Where Your Dreams Become Reality
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Where Your Dreams Become Reality |
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Dathan Ritzenhein and Shalane Flanagan: Young Guns Wanting to Take on the World Dathan Ritzenhein's and Shalane Flanagan's careers and lives share many similarities. Both were NCAA XC champions who gave up their collegiate eligibility last year to turn professional and run for Nike, both made the 2004 Olympic team, and both are engaged to be married. While both represent the future of American distance running, the similarities end for this weekend's USATF cross-country championships, as Ritzenhein enters healthy, in fine form, and at a new level of fitness, while defending 4k champ Shalane Flanagan is battling back from the first real injury of her career. The US cross country championships are Ritzenhein's first race since an impressive 2 race European campaign around the start of 2005, where he lost a narrow battle over 10k on the roads to European XC champ Sergiy Lebid and Olympic marathon champ Stefano Baldini in his first race of the winter campaign, and then he picked up an international XC win in Belfast. Ritzenhein has had great success in the past, picking up a bronze medal at the 2001 World junior XC champs in Belgium and the 2003 NCAA XC title (on very limited training), and running 27:38 for 10k last year and making the Olympics, but he indicated via teleconference that he's at a new level in 2005. "I'm going in as ready as I can go. I'm running on a different level than I have in the past." 2004 not only marked the end of Ritzenhein's brilliant, but often injured amateur career, but it also brought about a change in coaches for Ritzenhein who switched from Colorado coach Mark Wetmore to the former Wetmore protégé Brad Hudson. Ritzenhein said the direction of his training is now "different" with more of an emphasis on anaerobic threshold work than aerobic threshold, and a heavy emphasis on strengthening his legs via hill work to stay healthy. Twice a week he has been doing 10 seconds all out hill sprints up a steep hill with full recovery in order to recruit more muscle fibers in his legs in order to strengthen them. As for the hill running, Ritz says it's the "hardest thing you can do specific to running". Overall, Ritz says his overall mileage is the same as it was under Wetmore, 90-100 miles a week, but with more double runs than in the past. He calls his training more 10k specific than in the past, and despite sometimes being on the track for up to 8 miles of work, he enters into the US cross country championships healthy and confident. Ritzenhein's past success at cross country and the fact Alan Culpepper and Meb Keflezighi have shifted their emphasis to the marathon this year, make Ritz a huge favorite for Sunday's race (nearly 80% of viewers pick him to win in a letsrun.com poll). Ritzenhein showed with his words and his races in Europe that his focus is on beating the best in the world, not just the Americans. After Ritz's convincing win in Belfast he was asked by the race director if he expected the outcome. Ritz replied, "Yeah", although Ritz did say he was "was surprised at the easiness of the win" as he shut it down the final 1000m . Even since his European wins six weeks ago, Ritz says he's stepped it up a notch. "I'm competing and training at a level I haven't before," said Ritzenhein. "I'm doing a lot of the (same) workouts I did before (racing in) Europe (at the start of 2005) and am doing them faster." He sees the US championships as a stepping stone to taking on the best in the world at the World Championships in St. Etienne, France, March 19-20th, where he wants to "be right in the hunt with the rest of those guys. I'm planning to go in there and just try and fight it out. The first step (of doing well at Worlds) obviously is making the team (on Sunday)." Outdoors Ritz's focus will be on the 10,000m and he anticipates running the 10k at the Stanford Invite, then racing the Prefontaine Classic and 4 or 5 times in Europe before the 10,000m at the World Championships. Ritz said he saw no need to run indoors 1500s and 3000s with his emphasis being the 10k. Shalane Flanagan Battles Back From Her First Injury Meanwhile, Shalane Flanagan enters Sunday's 4k championships in territory familiar to Ritzenhein, but unfamiliar to her, battling back from injury. This fall she developed tendonitis in her foot underneath the navicular bone, and it represents the first fairly serious injury in 8 years of running for the defending US 4k champ. The injury caused some setbacks in her training which she described as "up and down". For the most part she has been able to keep her mileage up near its normal level, but had to back off some of her harder workouts so the intensity of her training has suffered at times. Flanagan's training has been "pretty good" the last month, but the injury is not completely gone, so she has to monitor it. And although Flanagan is unsure of her exact level of fitness, her goals, like Ritzenhein's are high, she wants to compete with the best in the world. Last year was a breakthrough of sorts for women's 5k running in America with 5 women near the 15 minute milestone. But as Flanagan, noted she has a long way to go, "15:05 won't get you really that far... You need to run 14:45 (or better) to be competitive in those (international) races." Her goals are high for Sundays' race as she says she "feel(s) fit and want to put myself in position to regain the title and make the (world) team". And at world's she is hoping for a top 10 finish to improve on last year's 14th place finish. As for the track season, she anticipates running the 5000 at the US champs. *2005 USATF XC Champs start lists
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Cross Country Spikes 10% off Injured?
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