Interview with Fasil Bizuneh

by Cecil Harris

Fasil Bizuneh is among the favorites in this Sunday’s USA Half-Marathon Championships in Houston, the first race of the 2007 USA Running Circuit. Bizuneh, 26, showed fine form in winning the Dallas White Rock Half-Marathon in a personal-best time on December 10, 2006.

Since relocating last July to secluded Bristol, Tennessee, where he rooms with Fernando Cabada—the USA’s 25K record-holder—and is coached by Scott Simmons, Bizuneh has set personal bests in the 3000 meters (7:57.16), 5000 meters (13:45.06), 5K (13:55), 10K (29:18), 20K (1:00:44), half-marathon (1:02:59), and marathon (2:18:14).

Bizuneh was a four-time All-American at Arizona State and as a freshman was the top American at the 1999 World Junior Cross Country Championships, finishing 24th. But his collegiate career did not progress as he had hoped. Now as a professional, he’s realizing his potential. He’ll make his World Marathon Majors series debut at the Flora London Marathon in April, and he’ll compete in the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in New York City in November.

To say Bizuneh has an unusual background would be an understatement. He holds a degree in chemical engineering. And he was born in Germany to African parents who fled political chaos in Ethiopia and ended up in Indianapolis. MensRacing.com caught up with Bizuneh at John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, just before he boarded a flight.

Editor's Update: Fasil Bizuneh performed phenomenally well at the USA Half-Marathon Championships, He placed second with a personal-best time of 1:02:20, behind the record-breaking performance of Ryan Hall and ahead of the 2004 Olympic silver medallist, Meb Keflezighi.

MensRacing.com: Where are you heading now?
Fasil Bizuneh: I’m flying to Phoenix and then driving to the High Altitude Center in Flagstaff, Arizona, where I’m training this winter. My sponsorship with New Balance began January 1. New Balance also sponsors the Orange County Marathon, and they run a half-marathon and a 5K in conjunction with it, so I came here to run the 5K. I ran 14:07 and beat a bunch of 10-year-olds [laughs].

MR: Did your impressive win in Dallas give you confidence heading into the USA Half-Marathon Championships in Houston?
FB: Definitely. I ran my best half-marathon in Dallas, and I expect to better that time in Houston because I hear the course is much faster.

MR: What was the key to your win in Dallas?
FB: I was really confident going into the race. Fernando Cabada is my roommate. We train together; we do everything together. He went to Big Sur and ran 1:02:45 in the half-marathon, and the week before he ran 2:12:27 in Fukuoka, Japan. We run together every day, so to see him run so well gave me the confidence that I could do it. We’ve both been feeding off each other’s performances.

MR: What’s the advantage of having another runner as a roommate?
FB: It keeps you honest. There’s a higher degree of accountability when you room with another person who does the same thing as you. If he’s going to go out and do his second run of the day, you’re going to go out too. It helps to have someone else who’s on the same schedule.

MR: When did you decide to room together?
FB: I was in the Big Sur Distance Project [in Marina, California]. I was on my way to the 25K national championships in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and I got an e-mail that the project was no longer going to be funded. They weren’t going to pay our rent anymore after July 2006. I’d known Fernando from races and he was at the Grand Rapids race. I told him what had happened. And he said, “You should move to Bristol. I’ve got a really good coach and the rent is cheap there.” I arrived in Bristol July 5.

MR: You and Fernando are coached by Scott Simmons. How has that worked out?
FB: Great. Ever since I’ve been working with Scott, I’ve PR’d every time out. Scott wrote a book,Take the Lead, that kind of outlines his philosophy. It’s different from mainstream coaching. When it comes to workouts, we don’t really believe in the pyramid. Ours is more of a diamond shape, where you start small and then everything progresses—your mileage progresses, your workouts progress. And we don’t really taper. That’s one reason Fernando and I are able to race as often as we do. As long as you keep doing your workouts and keep your mileage up, you can race a lot. It’s only when you start tapering, cutting way back on your mileage, that you can run into a problem, because when you start a race you’re going to feel flat.

