Interview with Terrence Mahon

by Duncan Larkin

Terrence Mahon, Team Running USA’s head coach, has had quite a year. He coached Ryan Hall to an American record in the half-marathon (59:43) and then took him to London, where Hall took seventh in 2:08:24, the marathon-debut record for an American. Another of his standout athletes, Deena Kastor, the fastest female marathoner in American history and the 2004 Olympic marathon bronze medalist, has had an impressive string of victories, including the U.S. Cross Country Championships in February and her fifth consecutive 15K Championship in March. Mahon also coached Kastor to the first sub 2:20 marathon for an American woman at last year’s Flora London Marathon.

Mahon, 36, was a standout collegiate and post collegiate runner. He won the Big East Cross Country Championships and was the youngest man to run in the Olympic Marathon Trials (he is a three-time qualifier); his marathon personal best is 2:13. He lives in Mammoth Lakes, California, and is married to the world-class runner Jen Rhines, Deena Kastor’s 2004 Olympic teammate.

MensRacing.com: Deena Kastor recently announced on her blog that she has skin cancer. How is she doing? How are you going to adjust her training so that she can get the proper treatment and apply the right prevention? ?
Terrence Mahon: Deena’s actually had skin cancer in the past; she had a treatment for it in 2003, I think, prior to going out to the World Championships. So this is not a new thing for us, but I guess it is a new thing to the general public in terms of her skin cancer and the ongoing process. She had a couple of little surgeries to remove some skin cancers after the London Marathon, which was a recovery time anyway. We just had to make sure we kept her away from doing certain exercises that were bothering the stitches more than anything else. It didn’t bother her running at all—just some minor fatigue from the surgery. So we had to keep her under control in the weight room for the first ten days until she had her stitches out. And as far as an ongoing thing for her, it’s just a matter of doing what she wrote on her website: trying to stay out of the sun, wearing sun block all day, and things like that.

MR: Both Meb [Keflezighi, 2004 Olympic marathon silver medalist] and Deena had gastrointestinal issues during their recent major marathons. There was some speculation that these issues were caused by food poisoning from their pre-race meals. I know that you do very thorough planning and preparation before the races, so it was a bit of a surprise. Is this something that you guys are looking at trying to control or prevent now?
TM: With Deena and Meb, we were dealing with two entirely different issues. As far as Meb’s [problem] goes, I’m not exactly sure if it was a case of food poisoning or the beginnings of the flu. And it just hit him. He was traveling with his wife and child up to New York, so it could have easily been the flu that he picked up on the airplane or from the baby. It also could have been food poisoning; I’m not exactly sure. There wasn’t an exact, detailed diagnosis stating, “This is what it is.”

Deena’s case was entirely different: It was basically a female hormonal cycle issue that caused her stomach problems, not the flu or a food-poisoning issue. And she’s never had that problem before, so it was never an issue that we worried about. We are looking into ways of how to handle that in the future, in terms of if we’re coming up on a race that happens to fall [at a certain point] in her hormonal cycle and what we can do to best prepare for that.

MR: You are coaching at least two possible 2008 Olympic medal contenders and a handful of Olympians. Do you ever feel that you’re in over your head or that you’re coaching too much talent?
TM: No, I don’t think so. I think it’s natural at the position where I’m at to want to succeed and obviously raise the bar for the athletes that I’m dealing with. I’ve always wanted to coach at this level and I feel that it’s where I should be. I put in a lot of personal dedication to carry it at that high level. So I don’t feel like I’m under siege from that standpoint. If I go out and do the things that I need to do from the coaching side, then the athletes will be able to do what they need to do on the performance side. We are fairly careful with our athletes in terms of their respective events and where they are in their careers so that they can achieve their best. As long as our group dynamics stay where they are, we’re in a good scenario to put as many people as we can on the Olympic team.

MR: Regarding the 2008 Olympics, I think it can be argued that the oppressive heat of a Beijing summer and the air pollution there are going to present some of the worst running conditions in recent memory. (I know Athens wasn’t optimal). How are you going to prepare or how are you preparing your athletes for these environmental challenges?
TM: Since we’ve been through it before with Athens, we worked with the exercise physiologists at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, California as well as other exercise physiologists like Doctor [David] Martin and Randy Wilber, another exercise physiology guy out in Colorado Springs—these are the guys who have put this information together in terms of what we are going to be up against with the heat, humidity, pollution, course, track, temperatures, et cetera. We feel that we have all the data that we need on that side. From our standpoint, it’s a matter of combining the acclimatization process with just the general process of getting our athletes as fit as we can, leading up to the point when we head over there. Our number-one goal, working with the people that we’ve done research with, is getting our athletes as fit as we can in the best environment possible. For us that’s mostly being in Mammoth Lakes and Chula Vista, California, and then getting them over early enough prior to the Olympics to deal with the heat and pollution issues that take roughly two to three weeks to adapt to.

