Interview: Ian Dobson

by Erik Heinonen

Although some might say 2005 has been a breakout year for Ian Dobson, a culminating year might be a more appropriate tag. Dobson headed into his redshirt senior track season at Stanford University having qualified for three NCAA outdoor meets, twice finished in the top nine at NCAA Cross Country Championships, and run personal bests of 8:32.09 (3,000m steeplechase), 13:40.91 (5,000) and 28:15.66 (10,000).

That said, 2005 has been a special year indeed for the recent Stanford graduate. In March, Dobson won the NCAA indoor 5,000 and was the second American (60th overall) in his senior-level debut at the World Cross Country Championships. Outdoors, Dobson clocked 27:59.72 for 10,000 at the Cardinal Invitational, becoming the fourth American collegian under 28 minutes, and ran 13:22:54 to finish a close second to teammate Ryan Hall in the NCAA 5,000.

Two weeks later, Dobson PRed again, running 13:15.33 to finish second at the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Carson, California, and earn a trip to the IAAF World Track & Field Championships, which begin August 6 in Helsinki. Dobson will be joined in Finland by his training partner Hall, who finished third in Carson and also bettered the World Championships “A” qualifying standard with a 13:16.03 run.

In his first European track race, Dobson ran 13:28.42 to finish 13th in the 5,000 at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix in London.

As a senior at Klamath Union High School in Klamath Falls, Oregon, Dobson finished third at the 1999 Foot Locker Cross Country Championships (he was seventh as a junior) and clocked track bests of 8:18 for 3,000 and 3:53 for 1,500. A standout in the classroom, Dobson was a five-time Pac-10 Conference All-Academic selection while majoring in Political Science.

MR: As usual, those of us who weren’t in attendance at the U.S. championships and had to watch on TV have no clue what happened in the 5,000, aside from the last 100 meters. Can you take me through race?
ID: Yeah. Tim Broe got out hard. I was sitting in third for a few laps behind [Adam] Goucher, and Broe had a gap on us. Then all of a sudden, like four or five laps into it, Ryan [Hall] came up on the outside and made a big move to get up there with Broe. I just tucked in behind Ryan and followed him up there. After that it was just the three of us. Broe took a bunch of laps at the beginning, and Ryan was really ballsy, he jumped up there and took a couple laps, then motioned he wanted a little help, so I took a couple laps. Mine were pretty pathetic compared to the others. I think mine were some of the slowest we ran. But then Ryan took it over for a lap and Broe took the last two.

When I was leading, I was kind of realizing at that point that we needed to keep it going because we had a gap and we need to make sure those guys don’t close up on us. It was great, Ryan realized that and took a lap and got it going again and then obviously once Broe took it the pace was plenty fast. [Broe won in 13:12.76].

MR: How aware were you of your splits? Did you know you were on pace for such a quick time?
ID: I knew what the splits were. The 3K split was like 7:59, so I knew we were right on pace, and we were exactly 10:40 at 4K, so I knew we had a pretty good shot. And whenever you get to 4K with a little bit of running left in your legs, you know you’ll be fine. I was just afraid of someone coming up with a big kick at the end. I didn’t know if Goucher had big finish in him, or if [Jonathon] Riley or anybody like that did. Not until the last lap did I feel pretty relaxed about it.

MR: The USA meet doesn’t go fast very often. How surprised were you that it did?
ID: I wouldn’t say I was expecting to go that fast, but it didn’t surprise me. I knew Ryan and I could probably run about that fast, [but] it surprised me that Broe took it from the beginning. The times only surprise me because it was so perfect. I figured Ryan and I could run that fast, but it’s rare that you both do it on the same day and really hit a good one together.

MR: How important was it having the 13:22 from the NCAA meet under your belt? Obviously going from 13:22 to 13:15 seems a lot more doable than going from the 13:27 you ran at Mt. SAC to 13:15.
ID: Ryan had been racing pretty well at Pac-10s and regionals — especially regionals — but I had had some down meets. They weren’t disasters or anything, but I just didn’t feel that good. Having NCAAs was a huge piece of it and a huge confidence builder. It was another one where we got to 1,000 left and looked back and it was a like a dream. The confidence we got from that was absolutely key at USAs

MR: What’s the schedule look like now?
ID: Nothing [is] absolutely certain. I’m pretty sure we’re going to do the 5K in London on July 22nd. I think there’s going to be a fast group up front looking to go under 13:00, the hopefully a 13:10 group, and I’d like to get in that. I don’t know what other Americans are doing it. I’d heard maybe Broe and maybe Abdi [Abdirahman]. It would be great if Broe were in there, because I’d like to key off him. But Ryan and I will be in there together, so at least we’ve got that. After that we’ll probably do a mile or a 3K about a week later; I don’t know which exactly. The emphasis is on the 5K and then just doing a tune-up before Worlds.

