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Jason Lehmkuhle, 29, of Minneapolis, has trained with Team USA Minnesota since its inception in 2001. He formerly ran for Drake University where he graduated with a degree in Graphic Design. Lehmkuhle has had a phenomenal running career. In 2004, he qualified for the USA Olympic Marathon Trials where he placed ninth and he also qualified for the USA Olympic Track Trials (in the 10,000-meteres). An injury prevented him from competing at the Olympic Track Trials. In 2005, he was a member of three world teams, world cross country, world marathon and world half-marathon. Also in 2005, he placed second in the USA Half-Marathon Championships. Two of Lehmkuhle’s best performances in 2006 include a third-place finish at the USA Ten-Mile Championships with a time of 49:19 and placed fifth in the 10,000-meters at the USA Track and Field Championships, with a time of 28:44.14.
Lehmkuhle’s strong performances so far in 2007 continue to prove that he is among the fastest distance runners in the country. He placed fifth at the USA Half-Marathon Championships in Houston on January 14, with a PR time of 1:02:51. In the USA Cross Country Championships on February 10, Lehmkuhle placed ninth in the open men’s 12K, with a time of 38:26, qualifying him for the USA world cross country team.
Lehmkuhle will forgo the trip to Mombasa to compete in the World Cross Country Championships, so that he can focus on his spring marathon training. He will compete in the USA 15K Championships on March 10 as a tune-up race for the Boston Marathon in April. Mensracing was able to catch up with Lehmkuhle to learn more about his recent accomplishments, his plans for 2007, and how he spends his time outside of running.
MensRacing.com: Before we talk about your two main upcoming races, I want to first congratulate you on your ninth place finish at the USA Cross Country Championships in Boulder.
Jason Lehmkuhle:
Well, thank you. I was pleased with that finish; I thought that anywhere in the top 15 would be a pretty good result for me with the level of competition there.
MR: It was pretty messy out there, wasn’t it?
JL:
Yeah, it was sloppy, surprisingly so. I think we were all geared up to deal with snow and ice and the last couple of days leading up to the race, it warmed up enough, where it just got sloppy and muddy. I have run a couple of other cross country races that were pretty sloppy in particular the one in Portland in 2005 [The 2005 USA Cross Country Championships were held in Vancouver, Washington, about a 15-minute drive from Portland]. The 2005 race was comparably muddy to this, but the difference was that in this race, there was that ditch that we had to run though.
MR:
I saw the pictures of that ditch!
JL:
That got progressively harder and harder to deal with as the race went on, as people ran through it. There was sort of a ledge that you could step down on during the first couple of loops, but by the end, you were just stepping right into the creek and trying to scramble back up on the other side. I went down once and pretty much everybody I talked to went down completely once or twice there. It made it interesting.
MR: Could you feel the effects of the altitude?
JL:
Yeah, I did. Matt Gabrielson, Andrew Carlson, and I had been in Flagstaff the month before getting in some altitude training so that we could become acclimated, so that helped us. We were definitely more prepared than some of the people who were coming straight from sea level, but the race went out pretty fast.
I think that when you are racing at altitude, you have to be pretty careful about not tanking too early. It’s so hard to recover during the race and continue moving forward. I think the nature of the race and how fast it was definitely made the altitude a little more difficult to deal with even though we had done some training at 7000 feet. I definitely felt it!
MR: So you mainly felt it about halfway through until the end?
JL:
I would say the last half. I was a little roughed up even 6K in. I felt great the first loop, but we were out pretty hard.
MR: How many loops total made up the 12K course?
JL:
It was six loops.
MR: Wow, so you hit that ditch six times!
JL:
[Laughing] Yes!
MR: I notice that you and Andrew Carlson have been placing very close to each other at most races [In the 2007 USA Cross Country Championships, Andrew Carlson placed 11th, seven seconds behind Lehmkuhle]. Do you train with him often?
JL:
Andrew, Matt, and I do a significant amount of our training together. In particular, in track season, Andrew, Matt, and I are a little more in sync. I have been doing a little bit more marathon training, not so much leading up to cross country though. When, we were in Flagstaff, the three of us were doing a lot of training together. As I transition into more specific marathon training, I work more with Chris Lundstrom, who is the other guy in our group who focuses primarily on the marathon.
