Interview: Christo Landry

by Mario Fraioli

Christo Landry, a freshman at The College of William & Mary, recently placed fourth in the junior men's 8K race at the USA Cross Country Championships in Vancouver, Washington. This earned Landry a spot on the U.S. team that will compete at the 33rd IAAF Cross Country Championships in Saint Galmier, France, March 19-20.

Landry, 18, is having a spectacular freshman year for the Tribe, as he also placed 38th to earn All-American status at the NCAA Cross Country Championships in Terre Haute, Indiana, this past fall.

A native of Falls Church, Virginia, the six-foot, 140-pound runner is a graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria, where as a senior he clocked 8:48.27 for two miles at the 2004 adidas Outdoor Championships, placing him second to current Liberty phenom Josh McDougal.

Landry, whose best Foot Locker cross country finish in high school was 10th at Southeast Regional, ran 14:26 early this indoor season to win the 5,000m at the Christopher Newport Lid-Lifter.

MensRacing.com spoke with Landry as he prepared to take on some of the world's the top junior harriers at the upcoming IAAF World Cross Country Championship.

MensRacing.com: Christo, you recently finished fourth in the junior race at the USA Cross Country Championships. How did that race unfold?
Christo Landry: Basically, no one wanted to lead early on. I led the entire first lap and parts of the second. Galen Rupp, Stuart Eagon, and Hakon DeVries broke away at the start of the third lap and I was pretty much alone in fourth after that. I felt a really bad cramp coming on over the last two laps, so I backed off and just tried to hold my spot while focusing on my breathing.

MR: At what point of the race did you think to yourself, 'Hey, I'm going to make the world team'?
CL: Coming into the race, I was pretty confident that I had a shot to make the team. Going into the last lap of the race, [my] coach yelled at me that I was 12 seconds up on seventh place. I knew if I could gut it out with the cramp that I'd be on the team.

MR: Now that you're on the U.S. team, what are your goals heading into the World Championships in France?
CL: Honestly, I haven't really thought too much about it, because I've never competed on the world level before. Individually, I guess I would just like to run a good race compared to the other U.S. guys. I know in past years the U.S. team hasn't finished much higher than seventh, so I'd like to help the team to a better finish. Top five would be great.

MR: Along with qualifying for World Cross, you surprised a lot of people this past fall by placing 38th at the NCAA Cross Country Championships to earn All-American status. Did you expect this kind of success from yourself as a freshman?
CL: Coming into this year, I didn't know what to expect. I don't know as much about times and people as I probably should. Finishing second to [Josh] McDougal at AOC was a good starting point for me. I saw the success that he had, as well as others I was close to in high school, and said to myself, 'Hey, if they can do it, why can't I?'
Going back to this [past] fall, I actually had an achilles injury. In fact, I almost redshirted. One day while I was doing a hill workout I noticed that my Achilles was hurting and affecting the way I ran. For the next two weeks, I didn't go over 40 miles per week in training, basically just maintenance runs with no workouts except on the stationary bike.

As far as racing went, I ran unattached at our home meet, the Tribe Open, where I finished second and earned my spot on the team for the conference meet. There, I also placed second, which got me on the regional team, and then it was on to nationals.

At nationals, I didn't really know what was going to happen. The field was huge and I just didn't want to get lost in the crowd. I kept moving up throughout the race and was able to place pretty well.

MR: Would you consider nationals a breakout race for you then?
CL: I would consider regionals the week before as more of a breakout race. I wasn't doing my ab work like I should have and I got a really bad cramp after the conference meet. I literally couldn't breathe. Thankfully, I was able to get through regionals without the cramp. I also ran my high school [5K] PR back to back over 10K, which I didn't expect of myself. I put everything I had on the line, and for the first time in my life I actually had a kick.

MR: You've mentioned that you suffered from cramps in a few different races. Are they something that has affected you throughout your running career?
CL: No, actually. I never got them in high school. They were a new finding for me at William & Mary [laughs]. They don't seem to happen in a race until after 5K, which is as far as I raced in high school. I don't know what causes them, but I am trying to stay consistent with my ab work and take care of the problem.

