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Matt
Withrow, who last made major headlines when he pulled off a surprise
victory at the 2003 Foot Locker Cross Country Championships as a
high school senior, is now making headlines for another big breakthrough.
Withrow, 19, was six days too old (born 12/26/85) to compete in
the junior race at the 2005 USA Cross Country Championships, so
he ran the senior 12K instead. He hung with the main pack lap after
lap on the 2K course, and held his own, finishing fourth in 37:32.4
and qualifying to represent the U.S. at the World Cross Country
Championships in France at the end of March. Withrow is a freshman
at the University of Wisconsin.
On
the senior 12K race being so much longer than the 8K junior race:
I was thinking about that when I crossed the 5K mark. I think my
real problem is, I'm still trying to get over knowing how fast I
ran in my high school races. When I cross the line at a mile, or
two miles, I'm thinking, I ran faster than that for two miles
last year. But I've got four miles to go, and last year I only
had one. I was trying to get a feel, my first time out, so I hung
back a little bit. I was waiting for it to spread out. I knew that
historically, the race usually spreads out to where it's down to
six or seven guys. I was waiting for that, because I figured as
long as I could stay on my feet until that point, I'd be okay. Once
it did, I guess I just stuck on Tim Broe's shoulder.
On
how the race looked to him:
I didn't want to look back. I didn't want to know what was behind
me, I just looked ahead of me. And I waited until my coach was screaming
for me, and he yelled, 'It's down to seven!' and I decided, this
is it, I've gotta go. I've got to keep my nose in here.
My
problem was, I knew Tim wasn't going to the Worlds, so once it was
down to seven it was hard to keep my nose in it. But once we got
down to six, I thought, okay, this is the race, and I knew I was
going to make it, and once we were down to 2K to go, I started thinking,
I don't just want to make it, I want to see how well I can do. I
was running with Broe, I was just sticking to him, and I started
thinking, how do you outkick your hero? He made that quite easy
[by outkicking Withrow rather than vice versa].
Tim
is from the town where [the Illinois high school] state meet is.
I couldn't believe I was there [racing with him]. I kept thinking,
Tim's going to go. And I'd stick with him another lap, and
think, he's going to go. When it came down to that last one,
I meant to just stick with him and see what I could do, see if I
could outkick him in the end. Once he moved, I thought, okay,
this is bad. Because with 1K to go, I started locking up, tying
up. I'm from Illinois. I'm not a hill runner. I'm not doing well
in Madison.
On
running for the USA rather than Wisconsin this year:
We were joking with Coach [Jerry] Schumacher. We said it would be
funny if I made it, because I couldn't make the University of Wisconsin
team, but I'd be able to make the World team.
On
his pre-race chances:
I knew if I ran out of my mind and just ran the best that I could,
I thought maybe I might have a shot. All the way flying here from
Madison, warming up and everything else, I was listening to this
song, 'The Incredible Dream' by Frank Sinatra. I kept thinking,
if I can keep my head in the race and just stay with them as
long as I can, maybe, just maybe, there might be a shot.
On
his redshirt status at Wisconsin:
I did a redshirt in the fall, and redshirted indoors. I'm probably
going to redshirt outdoors. I don't know if it's a situation where
they're going to need my points. I think that would be the only
instance, if we sat down with the head track coach and he said,
we had a shot at doing something in the national meet where they
would need more people in the race. Besides that, I don't think
I'll race. We are all right [without me] for a while. Our guys ran
in Washington yesterday, and it was just unbelievable.
On
being encouraged by his teammates' performances:
Knowing the shape they were in... this morning when I woke up, I
was thinking, okay, what happened yesterday? When I saw Josh
[McDougal] run in fourth, that added a little fuel to that fire.
Then listening to how my guys did in Seattle, thinking, 'Okay, I'm
training with them, busting my butt trying to stick up with them,
and run the best I can with them,' I thought, 'Okay, I really am
ready to race here.'
And
seeing how well Stuart [Eagon, second in the junior race] ran right
before me, that was the icing on the cake. Watching Stuart run an
amazing race in the junior race, that really had me thinking, 'I'm
really ready to run well. Anything's possible.'
On
planning for this race:
We knew coming in [to the season] that Stuart was young enough to
run this race. They were going for it the whole time. When we decided
that I was going to redshirt, we wanted a goal race. So we said,
why not the 12K, why not just put your nose in there. It's an overdistance
race, let's just see what you can do. Just go in there. That was
back in the fall, probably the first few weeks when we decided I
wasn't going to race this year. Back in high school, I was a very
goal-oriented type of runner, and I decided I needed some sort of
goal race.
On
watching his teammates lose the NCAA cross country meet by two points:
It was a tough pill to swallow, watching the NCAA meet, with our
guys getting second. I think that coach put the seven guys on the
line that we were most confident with. It was tough watching the
race and not being able to compete and run with my team, but not
for a second did I think I deserved to be out there any more than
any of those guys.
On
the decision to redshirt:
Luckily, it was a situation where it was a little of both [the team
not needing him and his development needs]. The team didn't really
need any of the freshmen. We even had a transfer coming in from
Montana, Antony Ford, and it was just a situation where we thought,
these seven guys that we're going to have in this year are top guys.
Let's keep these freshmen together, let's keep them together all
the way through five years. I think it was an instance where I thought,
would I rather be running the NCAA meet when I'm 18 or when I'm
22?
(Interview
conducted February 13, 2005, and posted March 9, 2005)
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Matt
Withrow.
(Photo by Alison Wade/New York Road Runners)
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