Obviously, when you train together with somebody, you often place very closely to them in races either by the simple fact that you are doing the same training or by the fact that you are using them as a cue for where you want to be in the race. Andrew is a great training partner.
MR: I imagine that you started your marathon training on some level before cross country, right?
JL:
I was definitely doing some marathon training. For us and the way Coach [Dennis] Barker has us prepare for the marathon, it’s not hugely different than say training for the 10K or the 12K cross country race, but my long runs were a little different and a little more specific. I’ve been doing some marathon work since December; in the last two months leading to the [Boston Marathon], we start doing more specific marathon simulation workouts and just some other workouts that those who aren’t doing a spring marathon wouldn’t necessarily do.
MR: Let’s talk about the 15K that you are running down in Jacksonville. This is the first time you are running it?
JL: [Laughing] I actually ran it in 2002 I think. I knew you were going to ask me that and I didn’t get a chance to look it up, but it was the first year that I was with the group [Team USA Minnesota] and I didn’t do very well [laughing]. I think I managed to just beat Deena [Kastor]. I ran it around 47 minutes, so hopefully I will run it a lot better this go around. [He did run it in 2002 and placed 26th in a time of 47:09. Deena ran it in 48:14].
MR: Is that 2002 race what kept you from going back to Jacksonville until now?
JL:
[Laughing] No, you know I really like that race. I love that distance, anywhere between 15K and the half-marathon range, I really love. Injuries and conflicts with other races are the main reasons why I haven’t been able to go back. For the past five years, there’s always been something else going on, so I’m excited to go back and give it another shot down there.
MR: What’s your goal for the race?
JL: It’s hard to really tell. I was very pleased about the half-marathon that I ran in Houston in January, so I am hoping to have a similar result. I’d like to place somewhere in the top 10. A lot of it will depend on the weather, on how hot and humid it will be. Well, pretty much anything will feel hot and humid compared to what I am used to. If it’s 80, that will probably slow the race down a little bit, but if it’s cooler, I think I can run somewhere in the mid-44:00s, so that would be a time goal for me.
MR: So, is this 15K your main tune-up race before Boston?
JL: It will be my last tune-up race. I was kicking around the idea of maybe doing one other race, but I think this will be my last race before Boston.
MR: Do you have any specific goals for Boston?
JL: Yeah, I do. Well, I ran the [Medtronic] Twin Cities Marathon in the fall. I hit the wall pretty bad the last four or five miles, and that was pretty frustrating because my training had gone really well before that. For Boston, my goal isn’t really a time or place goal; I just want to finish strong at Boston and I just want to have a better taste in my mouth about the marathon before the [Olympic] trials in November.
MR: So, is the marathon going to be your main focus for 2008?
JL: Absolutely, the marathon is for sure my number-one focus.
MR: So, do you consider yourself more of a marathoner than anything else?
JL: At this point in my career, I definitely consider myself a marathoner. I still love getting out on the track, but the marathon is my main event.
MR: I was going to ask you out of track, road running, and cross country, which do you consider being your strength. I am guessing that your answer would be road racing.
JL: Actually, that’s a hard question to answer. I love cross country, but I run maybe one cross country event each year; I end up running a lot more road races, so I consider myself more of a road-racer than anything else.
MR: Let’s talk about the half-marathon championships in Houston; what an exciting race that was; you PR-ed and placed really well, so tell me a bit more about that experience for you.
JL: Well, first of all, it was just a really exciting race to be a part of with how fast everybody ran and specifically with the amazing race that Ryan [Hall] had there. It was just one of those days where there was something in the air and everybody was running fast. It was exciting to be a part of that.
MR: The last time we interviewed you was back in 2005 and you had just recovered from an injury. Have you been pretty much injury-free lately?
JL: My biggest injury issue throughout the years has been lower leg problems, and in particular stress fractures. I had another little stress fracture in my tibia last winter. I had to pull out of the half-marathon championships last winter because of the injury. Since then though, I have been pretty injury-free; this is good, because I am prone to injuries.
Since college, I count on having some injury issue for a month every year, so going a year, knock on wood, without any problem, is good for me.
MR: Do you incorporate anything into your training for injury prevention?
