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Dathan Ritzenhein will attempt to defend his 12K title at the 2006 USA Cross Country Championships on February 19 at Van Cortlandt Park in New York City. The native of Rockford, Michigan—where "Ritz" won Foot Locker national cross-country titles in 1999 and 2000 and recorded an 8:44.43 two-mile—won last year’s title by more than 100 yards over Jorge Torres, but served up a lemon at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in France, fading to 62nd in a race Ritzenhein flatly labels the biggest disappointment of his young career.
To date, Ritzenhein's only weakness has been structural. By the start of his sophomore season at the University of Colorado in 2002, Ritzenhein had already collected a 3rd (junior 8K) and a 24th (senior 12K) in world cross country competition. But since that time, he has suffered at least three major injuries: one in each femur and one in his foot. Between trips to the sidelines, Ritzenhein claimed the 2003 NCAA cross country title and ran 27:38 for 10,000 meters. Shortly before the 2004 Olympics, he announced that he would forsake the rest of his NCAA eligibility and sign with Nike.
Ritzenhein opened his 2004 track season with a pair of personal bests: a 13:22.23 to win the Oregon Twilight 5,000m and a 7:43.95 3,000m for 5th at the adidas Track Classic. In a much-ballyhooed match-up against Alan Webb over two miles at the Prefontaine Classic in June, Ritzenhein wound up a distant 6th in 8:23.45, nearly a straightaway behind Webb’s 8:11.48 American record. Then, 10 days before the USATF Outdoor Track and Field Championships, Ritzenhein injured a nerve on the top of his foot in an off-the-track mishap, ending his season and shelving him for six weeks.
It wasn’t until last January that Ritzenhein—who remained enrolled at C.U. and will graduate with a degree in history this spring—got his first real chance to throw himself back into racing in the new uniform. After chasing multi-time European cross country champion Sergei Lebid and 2004 Olympic gold medalist Stefano Baldini to the wire in a New Year’s Eve 10K road race in Italy, he prefaced his USATF cross country win with a surprising first on a muddy 9.8K course at the Belfast International Cross Country Race, holding off a chase group of Kenyans.
Ritzenhein returned to competition in November at the Food World Charity Run in Mobile, Alabama, blazing a 28:11 to destroy the field in an event serving as the 2005 National 10K Championship. In January he returned to Belfast to defend his title, but was pushed back to third by a pair of Africans after being in or near the lead much of the way. One week later, he faced peerless competition in the VisitScotland Great Edinburgh race, highlighted by the top-three showings of Kenenisa Bekele, Saif Saaeed Shaheen, Lebid and Zersenay Tadesse; there, Ritzenhein was a distant but still-strong fourth, beating other notables.
Mensracing.com tracked down Ritzenhein between classes in Boulder two weeks before his showdown with America’s best at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.
MensRacing.com: When we spoke in December 2004, you’d put in four uninterrupted months of training since the Olympics and claimed that you were extremely fit. Based on how most of your races last winter went, you weren’t kidding. Besides the obvious, such as successful time trials and similar benchmarks, how do you know when coming back from an extended racing break that you’re ready to compete and not just ready to train harder?
Dathan Ritzenhein: It differs from season to season. With cross country, I’m ready anytime. I know I’m strong in that discipline and am always prepared to race. With track, it’s different—I do need a couple of key interval workouts and the confidence that comes with them.
There are a couple of workouts we do out here I use for that purpose. One is a five-mile climb done as tempo-type run. Another is 2K repetitions. After the uphill run I can look at my heart rate and know at a glance where I am compared to other times I’ve done the same workout.
MR: It’s obvious to a listener that, for you, cross country is where it’s at. Does this mean that while the world might look at, say, a 27:38 10K as representative of what you’ve done on your best day, you would see a race like Belfast in 2005 as a bigger breakthrough or accomplishment?
DR: For me, cross country is a real passion. I like the track, I like to run fast, but I could race cross country every weekend. But with the 3Ks and 5Ks, there are only so many I could do before it would wear on me. That Belfast race was another notch in my belt, although obviously I wish I’d done better at Worlds than there.
MR:
Winning last year’s USATFs in cross country couldn’t have come as a surprise after what you accomplished in Europe. By the time the gun went off in Vancouver, were you already thinking ahead to Worlds?
DR: After Belfast I was on a high. I came down a little bit after coming back to the States and tried to focus on just the U.S. race. But I was feeling really good, so as USATFs got closer I found myself looking ahead to Worlds more and more.
MR: You knocked off some studs in Ireland, but USATFs gave you another national title. Which race was more satisfying from a pure gut standpoint?
DR: That’s hard to say. Belfast was good, but I don’t think I beat anyone there that really set me apart. I raced guys at USATFs I race all the time, so that was a better indicator of where I was at. To beat Jorge by a good amount, for example, told me I was ready to go.
MR:Last Year's Worlds and your feelings about it are no secret. When haunted by thoughts of that 62nd place, do you just try to put it behind you or have you spent a lot of time thinking about what, if anything, you’d do differently?
DR: I’ve learned some things to take to heart this year. Some of what happened may have been out of my control, but I did make some errors. Wearing spikes as long as I did in 85-degree weather was a bad idea and though I really don’t want to make excuses, that’s what led to my feet blistering. Also, my decision to go out with the leaders was a mistake. I’m not planning to go through the kilometer again in 2:35 this year.
