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LetsRun.com
April 5
, 2005

LetsRun.com is pleased to present the following interview of Pete Julian, a scheduled competitor in this weekend’s Papa John’s U.S. 10 Mile Championship. The interview was conducted by former US elite Keith Dowling.

Rising from the sleepy logging town of Ashland, OR, 33 year old Pete Julian has seen it all – and then some. A veteran of multiple US national teams, Julian continues a meteoric rise from high school “also ran” to an “A” list road racer with a serious twist – he’s a cancer survivor. Diagnosed with gastrointestinal stromal tumors in 1999, Pete slowly put the pieces back together and proved to everyone that he is as tough as they get. With altitude induced guts and determination and his recent 8th place showing at the USA Men’s 8k Championships, the Boulder based Julian heads into the Papa John’s U.S. 10 Mile Championships ready to take on the country’s finest distance runners.

KD: Pete you’re turning 34 this May and you beat a lot of younger guys at the U.S. 8k Championships in New York last weekend. How does it feel to be known as the veteran of the field these days?

PJ:  It’s comical in some ways.  When I looked over the results from the 8k I realized that I have a solid decade on the average age of the field.

KD: Is this a positive for you?

PJ: It can be. I just don’t want to turn into “that guy who keeps on running aimlessly”. But it’s cool to represent the old school guys. It shows if you’re smart and have a passion for running you could be in a position like the Torres’ brothers and have another 10-15 years in this sport.

KD: So what’s your secret to longevity?

PJ: Most of my training is based on perceived effort these days. I haven’t touched the track in a year. I'll do something like four times five minutes on Tuesday, a hilly fartlek on Thursday and than some shorter stuff like 15x1 minute on Saturday.  Everything is continuous, except for when I stop to change my shoes after warming up.  I pretty much never touch the track and never run over 90 minutes at one time.

By just going on perceived effort, I can only run up to my potential on that given day.  Sometimes I feel brilliant and sometimes I'm awful, but the heart and lungs never know the difference.  Even though I'm doing something hard just about every other day, it's nearly impossible to over train. I’ve pretty much stripped all of my training of VO2, vVo2, LT, AT. All that stuff – I’m off it. I just felt that a lot of that scientific stuff created limits. That’s not to say I don’t hit those training zones in practice. I might have a “green light” day where I’m just flying running 4:30 miles.

KD: So a day like that could act as your “VO2” day?

PJ: Right, because my body is ready to do it and I’ll response well and the next day I feel recovered. Other days I might be slogging 5:40 miles but my heart and lungs don’t know the difference. The nice thing about this type of training philosophy is, let’s say you have to do 5 x 1000 in 2:50, but you hit a good day and you’re coming through the half in 2:10. Maybe that’s a day to run the k’s in 2:40. It works both ways. Being scientific and more structured might be the new way to train, but I'm willing to bet that when guys like Todd Williams or Steve Jones we're setting the roads on fire, they probably thought lactate threshold had something to do with drinking too much milk.

KD: Speaking of the setting the roads on fire, you’re coming into Papa John’s with last weekend’s 23:12 8k under your belt. You must be confident. How did you come about finally committing to the Papa John’s 10 mile U.S. Championships?

Jim Estes (Long Distance Running’s new program manager and past event coordinator) has been trying to get me to this event the last two years.  I've always heard great things about this race.  My brother-in-law, Sean Nesbitt, is more or less an adopted son of the Kentucky road running circuit, so he's always ranting on about how great Louisville is and how Papa John is actually at the race and so forth.  Sean was actually sponsored by Papa John's for a full year. He got a huge stack of free pizza coupons.   He was eating that Papa John's pizza just about every night. It's got to be one of the sweetest running sponsorship anyone has ever received.  That being said, I'm looking forward to seeing what this race is all about.  I'm very fit and excited to give it a go and try and win.  Maybe I'll get stack of pizza coupons.  Now that would be something!

KD: With the recent success of the race you directed (and won) back in January, “The Best Cross Country Race on the Planet”, I hear you’ve got your eye on hosting the 2007 U.S. Cross Country Trials in Boulder.

Look, we've got to try something different.  Whatever model we have right now just isn’t working. If we work really hard, I think we can pack a cross country meet with thousands of spectators. If we truly care about our best athletes, we can pay our fifth place finisher more than fifty bucks. Sure, Boulder is at altitude and perhaps some will be at an advantage.  I'm not going to sugar coat that fact.  But I'm certain of one thing: If anyone thinks Tim Broe will not be right along side Ritz, Goucher and Culpepper with a quarter- mile to go in Boulder's thin air, than they don't understand the heart of a champion.  The tough runners embrace any challenge.


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