[See below for a follow-up question about the 5,000m in London.]

MR: Where will you be in between races?
ID: We have a little bit of a base in London that [his agent] Ray [Flynn] set up St. Mary’s. I’ve never been there, so it’s not like I have any comfort zone there, but [former Stanford runner] Lauren [Fleshman] does, and she can show Ryan, Sara, and me, and whoever else is over there, the ropes.

MR: Are you and Ryan planning to continue training together once this season is over?
ID: We’re pretty committed to working together. Speaking for myself, I can say that racing with someone who you train with that much is huge for me. Like I said, at USAs he really, really helped me out, and I’d like to think I’ve done that for him at some other points. Together we make a really good team, and it would be foolish to give that up. So, it’s going to be a challenge. He’s getting married this fall, so I might have to follow him and Sara around a little bit [laughs]. In any case, it’s worth it for me to keep training together. We’re good friends. There’s no ego stuff going on. If one of us has a bad workout, no one is trying to get in the other ones head or anything.

MR: You’ve improved every year you’ve been at Stanford, but this one in particular you made a pretty sizable jump. Did you change anything in your training or was it more of a matter of everything just coming together?
ID: We tweaked some things. The general approach was the same as it was last year. Last year, I felt like I was in great shape early on and then fizzled out, so we knew we had to change some things. One big difference is that I took five weeks completely off in the fall, which was not by choice; I hurt my foot. In the long run, it might have been a blessing in disguise. It forced me to get out of shape and rebuild from zero. That was a big difference. It’s hard to see things like that as a positive, but I really think that taking a chunk of time off may be a good thing to do. And in hindsight, it sure looks like it was a good thing. The other big difference was just taking a lot more time to do the threshold stuff that is going to make you strong and allow you to last the whole season. Indoors, I was surprised. I ended up running pretty well indoors, even though we weren’t doing any VO2 max stuff. We would do lots of threshold work. And I’m pretty good at that; I like it, and I can recover from it pretty well. I was able to handle a pretty good volume of that, and I think that’s what has helped me last that long. I’ve always had a really hard time with VO2 Max stuff; I’ve not recovered well from it at all. But this year, I was able to do those key workouts, like hard miles on the track, without getting too tired.

I don’t think it was one thing. I think it’s a lot of strength built up from a few years of hard training and where all of the sudden, things start snapping. It was really ideal for both Ryan and me. I dropped 25 seconds and he’s dropped 30 seconds so far this year. That’s not going to happen again. We’re not going to have those big drops again. It was just a case of several years of hard training catching up, getting on a roll, and things clicking. It wasn’t like we revolutionized anything at all.

MR: Do you feel like you’ve still got a few more seconds left in you this summer?
ID: I’m really happy with what we’ve done this season, but if this it I will be pretty disappointed. There’s just no reason to say, ‘Okay, this is a good point; we’ve gotten good now and can focus on just running this fast again.’ I want to keep improving. There’s no reason to stop.

MR: This may sound a little stupid, but a year ago, did you expect your last collegiate season to play out like this? What were you expecting out of a senior year?
ID: That’s a good question. At this point last year, I would have still considered myself a steeplechaser. Honestly, I remember sitting down in early winter and [Stanford coach Andy] Gerard and I were talking and trying to decide whether I should do the steeple or not. It’s funny, I remember saying exactly 13:15. I said I’d much rather run 13:15 this season than 8:15, even though 8:15 is pretty much a shoe-in for the World Championships final. I’ve run 13:15, and I have to be happy with that now. But I remember when I said it, it was almost like a joke. I feel like I do a pretty good job of giving myself credit for being a good runner, but at the same time, I didn’t think I was going to run this fast this year. It’s really just snowballed. Since Mt. SAC, I’ve felt like I had a good one in me. I felt like I could run faster than I did at Mt. SAC. I don’t feel any different is the main thing. A year ago I would have looked at a 13:15 guy and put him on a pedestal and expected that he would feel different every day, but Ryan and I go out there and have pretty crappy runs on a somewhat regular basis [laughs]. It’s not like we feel like we can just go out and hammer all the time and feel spectacular.