MR: At nationals, four of your teammates came down with food poisoning the night before the race and either couldn't start or weren't able to finish, resulting in no team score for William & Mary. Tell us a little bit about what happened with that whole situation.
CL: It was awful. The day before the race we went to Quiznos for lunch where a lot of other teams were also eating. None of them got sick, so looking back we don't think it was anything that we ate there. That night we had dinner at what looked like a really nice Italian place. We were the only team there. Around 3:00 a.m., my roommate, Keith Bechtol, started puking his guts out. The next morning we found out that three more of our teammates also got sick during the night. By race time, we were able to get six guys on the line, but only four of us were healthy and able to finish.

MR: Was it hard to get excited about being named All-American after what happened to your team?
CL: Going into the race, it gave me more of a reason to run. It meant that I'd have to run that much better because we were down. If we were able to have one more person just walk across the line in last place, we would have come in 25th as a team. The worst feeling was waiting for that fifth guy to cross the line, and he never came.

MR: Since NCAAs, has your training been focused toward indoor track or more geared towards cross country?
CL: At William and Mary, we don't taper for indoors. We follow two six-month training cycles that aim at peaking for cross country and outdoor track. Over the winter, outdoor track is the primary focus and by the end of the indoor season we will be running our highest mileage.

Before the USA Cross Country Championships, for both Dave Mock [another William & Mary freshman, who finished eighth in the junior race] and myself, the workouts differed slightly from everyone else's. We eased up a little bit those last two weeks, did some faster intervals, and just tried to get fit enough to race.

MR: So when did you get started in running?
CL: I ran the mile like everyone else in PE class when I was younger. In the sixth grade, I actually ran with the cross country team in the summer, but come fall I decided to play soccer. I ran indoor track as a freshman in high school, but played golf that fall. It wasn't until my sophomore year that I began running year-round.

MR: Were you heavily recruited out of high school?
CL: Not exactly. My two main choices were William & Mary and Yale, and those were the only two schools that I made visits to. I also spoke with the coaches at American University and Duke, but nothing came out of those conversations. The main thing was that I never made it to Foot Locker in high school, and by the time I broke out at AOC last spring in the two-mile, I had already signed [with William & Mary].

MR: So what ultimately led you to choose William & Mary over Yale?
CL: I liked the coaches at both schools, they were both very personable. I just had a good feeling about running for Coach [Alex] Gibby. I had high school teammates at both schools [Keith Bechtol at William & Mary, Brian Hanak at Yale], so I was able to get the inside scoop on both teams [laughs]. In the end, I didn't want to go to a city college that cost me 40,000 dollars a year, and I didn't see any difference in the quality of education at William & Mary as opposed to Yale.

MR: How has your training changed from high school to college?
CL: Wow. Well, the workouts here are a lot longer than I was used to in high school. In high school, I ran maybe 50-60 miles a week, and 60 was big for me. Now, I get 15-16 miles in on a workout day alone, including six to seven miles of just intervals. I hardly ever ran over 10 miles in high school. I haven't been able to get my mileage up too much yet due to injuries, but the workouts are a lot faster and the intensity and duration of them has increased. I also have way more people to run with every day, which is nice.

MR: What's your biggest strength as a runner?
CL: I'd like to be like Pre and say I can force myself into more pain than anyone I've ever met, but I don't think that's totally true [laughs]. With the exception of cross country regionals this year, I've never had a kick in my entire life. I just like to set a fast pace from the start and go, trying to run as evenly as possible until I'm completely exhausted.

MR: Which do you prefer more, cross country or track?
CL: In high school I really liked track because I could really get rolling and there were no hills to worry about. I've had fun here so far in cross and did a little better than in high school, but I'm looking forward to track season and some races shorter than 10K.

MR: What's the best part about training in Virginia?
CL: Not the humidity. It's awful, I hate it. But I've heard comparisons of the humidity here in the summer being equivalent to training at altitude, so maybe there is some benefit to it. Virginia is the only place I've ever known really, so I guess not having to deal with 10 inches of snow and being able to run outside year-round is pretty nice.

MR: What are your other interests outside of running?
CL: First, I would say trying to do well in school. I haven't declared a major yet, but I'm thinking about business and/or economics. To relax, I like to hang out with my teammates, maybe play a little poker. That pretty much takes up most of my time.

MR: What has been the biggest adjustment for you in transitioning from high school to college?
CL: Academically, getting myself to prepare for tests sooner than the night before has been a major change. Here, I might have three tests that determine my entire grade for the entire semester, so each one is pretty important. As far as running goes, I'm still getting used to the long workouts.

(Interview conducted February 27, 2005, and posted March 2, 2005)