Interview with Andrew Letherby

by Shannon Martin

A frequent competitor on Australian world cross country and half-marathon teams, Andrew Letherby, 32, also represented his country at the 2002 Commonwealth Games, where he earned the bronze medal in the marathon. Athletics runs in the Letherby family: His mother competed for Australia in the World Cross Country Championships and World Cup Marathon in the early 1980s, and his sister was a top Australian race walker with five national medals to her credit.

A 1998 graduate of Georgia State University, Letherby met and married his wife, Meg, there before eventually settling in Colorado. He competes in several road races each year; in July, he finished in tenth at the Peachtree 10K Road Race in Atlanta with a time of 29:10 and won the Lake Atwood 10- Mile race in Kansas with a time of 48:33, breaking the course record. Letherby competed in New York City twice in 2006, finishing tenth at the Healthy Kidney 10K in May with a time of 29:27 and running to a commanding victory in the Emerald Nuts Midnight 4-Mile Run on New Year’s Eve, with a time of 18:44. Letherby has competed in 12 major marathons, placing in the top 10 several times.

Mensracing caught up with a relaxed and enthusiastic Letherby at his home in Boulder two weeks before the NYC Half-Marathon, presented by Nike.

MensRacing.com: It’s great to hear that you will be running the inaugural New York City Half-Marathon, presented by Nike. Are you excited?
Andrew Letherby: Yeah, every time I go to New York for a race, I get excited. I’ve already run two races there this year, the New Years Eve race and the Healthy Kidney. New York Road Runners always puts on great events, so it’s good to be a part of the inaugural half-marathon.

MR: You’ve mainly been focusing on road races these days as opposed to the track, right?
AL: Since 2000, I’ve been focusing on the marathon and doing about two a year. I have done 12 marathons so far. I usually incorporate a lot of shorter road races into my schedule and if track fits in, I like to do a couple of races each year. This year, there was supposed to be a 5K on the track at the Road to Eugene, but they canceled it, so, unfortunately, I haven’t gotten in any track races this year so far.

MR: You ran a marathon in March for the Commonwealth Games; will there be a second marathon this year?
AL: Yes, the ING New York City marathon is what I’m working toward right now. ThatMs another reason why I thought the half-marathon would be great to fit into my racing; the more familiar you are with New York, the better.

MR: One of the things that I have noticed is that you have raced in all of the marathons that are a part of the World Marathon Majors. Do you have any plans to race in four of those races within a two year period for points?
AL: That’s probably something I will look toward in the future. I think the World Marathon Majors is a really great thing; it’s basically winner, take all. For now, I plan to just focus on the marathon that I really want to do. Like, this year, I’m focusing on New York. The last time I ran it was in 2004 and I thought I had an average race. Once you have an average performance, you always want to go back and give it another shot so that was my main motivation for coming back to New York; I’d like to run a little bit more of an aggressive race and finish better than the 12th place that I finished last time.

MR: So, do you have a specific time goal for the ING New York City Marathon this year?
AL: Well, in the major marathons, I always like to finish in the top 10; I’ve done that at Boston twice. I finished in eighth last year at Boston and Berlin and I think I can finish higher than that. So, for New York, I want to take a good run and hopefully if the weather cooperates, I’ll be able to run my best time, which is 2:11.

MR: So how has training been going? Do you feel strong?
AL: Yeah, I’ve felt really strong this summer. Since I ran an early marathon in March, that has given me a bit of extra time. I have been running some Sunday runs with Alan Culpepper. He keeps you running because he is such a strong runner. I’ve also had no injuries or anything like that so I’m hoping for a good race in the half.

MR: I know that your coach Nic Bideau trains in a way that is very event-specific, so have you guys been focusing primarily on the half-marathon for the summer or are you already focusing on the marathon?
AL: The training that we do is very specific. Most of the year when I’m road racing, the training is more 10K-type based. The track sessions will be below 10K race pace and then usually 12 weeks before the marathon, we go into more specific marathon training where the mileage is a little bit higher and the workouts are longer, so that’s kind of where I am at right now in my training, transitioning from the shorter session into the longer one. He has included a couple of sessions that are going to be close to my half-marathon pace to get a feel for that as well. We are definitely focusing on the half as an important race; that’s also part of the main buildup for the marathon.

MR: So, tell me more about your decision to go to Boulder to train. You must really like it; you have been there for a while now.
AL: It’s great. I’ve been here five years now. My wife and I came to visit in 2001 for the Bolder Boulder race and we really liked it. A few months later we moved here permanently. Before moving here, we were in Albuquerque and it was nice, but Boulder suits us really well. The running community is very friendly. I do a lot of training on my own, but it’s so nice to know that there is always someone to run with here.

The weather is good most of the time. There are trails out your doorstep depending on where you live and there are great coffee shops and restaurants!

