Interview with Blake Boldon

by Shannon Martin

Blake Boldon, 27, originally from Osceola, Iowa, currently trains under the guidance of Corey Ihmels in Ames, Iowa. An assistant coach for Iowa State’s track and field team, Boldon is able to spend time focusing on his own training, and in the past year has achieved phenomenal PRs and top-10 finishes racing against the nation’s best distance runners. Most recently, at the 2007 USATF Indoor Championships, Boldon finished in fourth-place in the 3000 with a PR time of 7:57.19. A week later he accomplished a PR of 3:59.18, winning the indoor mile at the Iowa State University NCAA Last Chance Qualifier Meet.

As a high school runner, Boldon won a state title in the outdoor mile. At Missouri State University, Boldon was a five-time Missouri Valley conference champion. Since graduating college, Boldon has achieved significant leaps in his running carees. He has won several road races and placed 13th at the CVS/pharmacy downtown 5K last fall, which served as the USA 5K road championships. Some of the great feats he has achieved on the track include a 10th-place finish in the 1500 at the 2006 USATF Outdoor Championships, and a 5000-meter PR of 13:58.99 and a 9th place finish at the 2006 Stanford Cardinal Invitational.

MensRacing.com: First of all, your two most recent races (the 3000 at the USA Indoor Championships two weeks ago and the mile at the Iowa State University Cyclone Qualifier this past Saturday) were phenomenal performances, two more PRs under your belt, including a sub-4:00 mile. Tell me a bit about how each of those races unfolded and how you feel about the results.
Blake Boldon: Okay, I’ll start with the race in Boston [the USATF Indoor Championships]. It came on a very short notice actually. I qualified two weeks before at a home meet here in Ames and my coach Corey Ihmels, who’s the head coach here at Iowa State for the men’s cross country team, had me spending January and February specifically preparing for two races in March, one is a 5K at an outdoor track meet to open the outdoor season and two weeks before that, the USA 8K Championships in New York. So, we were gearing everything toward those two races and we were doing longer intervals, tempos, and more mileage than I normally would this time of year. When I ran 8:00 flat at the home meet, he wasn’t really excited about the idea [of competing in Boston], but I found a sponsor, the Big River Running Company out of St. Louis, Missouri, to cover my flight to Boston and it all came together about eight days before the race, so I didn’t really change my training or do anything different; I just showed up out there. I knew going into it that [Matt] Tegenkamp and [Jonathon] Riley were the guys that would shape the race because Matt has run 7:40 this year and Jonathon has won that race three times, so I knew that those would be the guys to key off of. I had no other plan than to see what those guys did and then try to react to it. I started off conservatively because I knew they were behind me and I just thought “If one of them goes by me, I’ll just try to move up with him.” And that’s what I did until about 1500 and then those two guys along with Sean Graham moved pretty hard for a little bit and I ended up getting trapped in no man’s land and running in fourth for at least the last K, if not more. So, I ran on my own and finished up fourth with a good PR so I was really happy.

For the mile at ISU, I decided on the Wednesday before that I was going to pace the mile and the 5K so that I could help guys here at Iowa State get provisional marks and it was exciting for me to hopefully see those guys get some marks because one is a freshman and one is a sophomore. So, I told those guys that I would pace them. Then, at the last minute, Coach Ihmels and I decided that I would race the mile instead and hopefully help our other athlete, Brandon Rooney get a PR and run under 4:04. We had a rabbit, a runner from ISU, volunteer to run 1:58 for the first 800 and we were going to see what would happen after that, but I just really felt terrible. I didn’t have much confidence in my mile fitness because I have been doing so few mile-specific workouts, so I was way off the pace. I was 62 seconds at the 400, and then about 2:02 at the 800, and three seconds behind the pacemaker. I guess somewhere along there, I gained some confidence and started moving up and I ran 1:56 for the last 800 by myself and closed at 57 [seconds for the last 400] all alone. That gave me a lot of confidence. [Despite the fact ] that this was my first sub-4:00 mile, my coach was a little frustrated; he feels like I can run significantly faster if I give myself the opportunity.

