2005 USA OUTDOOR TRACK & FIELD CHAMPIONSHIPS
Interview with Paul Hefferon

Reported by Parker Morse

Paul Hefferon, a freshman at the University of Kansas, won the junior 5,000m race in 14:15.18. Georgetown's Daniel Nunn finished second in 14:17.67.

Q: Did you redshirt this year?
Paul Hefferon: No, I ran all three seasons. I ran cross country; we almost redshirted me there. I ran for two high schools, and the first high school had trouble sending transcripts. They sent them late, so I had to run the first two meets unattached. They were thinking we had a pretty good team this year — we finished fourth in the Big 12 — so they were thinking they could probably still have a good team if I redshirted. So they were this close to doing it, but I begged them not to, because I've never gone a whole season without racing before. The transition was hard enough anyway. I had to fight, I was the last guy to make it on to the conference team, the last guy to make it on the regionals team. But at regionals, I ended up finishing fourth on the team. It was huge for my confidence.

Then in indoors, I raced okay. I ran an 8:38 for 3,000m at a mid-season meet, but I wasn't fast enough to get in to the fast heat of the conference 3K. The slow heat had like 45 guys in it. It was like an indoor cross country meet. I was in the fourth row, starting in the very inside spot. It was like me and 44 other guys. I ended up running the worst time of my year. Indoors wasn't really anything to be proud of.

Then outdoors, we have a lot of good 5K runners on our team, so they weren't able to take me to Texas or Penn or Drake. I ended up running a lot of local meets. I ran one unattached, at Emporia State. There was no one there to push me.

Q: When did you start planning on running this meet?
PH: In the fall, everyone was asking, 'When's your birthday?' When they figured out I'd still be a junior, they said, 'You should do that.' I figured it was a free trip to California, so, okay!

I had no goals for this until the end of outdoor season. Then after conference, I had just run 14:20 against some good competition, and I thought, 'I'm in good shape, I could do something.'

Q: So this was a PR for you?
PH: Yeah, by five seconds. I wish I had run it during the season, because then I could've gone to regionals. I had to run 14:15 to go to Regionals, but I ran 14:20 in a tactical race, so I knew I was in shape to do that.

Q: So when you go back next year, on the starting line, they'll say, 'And the U.S. Junior Champion...'
PH: I know, I'll have to talk smack to Colby Wissel, he was our best freshman all year. He was an All-American in Nebraska, but his birthday was too soon to run here. Every meet we go to, they announce, 'All-American, Colby Wissel, blah blah blah.' So when I get back, I'll give him flak about it. 'Who's got the long intro now?'

Q: You guys were beating each other up in the last mile. It seemed like every lap things picked up a little bit.
PH: I could feel everyone breathing and stomping behind me. My coach told me to just stay on Diego Mercado. He ran such a great race today, he carried the whole race, pretty much.

Q: You and Nunn pretty much dropped the field, though.
PH: I'm not surprised that it was hard for [Diego] to finish fast, because he'd run so hard already. I thought [Scott] Wall was going to be right there, too, because he had college experience. But coming in to the last mile, I was right inside of Diego, I was on the inside and he was right there. I had to come to the outside, but still right on his shoulder, because I thought it might come down to the last 200, where everybody breaks for the outside. I didn't want to be stuck on the inside if that happened. I got on his outside, then when he started to fade, I found myself in the lead. With 900m to go, that was too soon. But I just took off. I'm just glad I had enough left.

It was pretty crowded. I kept hitting and clipping guys, just by accident. Sometimes that can make you lose your rhythm and start working too hard. I'm glad I'm a little taller, and I've got elbows. You have to use those. I was concentrating on keeping my rhythm and not using too much to hold my stride. I've been doing really good workouts lately, and I was confident in my training.

Q: So now you've got another two or three weeks of season.
PH: I think what I'm going to do is take a week or two off, then start building up for the fall. When the end of July comes up, I'll do some speed and some sharpening. I'll run as hard as I can [at the Junior Pan Am Games], but I don't know if I'll be in the right place in my training. I've got so much family up in Detroit, they really wanted me to go, and I kept saying, 'I don't want to think about it.' Now I really want to go.

(Interview conducted June 24, 2005)