MR: Once track season arrived, you stayed on a pretty good roll, opening with a couple of personal records. Inasmuch as a distance runner is ever content, were you satisfied with those 3K and 5K times?
DR:
I wasn’t satisfied to end my season with those times. But at the time I was happy enough with them, as early as they were. In the 3,000, I got beat by a couple of people I’ve beaten or hoped to beat, but overall I couldn’t complain.
MR: Your two-mile race at the 2004 Pre Classic was the most-hyped non-championship distance race in America in a long time because of the Webb-versus-Ritz angle. Did you go into that race as avidly focused on one match-up as the rest of the world was, or was it just another day at the world-class-track office?
DR: Every time someone brings up Alan Webb it piques my interest, because there’s something of a history there. As the meet drew closer I looked over the field and realized the amount of talent entered, so many great guys. So that spread out my focus some. The race didn’t go as I hoped, but Alan had a phenomenal day, and there was nothing I could have done to beat him—I wasn’t going to run 8:11 that day. Looking back I realized I could have come within three-hundredths of a second of the [old, held by Bob Kennedy] American record and come in 4th. It was just a great race.
MR: It wasn’t long after that, 10 days before the USATF National Championships, when your season ended with something of a freak accident, a nerve injury to the top of your foot that happened when you were kicking a soccer ball around the yard. How much training did you miss as result?
DR: I ended up missing about six weeks in all. I tried to come back after two weeks in the hope of salvaging some of my season in Europe, but that only wound up setting me back a little. Had something like that happened in February, it wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but obviously it was disappointing to have to miss the championships.
MR: Your first race back was at the Food World Senior Bowl Charity Run, the U.S. 10K championship, where you were on pace for the American Record for about half the race and won easily in 28:11. Was the plan going in to go for Marc Nenow’s standard [27:48]?
DR: In the Senior Bowl, I just wanted to set myself in a position to give the
record a shot if I felt good. I knew I was in pretty good shape for that time
of the year, but I wasn’t totally sure how ready I was. I stayed with that
pace for halfway, but I wasn’t strong enough to hold it.
MR: How many road races have you run stateside?
DR:Two—the Senior Bowl and Carlsbad [13:48 for 7th in 2005].
MR: When will we see more of you on the roads?
DR: I really don’t plan to do any road races until after the track season. I
might jump in an early one if things are going well, but I really want to focus
on bettering my track performances.
MR: That brings us almost current. You went from 1st to 3rd in Belfast this year using the same front-running style against a stronger field. Then you ran among giants in Edinburgh the next weekend, winding up 4th. Where do you figure you are from a readiness perspective compared to last year at this time?
DR: I feel that my performances were better this year even though I wasn’t as ready to race, because I was stronger this year overall—just not as racing-fit. I had a huge base coming into this winter so I was just really strong.
MR: What’s “huge” in Ritz world?
DR: About 95 to 110 miles a week, with one solid threshold workout every week.
MR: You’ve mentioned being an especially good runner in sloppy conditions. What accounts for this? Is it more a mental than a physical thing, i.e., you like the adversity more than others do?
DR: Not so much mud as non-track-like conditions in general—hills and uneven surfaces too. I just think I don’t need the energy return from hard ground that other runners rely on, like I can be almost as strong without firm terrain underfoot as I can on a faster surface. I don’t know the physiology.
MR: In training, when looking at a race on the “far near” horizon—say six months out—do you and [coach] Brad Hudson aim for what most call “microcycles,” or three- or four-week cycles that repeat at higher intensities, or do you follow more of a classic Lydiard-type build-sharpen-race scheme?
DR: Because I’m still in school, a little of both. For instance, I mainly did these European cross-country races like Belfast because this was one time I could get away—we were on winter break. And last spring I could race every two weeks leading toward Nationals, because I was done with school by May.
MR:
One striking trait you’ve shown in your brief career is the ability to race well after a long absence from competition, and to be almost immune to poor races in general. Some runners choose to race sparingly and seem to be on-form regardless—Alan Culpepper comes to mind—but with the injuries you’ve had, you’ve had no choice but to make repeated “debuts” under high scrutiny. Is rising to the occasion part of your whole make-up, or is it a practical matter of making sure you’ve covered all the bases in training before you line up?
DR: I don’t need to race a lot, but I like to race a lot. I like to feel out the competition. I always do come back and run well after lay-offs, but I can also tell from my training whether I’m fit. If I’m not fit, I don’t race, because there’s no point—what information is racing poorly when I knew I wasn’t ready anyway going to provide?
There are exceptions, like having to race as part of a team while knowing I’m not really ready, but because I don’t have control of the decision-making in those situations, I don’t look at them the same way.
I haven’t had a lot of bad races, and the ones I’ve had, I had some idea going in how things were going to be. World Cross last year was the exception, as that came as a real shock.
Some people always seem to run well, some people experience mediocrity all the time. Whichever it is, it takes at least one really bad race to appreciate every good one.
Editor's Note: Dathan Ritzenhein finished 4th in the 12K at the 2006 USA XC Championships. He ran a strong race, finishing with a time of 35:27, just behind Jorge Torres and Max King.
Interview conducted February 2, 2006 and posted February 10, 2006
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