MR: Do you feel that if you were more confident the first half of the race, that you could have run an even faster time?
BB: Absolutely. If I would have run 1:58 at 800, I would have finished even stronger.

MR: Do you think that perhaps the training that you are doing for longer distances, is in fact also helping you at your shorter distance races?
BB: Yeah, and I knew that I might run a couple of indoor 3Ks and potentially a mile, so what I have done is at the end of a long tempo, I’ve gone to the track right afterwards to run a few 200s at mile race pace, just to make sure that I could feel that pace and understand the pace when I am tired. Immediately after the race, I talked to Corey about it and after talking with him, I feel that’s exactly what it is [that has helped him get PRs in the 3000 and the mile]. I can be very tired and have already run 16 miles and still be able to handle to 28 second or 29 second 200. This definitely 100 percent translated into my race on Saturday.

MR: So, tell me how you hooked up with Coach Ihmels?
BB: It’s kind of a long story, but when I finished school in 2003, I had run fast, a 3:42 for 1500, but I hadn’t really run fast enough and I hadn’t been an All-American, so there weren’t any sponsors that were really interested in taking me on. I heard a lot of “No”s from a lot of people. My first year out of school, I tried to stay with my college coach, Houston Franks and at the end of that first year, he took a job at his alma mater, Mississippi State. When he did that, I didn’t really have anyplace to go, so I spent some time floating around. I took a teaching job for a little bit, just long enough to realize that I didn’t want to be a full-time teacher, not right now. Then, I moved to Florida State and I was with the guys down there at Florida State and I realized that I needed to be closer to home, and there were a few other factors that made me realize that it just wasn’t the right fit for me.

I’m originally from Iowa and I had been in touch with Coach Ihmels before and I knew that he had done some tremendous things as an athlete. When I was in the process of deciding where to move, I talked to him and a lot of his experiences as a post-collegiate athlete kind of mirrored what I had experienced for two years out of school, struggling to find a fit and trying to find a coach who had a vested interest in me. I could really identify with him, so I ended up moving here to volunteer as an assistant coach for Iowa State and my career has progressed by leaps and bounds since I have come here.

MR: So, how long have you been with Coach Ihmels now?
BB: I moved here in July of 2005, so I guess it’s been about 18 months or so. He’s given me a lot of opportunities to get involved as a coach and I’ve learned a lot as an athlete so Iowa State has been a perfect fit.

MR: Do you feel acclimated now?
BB: Yeah, for sure. And it’s great; [for example], Saturday at the home meet, it was a good feeling to run here with the guys I train with and to be only 80 miles from where I grew up. We had a lot of snow; there wasn’t really a crowd. The place was pretty empty and unfortunately a lot of the teams couldn’t make it because of the snow, but I looked over at the crowd in the stands right before I was finishing my warm-up and there were literally three people in the stands, and one of them was my mom. So, that was a good feeling.

MR: It seems like you have a good support system there.
BB: Yeah, for sure. I think that’s one thing that sometimes as a post-collegiate athlete, you kind of lose sight of. You feel like you have to move to the best training locale and where all the fast guys are, but I have learned that if I let life take care of itself and if I’m confident and comfortable in my support system, that these things can help the running success follow naturally. You don’t have to force it by moving somewhere or finding the right training partners.

MR: That’s a great philosophy to have. I think that’s true for many runners at the professional level. There are groups training in Minnesota and Rhode Island, places that many would not consider ideal for running, but they have a great support system and end up performing well. And despite all of that snow in Iowa, you’re still getting in some good training and improving in your performances.
BB: Absolutely. You know, I tried it in Florida and it was like putting a square peg in a round hole and if I were to move someplace like New York City, it wouldn’t work for me because I grew up in the Midwest and it just works for me here.

MR: Speaking of New York City, let’s move on to talk about the USA 8K Championships. This is a longer distance for you. Are you excited for this?
BB: Yeah, I am. Last summer, I ran 23:45 for an 8K and I did that about ten days after the USATF Outdoor Championships, where I was specifically training for a 1500 and my mileage was way down and I hadn’t really done any of the aerobic preparation to race a fast 8K. I decided to go with this opportunity in New York, to run with a fast field, and to be more specifically prepared for the event, so that I can get a personal best down towards 23:00.