MR: That’s certainly a great bonus! Now, you have been working with Nic now for a couple of years; how does his training differ from your previous training? In what way are the workouts different?
AL: Before Nic Bideau, I had Chris Wardlaw, who was a great coach. He coached Steve Moneghetti and Kerryn McCann and many other Olympians. I did really well under his system. I did that for four years and decided that I’d like to try a different system. So, I approached Nic and as you said, he’s very specific with his training. A lot of his sessions sort of mimic what event you are training for, so the track sessions are longer. That was one thing that was hard for me to get used to. Plus, I started using a heart rate monitor regularly for the first time as well, and that has been quite helpful. If I’m doing a tempo run or a solid pace run, I tend to run too hard, so the heart rate monitor was a new stimulus for me.

The basic pattern of training didn’t change, just the heart rate monitor for the track sessions, for tempo heart rate runs, and fartleks. I still have the same types of workouts: tempo runs, fartleks, hills, and longer runs. It’s just that Nic is a little bit more scientific and a little more specific to the event you are training for whereas under Chris Wardraw’s system, you’d pretty much do the same training every week for 52 weeks out of the year. That seemed to work for me as well, but I think Nic’s influence definitely helped push me to the next level. I felt like I was stagnating a bit under the old system.

MR: I find the heart rate monitor to be one of the most useful tools and it surprises me that more runners don’t take advantage of them. How many times a week do you incorporate the heart rate monitor into your training?
AL: Whenever we do track sessions, I generally don’t wear them because I’m more concerned with getting certain splits. I mainly use it on the trails and for the tempo type runs on the road; I’d say once a week on average. I don’t use it any other day. For the marathon, we’ll occasionally do some longer runs where we will wear a heart rate monitor and try to get down a marathon pace as well as marathon heart rates. I find that that’s quite good, because here in Boulder, you are at altitude. Marathon pace may feel hard, but the heart rate and marathon pace are two different things so, it’s been very beneficial for that.

MR: That makes a lot of sense. Let’s turn our attention to some of the road races you’ve done this summer. It seems like you’ve been hopping all over the country getting in some great races. I know that you ran the Peachtree in Atlanta and the Lake Atwood 10-Mile race in Kansas, which you won and broke the record. What were your favorite experiences racing so far this summer?
AL: One of the highlights was definitely the Lake Atwood 10 Mile in terms of how I felt and it’s at a moderate altitude. I broke Jon Sinclair’s 15-year-old record. I have a lot of respect for him. As a road racer, he was one of the best, to take one of his course records was a very satisfying achievement. I think I got lucky that day; the weather was perfect; it can be really hot in Kansas. But, I’ll take it. Jon was a great runner and his record stood for fifteen years, so it was nice to get that.

Peachtree was about average. Sometimes the heat and humidity get to you, but this year, it was a pretty solid race for me. I’ve a couple of other good local races. I ran a 1:06 half-marathon here in the Rocky Mountain Half in Denver, just missing the win by less than a second, so that was another. I also liked the Bolder Boulder, where I came in tenth. I was satisfied with that considering it was only eight to ten weeks after my marathon. It was good to see how fit I was.

MR: Speaking of your marathon, were you happy with your performance at the Commonwealth Games this year[Letherby finished in fith place with a time of 2:17.11]?
AL: I guess it wasn’t a bad race, but it wasn’t quite what I was looking for. I managed to get the bronze medal in the 2002 Commonwealth Games and I was hoping to repeat that, but I just didn’t.

MR: Do you enjoy going back to Australia to race?
AL: Yeah, but I don’t get back as much as I’d like to. Whenever I can, I do. We have some great places to train back there and my wife and I would consider moving back, but running professionally, it just seems to make sense to race over here. There are a lot more races here and we’re enjoying living in Colorado. We may head back, but it probably won’t be for a couple more years.

MR: One question I’ve been so interested to ask you is about your family. Your mother was a leading Australian distance runner in the eighties and your sister Teresa was a leading Australian walker in the nineties. I imagine that you must have had such great support for your running.
AL: My mother actually didn’t start running until she was 32; as a matter of fact, she wasn’t involved in the sport at all until then. It’s kind of a funny story. She was late to work all the time and would catch the bus to work. She’d have to run to the bus stop in order to get the bus, so that she wouldn’t be late. She found that she liked running and ended up signing up for a local race and did really well. Afterwards, one of the local coaches approached her. In a couple of years, she made a few Australian teams, won national titles and ended up running 2:45 in the marathon.

That’s definitely inspiring to me now that I’m getting older. I look back and remember that her best running was in her mid to late thirties so it helps me to see that I can continue improving. You know, my sister and I, we just followed in our mother’s footsteps. I can’t ever really remember my mother not running and she got my dad into running too. So, running was the main thing for us. I played other sports as well, like cricket and soccer, but found that running was what I liked best and of course my family fully supported that.

My family is a huge part of getting me to where I am at now. If my mother wasn’t a runner, I may not have been one myself. I am sure there are a lot of talented people out there who never get exposure to the sport. I feel that I was very lucky in that way.

Interview conducted August 14, 2006, and posted August 17, 2006.