JL: Absolutely. I have a list of exercises that I do at the gym to try to keep myself strong, and also stretching and massage. I think I do it right. I’m proactive about taking care of aches before they become injuries. I do all of the preventative stuff. But, I think that when you are training at this level, that injuries are just part of the game. You have to deal with them when you get them and you have to cross train.
MR: What sort of cross training do you do when you are injured?
JL: You know, it depends on the injury, but I do a lot of stuff in the pool, aqua-running. With my stress fractures, I have been only in the pool because they don’t want me to do any weight-bearing activities. If I am able to do weight-bearing stuff, I will work on an elliptical trainer or even a stair-climber.
MR: I know that a lot of runners who read the interviews like to see how athletes deal with injuries. Injuries discourage a lot of runners.
JL: Once again, it has certainly been my experience, that if you try to figure it out, you will just drive yourself crazy. I think that you just have to accept that you are probably going to get injured every once in a while. It’s part of the sport. The way that you deal with the injury is probably more important than trying to do everything to prevent injuries.
MR: Has the Minnesota weather impaired your training at all?
JL: Well, we had a bunch of snow this weekend, so we’re hoping that some of it will melt. There’s supposed to be another batch later on in the week though; I hope some of the stuff we got this weekend melts before we get that otherwise it’s going to be a mess.
It’s February in Minnesota though, so you have to expect it.
MR: It amazes me how large the running community is in the Twin Cities, for such a cold area!
JL: There are a lot of days when you think that you are probably the only idiot out running and you see a lot of other people. They deal with the winter very well.
MR: Let’s now talk a little bit about what you do outside of running. Let’s first talk about your graphic design work.
JL: Sure. Yes, I do freelance graphic design. It works so well because I do about 90 percent of my work out of my home so I can shape my work around my training. Aside from having to occasionally be at a meeting, I am pretty much setting my own schedule every day. I’m one of the lucky ones that can sort of continue to pursue my career while I am training. I know that a lot of my friends training at the elite level have to put their careers on hold, so I definitely consider myself one of the lucky ones.
MR: It seems like you really enjoy graphic design.
JL: Yeah, I really do. I also like that I get to pick and choose, if I am not strapped for work, which projects I take. There’s been a nice tie-in with the running community here in Minneapolis. More and more every year, I have been doing a lot of race brochures and I lay out a running magazine for the Minnesota Distance Running Association every couple of months. That’s really fun; I get to sort of blend my running into my graphic design.
MR: Do you still coach for a high school?
JL: Yes, I coach for Edina High School; it’s in one of the Western suburbs of Minneapolis. It’s a blast. I have done that for almost two years now. My teammate Matt Gabrielson is also an assistant coach there. We have a lot of fun.
MR: What’s your favorite aspect about your coaching position?
JL: I enjoy watching the kids improve throughout the year; I love watching them after races when they have run well, and they realize that all of the hard work has paid off. I enjoy that part of it the most.
MR: Let’s take a look into what you have planned post-Boston Marathon.
Have you thought about that at all yet?
JL: A lot of that will depend on how well I recover after Boston. My recovery rate from different marathons has varied widely. Sometimes I am pretty much ready to go a week after and other times (like after Twin Cities this year), I still wasn’t feeling like myself five or six weeks afterwards. I guess right now, my tentative plan is to get back on the track and to try to run the 10,000 meters at nationals. From there, I’d like to start slowly building for the marathon in November.
MR: Are there any summer races that you definitely see yourself running?
JL: I’ll for sure run the 20K in New Haven and the Twin Cities 10-Mile is the national championship this year, so I’ll definitely run that one. There will be a couple of more road races in there. I’ll have to kind of decide on those as we get closer. Actually, I’m also getting married to Kristen Nicolini [also a member of Team USA Minnesota] in August.
MR: I didn’t know that! That’s exciting! Congratulations!
JL: It will be interesting to mix in the wedding with some of the training and racing leading up to the trials, but I’ll be able to get most of the planning out of the way pretty soon.
MR: Are you both equally involved in the planning?
JL: It’s in its early stages, but yes.
MR: Where are you getting married?
JL: Here in Minnesota.
MR: Congratulations again; that’s such wonderful news.
Interview conducted February 27, 2007, and posted March 2, 2007.
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