MR: So your primary goal is a time goal?
BB: Yeah, I have looked at it a little bit and I realize that 23:15 is very tangible for me, so that’s kind of an ideal, a target time. Looking back at past results, 23:15 is a top-ten-type finish. It’s probably a more competitive field this year, so if I can run a 23:10 and not finish in the top 10 or 20, I’ll still be happy, but obviously, I’d like to be up in the mix with some of those top guys.

MR: Have you run in Central Park before?
BB: No, I’ve actually only been to New York once and that was for the [USA] Cross Country Championships last February in Van Cortlandt Park.

MR: Did you get to see much of New York then?
BB: No, absolutely not. We didn’t get to spend anytime in New York [Manhattan] at all; we were all at the host hotel [The Westchester Marriott in Tarrytown, New York] which was nice for the purpose of the meet, but having never been to New York, I was kind of hoping to see a little bit more of the city and be there in the heart of it a little bit. I’m excited about getting to see more of New York and I’m excited to race in Central Park for sure.

MR: Share with me some of the specific workouts you have used to prepare for this race.
BB:The one that I mentioned earlier has kind of a goofy name, but we call it “Happy Jack.” Basically, it is a progressive tempo. We’ll maybe start with a 3-mile warm-up and what’s great about Ames, Iowa, is that if you run about three miles in any general direction from our locker room, you’ll be on a really nice dirt/gravel road. So I’ll do a 3-mile warm-up to a dirt road and I will start very progressively going at about 6 minutes [per mile] and I go out for about 30 minutes, so that’s about five miles usually, sometimes a little bit more, sometimes a little bit less and then I’ll come back progressively harder the whole way, so by the end, I’ll be running about 4:40 miles. After I do that, like I mentioned before, I’ll do some fast 200s or I’ll try to go back to the [indoor] track and do some fast 200s there, depending on the day and depending on the weather. Lately it’s been too cold to do too much too fast outdoors, so I’ll do a tempo like that and hurry back to the track as fast as I can to do 200s there. This is something I have done in January and February in preparation for this race. It’s a really good workout because if I head straight south for eight miles and there’s a strong wind out of the north, coming back into that wind with negative wind chill, not only am I getting pretty fit, but it kind of makes you tougher. So when the chips are down and you have a bad race, it doesn’t make it seem quite so bad. It calluses you a little bit and makes you tough.

MR: The CVS/pharmacy 5K Championships last fall was your first road championship race. Do you see yourself doing any other championships on the roads this year?
BB: Yeah, absolutely. I see myself doing more championships every year. Now, I can handle more mileage and handle myself doing more longer thresholds, so I envision myself moving further up in distance on the track and more so on the road, so it’s really going to just be a matter of which ones work into my schedule and which ones I can afford to get to. Basically, logistics are the only concern now, like if I can find a way to get to the races, I will.

As you can imagine as a post-collegiate [runner], I struggle to find races that I can afford to get to or cover the expenses because I only work part-time and I volunteer as a coach. I’m just trying to pursue my running full-go. Financially it doesn’t work out very well, especially because I don’t have a sponsor or a shoe contract, aside from the very recent agreement with the Big River Running Company in St. Louis. They’ve been great to help me out and I’ve been with them for two weeks now, just in time to go to Boston. If I can find a way to get to Atlanta for the 10K, and maybe the Twin Cities 10-Mile in the fall, and then Providence for the 5K, I’d definitely go; those are all races that I’d love to compete in. Basically, any race that I can get to the starting line, I’ll run it!

MR: When you think about your significant fourth-place finish in the 3K at the indoor championships this year, do you feel more confident that such success will help you when seeking sponsorship?
BB: I really don’t know what it takes. Nobody showed interest in me even after being a finalist last year and continuing to improve, so yeah, hopefully, I’ll attract some sponsors.

