Boston.

RWD: Is your wife Erin going to do Boston?

ML: No, she's not going to do it either. She had IT band stuff crop up, so she's not going to be able to do it. She may try to do it next time. It's sort of strange that we both came down with similar things. And now she's in the midst of a really intense teacher credentialing program, where she's in the classroom three days a week and then in her courses the other two days. The program is through San Jose State; she's in a kindergarten class in Campbell, California. She's not able to go out and run a couple of times a day, so when you have something crop up (a physical ailment), she can't be riding the bike two hours a day and all that kind of stuff.

RWD: So have you reconfigured what you want to do next?

ML: I'll definitely head to Louisville for the ten-mile championships (Papa John's) coming up. From there, maybe the five or the ten (5000 or 10,000) at the Stanford Invitational. Maybe Prefontaine (Classic), depending on what they do. If they run a 5000, I'll probably do it. If they switch it to a two-mile, then I won't go. But then USA Championships in the ten (10,000m), probably. And then after that, Beach to Beacon (10K in Maine and Falmouth, probably.

RWD: You still have the 28:00.01 PR in the 10,000. We know you were getting to heavier mileage last year and you had getting away from speed a little bit, but we'd imagine at least 27:59 still has to be a goal, right?

ML: Oh yeah. And I think I'm back into doing more of the speed stuff again, working a little bit more on things like mile repeats and 10K specific training once it was apparent that the marathon just wasn't going to happen. The trouble with the marathon is you can't take three days off. You just miss too much. For me, what's always been really important is having the consistency. If I don't have that, I'm not going to think things are going very well, and that's half the battle.

RWD: So you missed some of the consistency and the volume you would have needed for the Boston Marathon. But have you done about as much as you'd need to do to do well at Papa John's?

ML: Yeah, I think so. I didn't do to Jacksonville (the USA 15K). I ran the Colonial Half-Marathon in Williamsburg just to get a half marathon, but it was a really cold windy day and an unbelievably hilly course. I just didn't feel, with Jacksonville coming two weeks after that, that I was ready to run what was required at Jacksonville, to run 44:00, which is what (Matt) Gonzales and Abdi (Abdirahman) were running in second and third (actually 44:09, behind the winner, Meb Keflezighi). That's about what I ran the year before. I just didn't think that I was there. But the workouts I've done since the half marathon have all been really good, and I'm back to where I think I was, or close to it, for the ten mile. I'll be fine.

RWD: Dan Browne will be coming back to do Papa John's.

ML: Which is good. I don't know what kind of shape he's in, but I know he's not an idiot. I know he's not going to just go out there and hammer it. I think Abdi's going to be there, and Abdi concerns me for that fact, just going out real hard at the beginning and putting the hurt on you early.

RWD: You've been there before. What kind of a race is Papa John's? Is it a fair and interesting course?

ML: One of the more interesting things is that it starts at Churchill Downs. It's kind of fun to be there. It goes out and circles around a park. It's a little bit hilly out in the park. You finish in the stadium. Moreso than anything, it's a case of the road races offering good prize money. That's really what one of the big draws is. That's the difference between the roads and the track. You can win a fair amount of money. Sometimes you run track and you run 13:15 in a 5K, and if you're lucky, you get $500.

RWD: Who are your main training mates at this point?

ML: I've been training with Jonathon Riley, although he's been on a little bit different page recently just because he went to Worlds Indoors. And Chris Estwanik. I don't know how Chris Estwanik does it. The guy works 50 hours a week at Google. But he had a great indoor season and he'd PRed in the mile and was winning these races. He's great. But he has a tiny little equipment plus a little bonus deal with Nike and has to go work full-time. I think he's going to have a great outdoor season; he's somebody to look out for this year. He and I live about a block away from each other and we meet at 6:30 in the morning to go for a run sometimes because he has to be in the office at 8:00.

RWD: Would you be interested in coming back for a fall marathon?

ML: Well, there are a lot of things up in the air at the moment. I'm going to go to law school in the fall, so that's going to be the big change. What happens when that all gets ramped up, I think, more than anything, I need to see how things go. I would say that a fall marathon is unlikely, with orientation starting in August. I really need to see what it's really like and get used to the routine a little bit before any real decisions are made. Right now, I'm still waiting. I'm already in the University of Maine. It's either going to be that or William & Mary, if I get in. So I'm waiting to see about William & Mary.