MR: But before a marathon you taper off a bit, don’t you?
FB: Well, before a marathon, we’ll taper off a little bit because you want to get your glycogen levels up. But other than that, no. Before the 5K last year when I came in second in Providence, I ran 112 miles that week. And I ran about 105-107 miles the week of the half-marathon I won in Dallas.

MR: There’s so much excitement in your voice as you talk about Scott. You really enjoy working with him, don’t you?
FB: Yeah. He’s the head coach at Virginia Intermont College, where Fernando went to school. Scott’s one of the younger coaches I’ve had—he’s in his mid-to-late-30s—and he’s very enthusiastic. He’ll call me the night before a race and he’ll know what to say to make feel confident. I’ve been fortunate to work with some excellent coaches: in high school, Scott Williams, a former Big 10 All-American in cross country; in junior high, Terry Braughm, a U.S. Olympian in 1988. It helps to have coaches with a wider vision, who let me know what the possibilities are. Scott Simmons is really positive and he’s big on the mental aspect of racing, which is sometimes not given the attention it deserves. Also with Scott, I started running twice [a day] six days a week instead of two or three days. In general, I just run faster now, especially on my long runs. I used to run a 6:30 pace when I was back in Big Sur—just going through the motions trying to get it done. Now I’m running a 5:40, sometimes a 5:30 pace for the whole long run.

MR: When you competed at Arizona State, were you as attuned to the mental side of running as you are now?
FB: Probably not as much. At Arizona State, I had a very successful freshman year; I made the world juniors. But then I just sort of stagnated. Being at Arizona State in Tempe, there were a lot of distractions, and I probably wasn’t as focused as I could have been. Also, I was majoring in chemical engineering, which took a lot of time. Having a demanding major definitely kept me from doubling as much. And the weather is so hot most of the year. During cross country season, we’d have practice at 5:50 a.m. It would still be 95 degrees at 10 p.m. So it’s hard to get in double runs of any quality. If I had kept improving, I would have been in position to win a few national titles there, but I’m happy with where I am now.

MR: Sounds like Bristol, Tennessee, is more conducive to running.
FB: Yeah. Bristol is a really slow town. The population is about 45,000 [25,000, according to the 2000 census]. There’s not too much going on, which is a good thing for my running.

MR: Your parents are from Ethiopia, you were born in Frankfurt, Germany, and you grew up in Indianapolis. There must be an interesting story behind that.
FB: Well, my family left Ethiopia in 1978 because of the dictatorship there. Over a period of two years, my parents walked 300 miles from Gondor, Ethiopia, to a refugee camp in Sudan. My dad had a brother who lived in Germany, so my parents went there, and I was born in Germany in 1980. It’s easier to come to the United States from Germany than from the Sudan. There was a church in Indianapolis that sponsored us, so we moved to Indianapolis in 1981. My family became American citizens when I was in the second grade.

MR: You were only a year old when you came to America. How much have your parents told you about the political turmoil they escaped in Ethiopia?
FB: My dad was a professor at a college in Ethiopia. He was one of the people speaking out against the government, and at the time anyone who spoke out got arrested or killed. There was a secret police force called the Derg. The dictator was Mengistu Haile Mariam. Fortunately, my dad had a friend who was in the police force. When my dad came to work one day, his friend said, “You have to leave. They’re coming to get you today.” So my dad just left. He went off into the countryside. He sent word back to my mom that she would have to come and join him. I have an older brother who is 30 now. He’s a doctor in Charlotte. At that time, he was two years old. He would have been too young to survive the trip, so my mom left him with her mother. That’s when my mom met up with my dad and they walked from Ethiopia to Sudan. They told me they had to give away all their possessions, including their wedding rings, because they had to look like they were from the countryside. My parents had to wear just the clothes on their backs for months. And my older brother didn’t join us in Indianapolis until he was six, so for four years my parents didn’t get to see him.