MR: So it sounds like you guys are getting the Athens playbook out for Beijing. I think I read in 2004 that you guys had Meb and Deena in Greece for a while beforehand.
TM: Right. We were in Greece for a total of a month. So we were there about three to four weeks prior to competition. And before that, they were in good areas where they could train without some of those issues. It’s our feeling that if you’re doing too much training in that type of environment, the stress of that while tying to put in very hard training can be detrimental by causing long-term fatigue.

So we will be, like you said, pulling out the playbook from 2004 and then just making the minor adjustments based on some of the differences between Athens and Beijing. It’s our understanding, similar to what it was in Athens, that the country will shut down a lot of those factories that create a lot of the pollution and do that in enough time to clear things out and do things as far as the clouds to help produce rain at certain times to clear out the weather. I definitely noticed that in Athens where we stayed, a couple days after the games, once they turned the factories on and got everything going again, there was a huge change in air quality from the time of the Games. We’re hoping to see a similar effect in Beijing.

MR: You’ve noted that a lot of people were surprised by Ryan Hall’s American Record in the half-marathon, but that you weren’t. You mentioned that he had put in many years of 100-mile weeks. You also said the same thing about Deena: Progress takes years in the sport. Still, are you going to do anything different with Ryan? And have you learned anything from coaching him that you’re going to apply to new, up-and-coming athletes?
TM: Ryan was a little bit of a different case than Deena. What I applied to Ryan was a lot of what Coach [Joe] Vigil started with Deena and I continued. With Ryan, we were able to shortcut a lot of things that we knew didn’t work with Deena and apply that knowledge to Ryan, because they are very similar types of runners. We have a very matter-of-fact approach, and some people may think it’s a little harsh at some points. If you’re dealing with athletes who have real high-level goals like the people on our team—not just trying to make the Olympics, but being an Olympic contender, being a finalist or a medalist, we really have to identify what the basic criteria are to get that job done in their respective events. When we can pigeonhole athletes into those events, based on the qualities that they bring to the table, it becomes very easy to show someone like Ryan, for example, where that puts him—in terms of chasing the marathon as opposed to chasing the 5K.

An athlete may be reluctant in the beginning, but when they start to see that quick success, they find a niche. It definitely becomes infectious within the team, bringing other athletes into that same realm. For example, with my wife, Jen Rhines, we learned a lot from her in a similar way but actually by reversing the process. We started with Jen in the marathon, but when we got more raw data and looked at her credentials, we started to push the distance back down for her. Last year, we saw much better success for her in the 5K than where she was in the marathon and the 10K. It’s definitely helping her, and it will definitely help other athletes in the future.

MR: Coach Vigil is a mentor of yours. I’m sure that you consult him often for advice. Is there anything that you differ with him on?
TM: Probably a little bit. I think what I’ve learned from being an athlete out there is that Coach Vigil has a very strong work-ethic program: It’s a lot of volume and a lot of work. All I found is that certain athletes can do phenomenally well with it—Ryan and Deena can handle tremendous workloads—and other athletes need the extra day of rest/recovery in there. All I’ve done with some of the programs is create a little more space within the cycles of training to allow different athletes to recover. I also consider the personality of the athletes when I design their training programs. I think that’s a tremendous issue that needs to be addressed: What’s the personality, or the style, that we’re dealing with? Those things can preclude them from doing some types of training and let them succeed with other types of training. If we’re looking at a Deena or a Ryan, who are natural endurance runners, the things that they like to do can be totally different than what our milers or 5K runners like to do. It’s not just a cut-and-paste–type program; it needs to be modified slightly for the individual. In terms of the differences between Coach Vigil and me, the only thing is that I do a little more splicing of workouts. Not everyone does the same workout all the time. They may do parts of one and then split off and do different parts that are specific to them. Coach Vigil comes from a college program, where he’s worked with 20, 30, 40 kids, and he has a college mentality, where if Tuesday is six times a mile, it’s six times mile for everyone. At the level where we’re at, we’re not doing six times a mile for everyone; some are doing seven or eight, and some are doing four, and some aren’t doing miles at all.

MR: So you need a lot more personal interaction. You have to be inside the athletes’ heads and know them well.
TM: Exactly. That’s obviously a learning process. One thing is getting inside the head, but also, to quote Coach Vigil, “You can’t coach an athlete you can’t see.” When I worked with him, there were times when I was away. And he was like, “Well, what are you doing; what’s going on?” You’ve got to be able to see what’s going on with the athlete other than just the times they’re doing in their workouts. I have the basic philosophy of what his training is about and kind of a science background behind it, and then I just have to determine what level my athlete is coming into for a given type of training modality.