MR: Well, it’s great that you have some support coming from the Big River Running Company.
BB: Absolutely, and what’s great about them is that they’re a couple of young guys [Ben Rosario and Matt Helbig] who have a lot of passion for the sport and they’re really excited about helping other people out. They’re both runners themselves. Ben Rosario is pursuing a marathon career on his own and I think he was a runner-up in the USA Championships in 2005 [Rosario did finish in second place with a time of 2:20:43]. He’s making some big gains for himself. We send emails to each other; even though we don’t get to train together, it’s fun to have the encouragement from other guys who are doing the same thing as me.

MR: I’d like to hear more about your assistant coaching position.
BB:I really like being around the guys; it gives me an outlet for my training where I can warm up and cool down with some other guys. My favorite part is definitely seeing some of the younger guys get hooked into the sport at the college level and seeing the amount of work that it takes to progress from high school to college. We’ve had a few freshmen in the past year who are basically walk-on types that have come from Iowa or Illinois and worked really hard and then score in the Big 12. These are some Midwestern kids who didn’t get recruited heavily from a lot of places. They had to work really hard for six months or 18 months and now they’re Big-12 caliber athletes and it’s just really fun to see that because when I was a freshman college, I had to walk-on and pretty much beg for a spot at Southwest Missouri State, who has since dropped men’s track. It’s just fun to see these guys who come from small towns and didn’t run a lot in high school, but decide that they want to do it. They come and get bit by the competitive bug and decide that they want to work their butt off and become really good.

MR: Does their growth inspire you with your running goals?
BB: Oh definitely. It’s just fun to see them working hard every day and getting their PRs and you know, it keeps me accountable because I have to keep working hard everyday to get my PRs.

MR: Do you train primarily by yourself?
BB: Primarily, yes, but I am fortunate because one of my college roommates [Tommy Neal] is pursuing his goals as a marathoner, so he moved in with me. He moved up here from Missouri in January and I’ve been able to get some runs in with him. Obviously though, he is preparing for a marathon so we don’t have a lot of overlap. Some of my quality sessions, I’ve been able to do with the ISU team. It’s a great training group and they let me tag along sometimes. The majority of my workouts though have been by myself.

MR: It sounds great that you have Tommy there with you; it’s probably great to have his support.
BB: He’s a great guy. He and I lived together my fifth year of school; that was the year that I had a big breakthrough; I went from 4:11 in the mile to 4:03 and from 3:51 to 3:42 in the 1500. We were living together then. He was a sophomore in college then and I was 23, so it’s almost like a throwback to those times. We goof around a lot and have a good time. He just got back from a race in Virginia. He ran his first half-marathon in 1:06 in a pretty good field, so he’s seeing some major gains too. It’s a lot of fun. We have a third roommate that we tease, saying “Hey, you need to get out and start running too.” He didn’t run competitively, but he has run recreationally in the past. It’s a lot of fun hanging out with these guys and seeing how far we can go.

MR: Do you see yourself moving up to distances as long as the half-marathon or marathon?
BB:Yeah, and that’s actually something I joke with my roommate about. There’s a half-marathon in Springfield, Missouri, that’s very low-key and I have won it three years in a row, in 2002, 2003, and 2004. So, even though he has a much faster PR than me over the half-marathon distance, I joke with him that he can’t really talk to me until he has already won three. Seriously though, I definitely see myself moving up in distances, hopefully the 10-mile distance this fall and use that for prep for the winter and spring track and road season in 2008. I don’t know exactly how far I will move up or when, but I think I will keep moving up progressively.

MR: Are you focusing on any specific event for the Olympic trials?
BB: Not yet. I kind of joke with my roommate that if I can get under the 5K standard for the marathon, that I will travel with him to New York if he gets his standard for the marathon. I don’t plan on running the full marathon next fall, but in the Spring of 2008, I’ll probably go for the 1500 and the 5K and I’ll prepare the same way that I am now and see where I am at fitness-wise. And I really think that by September or October 2007, I’ll have more of a specific plan laid out for 2008.

Interview conducted March 5, 2007, and posted March 14, 2007.