MR: What a remarkable story of survival. Your parents were so brave.
FB: Yeah, I know. My dad has been through a lot. He teaches anatomy and physiology at Ivy Tech Community College in Indiana. He has his Ph.D. The town he grew up in is in the countryside, and the kids have school only up to the third grade. So after the third grade, he left his family—he moved out of the house when he was 10 years old—to go to another town 60 miles away to further his education. He came home only twice a year.

MR: The sacrifices he made must have made a strong impression on you and your brother about the importance of education.
FB: The importance of education and family. I have another brother. He’s 17 now and in high school in Indianapolis. My older brother just finished his residency at Loyola University in Chicago. Now he’s at a hospital in Charlotte. That’s only three hours from Bristol, so it’s nice to have a family member nearby.

MR: You grew up in Indianapolis, a hotbed of basketball. Was it easy to choose running over basketball?
FB: Everyone plays basketball in Indiana and it’s really competitive. But I was very small. In the seventh grade, I was only 4-11. In the fourth grade, I was on the basketball team. I didn’t get to play a lot. One game I was on the bench daydreaming and the coach put me in. The game was in the second half, so the teams had switched baskets, but I didn’t even realize it. I got into the game, they threw the ball to me and I shot it into my own basket [laughs]. I scored for the other team. I was immediately pulled out of the game. That season I scored two points for my team and two points against my team. Basketball didn’t really work out for me.

MR: Did the basketball coach suggest you try running?
FB: No [laughs]. My older brother had a friend who ran cross country in school. I remember asking him, “Why are you running? There’s no point to it.” I was in the seventh grade then and I played tennis. The school had a summer conditioning program. My brother encouraged me to run with him and his friends. I was going to go back to tennis in the fall, but I won my first eight races. I had so much success I decided to stick with running.

MR: How do your parents react to your being a professional runner after earning a degree in chemical engineering?
FB: My parents kind of want me to further my education by pursuing a graduate degree online. But they’re very supportive of me. Early in my post-collegiate career, I wasn’t making that much money. But for the past three or four months I’ve been able to support myself. I made a lot of money [in 2006] at the 5K in Providence (second place) and the Twin Cities Marathon (fifth place). But they have drug testing at those races, so it takes at least two months before you actually see the money. There were times this past fall when I had to borrow money from my parents and brother, and Fernando covered the rent for me. But I’m finally over the hill. I signed with New Balance—I love wearing the New Balance RC205 racing flats—and it’s really a good feeling to know that I’m successful at what I’m doing. I’m starting to reap the rewards from all the hard work I’ve done.

MR: What’s your race schedule this year?
FB: I’m going to run the Flora London Marathon. I chose London over the Boston Marathon because of the weather. You’re pretty much guaranteed not to have a hot day in London. And I really want to get a fast time. I think London would be more conducive to that than Boston. I might run in the Pan American Games Marathon [in July]. It’s an opportunity to medal in an international competition. But it’s about three months before the Olympic Trials Marathon, so Coach Simmons and I are going to have to talk about that one. I may go to Europe and run on the track instead, to try to get my 5K and 10K PRs down. I’m sure they’ll come way down after my road performances.

MR: Does running on the track help your marathon running, and vice versa?
FB: Definitely. I see myself going back and forth for a while. The shorter races help me with leg speed and efficiency in the marathon. Over such a long race, you have to maintain an efficient stride. And after running marathons and half-marathons, a 5K just feels so short.

MR: What time are you shooting for in London?
FB: I think I can run 2:11, 2:12. I don’t think I was that far off in the Twin Cities from running 2:13. And my training and fitness have progressed so much since then. I’m pretty confident I’ll run a lot faster than 2:18. And I’m really looking forward to the Olympic Trials Marathon. Watching the ING New York City Marathon really showed that there are going to be some surprises. Anything can happen on that course. And I’m really happy with the way my running is developing.

Interview conducted January 8, 2007, and posted January 13, 2007.