To kick off the fall marathon season (and to continue my incessant gushing about my love for the sport of running) today I’m interviewing, Melissa Johnson-White a member of the Brooks-Hanson Project who is running the Twin Cities Marathon on Saturday.
If you aren’t familiar with the Brooks-Hanson Original Distance Project, it began in 1999 as a way for post-collegiate athletes to eat, train and live in a team environment with the goal of reviving American distance running. Standouts from the group include Olympians Desi Davila and Brian Sell.
Q: What’s your favorite thing about being a part of the Brooks-Hanson project?
My favorite part of being in the Hansons-Brooks Distance project is the group of talented women I get to run with everyday. We meet 7 days a week and knowing that someone is holding you accountable gets you out there no matter what. It’s a lot easier to suffer through a hard workout or trudge through the snow when someone else is out there with you.
Q: 2009 was a big year for you! You set p.r.’s in every distance from the 5k to the marathon. What kind of training led you to doing so well at varying distances?
The biggest advantage I had in 2009 was that I was able to string together several years of uninterrupted training. Things were clicking really well in workouts and that led to some very good races for me. The biggest secret I could give someone is to stay healthy and keep consistently training. If you can do that you will start to see results.
Q: What kind of advice can you offer to an average runner like myself to achieve the same kind of results in one year?
Running is a very patient sport. Everyone wants instant results but the reality is it takes years and years of training to reach some of your goals. I’ve had some very good years and some down years. I just keep pushing through the tough times knowing that I will come out a better runner on the other side. So I guess to sum it up my results in 2009 came from several years of consistent training and being able to turn that into solid races. I just PR’d in the 8k, 25k, and half marathon this past spring because I’ve been able to stay injury free and train hard for several years. So far 2012 is turning into a PR year too and I’m hoping to keep it going through the fall.
Q: When the going gets tough during a workout or race, how do you power through?
Whenever I’m feeling tired in a workout I visualize myself in the last few miles of a race and I say to myself this is how it’s going to feel, you need to dig deep and keep pushing. In the race too I just keep trying to make myself hurt as much as possible because I know once the race is over I will forget how bad it hurt. That’s the only reason I keep running the marathon. I forget how bad it really hurts until I’m back in the last few miles of the race.
Q: What’s something people don’t know about what it means to be a member of a professional group of runners and the Brooks-Hanson team. We want some behind the scene secrets. 😉
Hmmm secrets… I don’t know if these are secrets but I think most people only see us as runners. They don’t realize that we all have lives outside of running. You need something to keep your mind off of things when they aren’t going as well as you want. Having other things allows me to focus my attention on my runs and then move on to the rest of my day.
{Disclosure: I am a Brooks Run Happy Blog Ambassador for which compensation is provided.}
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