RWD: So it's another move from the West Coast to back East.

ML: Yeah, definitely. Last year, we were going to move to New York for a teaching program for Erin at Columbia. But with the financial aid we got from Columbia, which was none, it didn't make any financial sense to go. Living in New York City, it wasn't going to be easier for either one of us. Either law school (Maine or William & Mary) is going to be cheaper per year.

RWD: And Erin's teaching credentials will be transportable, right?

ML: Oh yeah. Fortunately for us, California is the most difficult state to get credentials in. She's going to have to jump through a couple of hoops, and take a test in order to teach in either Virginia or Maine. But they'll issue her a preliminary credential.

RWD: One of the USATF bios of you says the singer and pianist Bruce Hornsby is one of your "biggest fans" and a "close advisor" to you. What's the story behind that? Are you still playing piano as much as you were?

ML: Not as much. One funny thing that came out of that whole thing with Bruce is I remember him talking about how he got so much better at playing the piano. He was really famous for "The Way It Is" in the '80s, and he had a couple more hits after that. People don't know what he's doing as much now, but he's one of the most sought after people to play with, and what he's doing now far surpasses all the stuff he did in the '80s. But when he was 40 years old, he said "well, am I going to keep being the same kind of player I am now or overhaul my playing and become a better musician?" That was a big thing for him, being able to play the instrument better. He took a year plus off from touring or really doing anything and spent six to eight hours in the practice room everyday. He says his wife was going to kill him, because he was just this recluse. But what it did for his playing is amazing. He's far better than what he was before, and what he's doing now is incredible. What he was doing before, the stuff from the '80s and '90s, was a bit above my level. It would take me a lot of practice to do what he was doing. The stuff he's doing now is beyond that, and I would say there are a lot of other players who can't do it–like Elton John, forget about it, and these people who you think of as great. He (Hornsby) is in the zone with the Herbie Hancocks of the world, where they're really stretching things out and making some very interesting and difficult-to-do music.

One of the things I learned from him was that if you're going to do something, and you're going to try and do the best you can possibly do it, you really do have to devote everything you have to doing it. I was singing in an a cappella group and trying to be in these musicals and this and that and the other thing, and running was sort of like this thing I did, but I couldn't give 100 percent to the running and do all these other things. Some of those things had to fall by the wayside. As soon as I moved out here (to California), there was less outlet for playing music. It was easy to do in college; I had the opportunity to take piano lessons for free. But that's kind of falling away, because I was thinking 'I'm going to devote 100 percent to running. This is what I do.' So that was the interesting thing that came out of that (knowing Hornsby).

RWD: How did you meet Hornsby?

ML: Basketball is his sport. One of the things he likes to do is go to William & Mary Hall and play. He and a buddy will play full court, up and down, kind of constant running and shooting for good exercise. A lot of the coaches know him, and the director of track and field at William & Mary, knew him because his family is really well-known in Williamsburg and has strong ties to William & Mary. He told him "we've got this guy on our team who's a really good runner but he's also a musician, plays the piano, blah blah blah." Bruce said "I'd love to meet him" and then my conference cross country meet, maybe my sophomore or junior year, he came out there. I ended up going over to his house with Coach Stimpson and meeting him. I was over there a couple more times. If he's playing a concert out here, we'll go to it and then afterwards just go backstage and hang out. One of his twin sons–he's 13 or 14–is a very good age-group runner.

RWD: When you were planning to go to Boston, you must have noticed it had one of the most formidable American men's fields in many years.

ML: Yeah, that was one of the things I was excited about it. It was going to be a great opportunity to run really fast and to have people there, guys who I'd be comfortable running with. Just having everybody involved and having a really great American field, I thought would be really neat. But I didn't want to go if I wasn't going to be in at least the shape I was in for Chicago. That was a lot harder than I think I expected. I knew the last four miles were going to be hard, but I didn't have any idea what it was really going to be like. It just wasn't coming together for me, training wise this time), the more I tried to push. I'd go to one 110-mile week, and I was waking up and my knee was sore while I was lying in bed. It was getting to the point where it felt like somebody was jabbing a pin in there. I couldn't really get it to settle down. I was doing ultrasound and putting patches on it and it just wasn't getting any better. The more I ran hard on it, the worse it was getting. I still have a little bit of it going on right now, but it's a little bit controllable now that I'm not having to run 16 miles at marathon pace, but mostly not having to run 130 miles a week.