Let’s say we have lactate-threshold work, and I have an athlete who’s not ready to run an interval that takes six minutes in a lactate-threshold zone, because if they try to sustain that, they’re out of the zone. Maybe that athlete can only do an interval for three minutes at this point. But a more highly developed athlete or a more mature athlete can do it a little longer, so I’m definitely finding that I’m doing similar styles of workouts but with different segments of volume [for different runners].

MR: At this year’s World Cross Country Championships, the U.S. did not send its best squad. A lot of the best athletes opted out for a variety of reasons. Do you feel that the U.S. should send its best athletes to these races, and do you feel that these athletes should feel obligated to compete for their country in them?
TM: That’s a tricky question, because we’re dealing with athletes who are coming into these U.S. Cross Country Championships with some different agendas. Take Deena, for example: She won the women’s U.S. Cross Country race. She had already committed to running the Boston Marathon, and we thought in terms of the big picture, of what she was trying to accomplish in her career, which is to get a gold medal in Beijing. For us, the Boston Marathon trumped running the World Cross Country Championships. She loves to represent her team whenever she can and she’s done it many times, but in this case, it just didn’t fit. If we thought it could have fit, in terms of the travel and the logistics, we definitely would have had a go at it. It was just one of those things that didn’t fit. I mean, one year she ran the World Cross Country Championships three weeks prior to the London Marathon, but it happened that the World Cross Country Championships was in Europe that year, so it was an easy combination.

I think these athletes come at it in terms of where they are in their careers and what they want to accomplish in terms of the big goal. The way our federation works, and the sport in our country works, is a democratic process that allows for individual choice. You look at a country like Kenya, or Ethiopia—if you opt out of one of their teams, you may not get selected for the World Championships come summertime. There are different pressures put on by these federations that create these various scenarios; whether they are good or bad, I think, has yet to be seen. Maybe there are some good parts to the Kenyan and Ethiopian system and there are bad parts, and the same can be said for the U.S.

MR: I learned from one of the local managers of the Kenyan athletes here in Philadelphia that you once trained with the Kenyans. Did you learn anything from it that you now apply as a coach?
TM: Definitely. I ran with two Kenyans predominately; one was John Kagwe. He won the New York City Marathon twice. He was a back-to-back champion [in 1997 and 1998]. He might have been the course record-holder or just slightly off that. [Kagwe’s fastest New York City Marathon was 2:08:12; the record then was 2:08:01]. Another was a marathoner named Peter Githuka who was a 2:07 to 2:08 guy and was one of the top finishers at the [LaSalle Bank] Chicago Marathon. I used to meet them in the summers to train.

One of the most interesting things I learned following the Kenyan model is that at times it can be very focused and serious and yet at the same time, very loose about fulfilling an expectation on a day and dealing with what the results are of that expectation. A simple way to put that would be as follows: If these guys did a workout that was supposed to be ten times 1K at 2:50, and they only ran 2:55, they didn’t feel like the world was ending. More often than not, either they didn’t even time the workouts or they went more by a sense of feel and didn’t get so overwhelmed with the watch. I learned how important applying the right effort is, learning as much about your body as you can and not having to rely on the external sources, like heart-rate monitors and GPS systems. Various physiological testing that we do is important, but at the same time, the athlete has to have a very good sense of where they are, what effort are they producing, and what the long-term effects of that effort are, to be really great runners. I think that’s why African runners are way ahead of us on the whole.

MR: You’ve mentioned that one of your mentors, Carter Schelling, likes to ask people, “When are you going to die?” to get them to think about their life goals and how they’re going to achieve them. Now, I’m not going to ask you that question, but along those lines, you are currently coaching some of the nation’s if not the world’s best athletes; you are a 2:13 marathoner; you were the youngest man to run in the U.S. Olympic Trials. What else do you want to accomplish in your lifetime?
TM: I definitely have a sense of urgency in everything that I’m doing, whether it’s being the best runner or something else. You know, I was joking with the kids [the Team Running USA athletes] recently: I still run with them and still try to pull them through workouts when I can. As I was starting to get in better shape, I was like, “Hey, you know what? What if I try to run a sub-four-minute mile as a 40-year-old, but actually doing it where that was the first time that I ever broke four minutes?” So I threw that out there. That’s my running goal. I think that’s one side of it.

You know, for the bigger picture, I have a strong desire to feed the system of what we’re doing with the American Distance Project with USA Track and Field, what we’re doing with Running USA in terms of how a group like ours is funded. And to really try to put out a great system for these athletes coming out of college that doesn’t leave them with any worries about what’s going to happen next. That takes a huge amount of financial resources to do it right. It takes not living on shoestring budgets for a lot of these programs. We’re really starting to look at running and what we’re trying to do with these athletes as a business, and really running the programs like a business. That’s one of my goals that I’m dealing with: How do we make this [professional running group] not necessarily profitable, but possible through getting outside resources and creating a business model for a lot of these programs to follow?

Interview conducted June 6, 2007, and posted June 18, 2007.