MR: Now, when it comes to talking about races or times or other runners, it’s usually difficult to coax something interesting out of an interviewee, but you seem pretty comfortable saying what you think. Why?
ID: Part of it is getting sick of reading all these lame interviews. You don’t have to be talking a lot of crap to be interesting, but at least I want to say what I think. Gerard and I differed on that a little bit this year. There were some interview requests from newspapers, and he said, ‘Oh, just ignore that stuff.’ I was like, ‘Why? That doesn’t make sense.’ If people want to write about running, I’m all for it. That’s great. I love this sport, and I want to see it grow. On one hand, I hope I never come off sounding like I don’t respect people I’m running against, because I have a huge amount of respect for them. But, at the same time, if I think I’m going to run well, I’m not going to lie about it and say, ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Going into USAs, I would have said, ‘Yeah, I think I will probably make the team.’ It’s not that I’m trying to be cocky; I’m just trying to be honest and trying to make it interesting. No one wants to read, ‘Oh, I’m just going to do my best and see how things play out. So-and-so is really good.’ Everyone says that, and it drives me nuts.

’m not afraid of someone getting a leg up on me through an interview or something. So what if someone knows that Ryan and I are going to hammer at NCAAs? We’re going to hammer so that someone nobody can do anything about it. I don’t care if they know it. People kind of make it more than it is. It’s just a race. Whether you like the school you’re running against or you don’t, you’re just going to do your thing. I just hope that people can make it interesting. I think Ryan and I did a good job this year — and obviously Broe did a great job to make USAs interesting — getting out there and running hard in most of our races. At Pac-10s we mixed things up a little bit and threw in some fast laps and tried to generate something that people want to watch. [Arizona’s Robert Cheseret won in 13:33.00 with Hall second in 13:37.45 and Dobson third in 13:38.33]. Who wants to sit around and watch people jog for two miles then sprint at the end? I think that’s really hurt our sport. I hope people can at least be honest about that sort of thing. If you think you’re going to run well, say it. It’s fine. You’re not bagging on other runners.

I’m not trying to create some sort of rivalry or something. Tim Broe is awesome. He’s really cool, and I bet if we trained together we’d be great friends. But at the same time, I really want to beat him this summer, and I’m sure he feels the same way. I know he’s planning on beating me. I hope everyone feels that way.

MR: As far as the future goes, where does the 10,000 fit in your plans?
ID: It’s right there in the forefront. Next year, I’d like to do some good months of training with guys like Meb [Keflezighi] at altitude that will make me a bit stronger so I can run a good 10,000. If I can run in the 27:30 range next year, then I would think about really switching to that, but I don’t want to get pigeonholed into one event or the other. That’s why I’m a little hesitant to do the steeple, because I feel like you do get kind of stuck in it. If I just did the steeple, I feel like I’d be sacrificing the 5,000. The 10K and 5K are pretty interchangeable. If I go out and run a good 10K at the Cardinal [Invitational] next year, then maybe I’ll focus on the 10K. But if I don’t, then the 5K is great. I actually prefer the 5K.

[Note: The majority of this interview was conducted prior to the Norwich Union London Grand Prix. The following is a follow-up question.]

MR: It looked like things didn't go quite as you had hoped in London. How did the race play out?
ID: Ryan and I went back after US nationals and did some hard work, so I hadn't been feeling great, but the last workout before London went well, so I thought I'd run well. Basically, I went out and ran the first few laps aggressively, but I knew pretty early that I just didn't have it. After three or four laps, I looked back and saw the second rabbit not too far behind, so I waited for him and then just tucked in and ran with him. Overall, I just didn't get excited. It's hard, though, to get excited when you're running slower than you want and you're looking at 10 or 15 guys ahead of you. Luckily I didn't completely blow up, so I'm pretty confident I can get back to a good level, but it's really disappointing to run [poorly] in my first big European race. It was a good experience, despite not racing well. I think the whole thing is a little overwhelming at first, seeing guys like [Kenenisa] Bekele and [Bernard] Lagat at every meal and in the warmup area. Hopefully that'll seem normal soon.

(Interview posted August 2, 2005)