Interview with Pete Julian

by Pat Goodwin

Pete Julian is the race director and driving force behind the 2007 USA Cross Country Championships that will be held in Boulder at the Flatirons Golf Course on February 10. The event has been a two-year commitment for the 35-year-old elite athlete who has himself made the U.S. World Cross Country team three times.

But the 10-year resident of Boulder and native of Oregon is undaunted. As head of the effort, he brings the same type of determination to the table that made him a four-time All-American at the University of Portland and a bronze medalist at the Pan American Games. He also has a best of 28:05 for 10,000 meters to his credit. Above all, he’s passionate about the sport.

The last six months, he’s been putting in 40-hour weeks attending to details surrounding the championships while at the same time he’s continued his head track and cross country coaching responsibilities at Metropolitan State in Denver. In addition, he and his wife, Colleen, went to Nepal in December to adopt their first child, a 2-year-old named Wade. And then there’s the running, which he takes care of early in the morning as he prepares to run the USA 8K Championship in March and the inaugural Eugene Marathon in April.

MensRacing.com: I suppose everyone keeps asking you the same question which is, how does the course look for the race?
Pete Julian: I have been getting e-mails from people concerned about the weather and saying they won’t come if there is going to be snow. If you are afraid that you might slip a little, or if it’s going to be cold or it might be snowing during the race, then perhaps this race isn’t right for you. But you know what, the course looks great. There won’t be chunks of ice out there because the course has been cleared for the past eight weeks. We started cleaning it from the get-go of the snow season. We can see the grass out there. The City of Boulder is absolutely committed to keeping this course clear. We will clear it between every race on February 10 if we have to.

MR: How about for the spectators?
PJ: This is going to be the best spectator’s course that the U.S. Cross Country Championships has ever seen. You might be walking on frozen snow pack but you’ll be able to see the athletes several times. It has been a cold hard winter here – we are approaching all time records with snow on the ground – but it is not going to be a problem to see this race. We have been working on the location constantly. I want people to understand – if the Green Bay Packers are playing the Chicago Bears and it’s snowing, is the stadium only half full? No, it’s always packed. This is our sport and people need to come out and watch despite the conditions. If you want to see the best footrace ever, then come out.

MR: Do you expect a good crowd?
PJ: I have absolutely no idea how many spectators will come out. I’m sure we will have a sizeable amount. We are ready for just about anything. A goal of ours has been 5,000 spectators. If the weather is cooperative – that is as long as you can get here – I think that’s what we’ll have. And 5,000 would be up there, as big as any cross country spectator base has been. It could be significantly more. Our goal is 5,000 people and that is what we are prepared for. If we got 20,000 and it turns into mayhem, that’s great. It does seem though that everyone is coming. The athletes and running fans from all around the country are coming in. This is going to be something special.

MR: It was snowing during the “Best Cross Country Race on the Planet” last week. What did the participants think about the conditions?
PJ: That race wasn’t held at the same location as where the championships will be held. It’s true the conditions weren’t good and it was snowing. But we had some of Mark Wetmore’s Colorado University athletes there and a bunch of the Hanson’s runners were competing as well. We asked them if they were concerned about the conditions and they couldn’t even really understand the question. It’s cross country.

MR: This event has been a project of yours for two years. How did it come about?
PJ: Three or four years ago, we were at rock bottom with the cross country championships. There wasn’t much prize money, hardly any spectators and very little promotion. I thought it could be a lot better than that. We put a bid together for USA Track & Field two years ago. But even before we did that, I had enough money for prize money and to promote it. The most important thing for me from the get-go has been the prize money. What’s been given out in the past has been embarrassing. We knew we needed to concentrate on the local market and the media market. We didn’t go to corporations outside of Boulder for our sponsors other than Reebok and Gleukos. Between in-kind and in-cash, our total sponsorship base approaches a quarter of a million dollars. We went to the presidents and CEOS who live and play in Boulder. We raised our money here.

MR: How is the prize purse of $40,000 structured?
PJ: The prize money is weighted for those who make the team and plan to go to Kenya for the World Championships on March 24. We have an obligation to send our best team. The Africans have been coming to us year-in and year-out. Now they are putting on the race and I hear people saying ‘I’m not going.’ I don’t understand that. It is the motherland of distance running. I would do it in a heartbeat if I made the team. But every athlete has their own special circumstances – I understand that. I made the team for Portugal and I didn’t go. So it would be hypocritical if I said if you make the team you have to go. At the end of the day, it is whatever is best for you. That being said, I would only hope that the men and women who do make the team will give it some thought. Just think about the fact that it is in Kenya and I am blessed to put on a U.S. singlet.

MR: What about the promotional aspect?
PJ: We knew we needed to increase the promotional aspect. You can’t just put out cones and some flags and not tell anybody. For our sport, it is not that you build it and they will come. You have to let people know. Every day I open up my e-mail and I have a handful of media requests. We’re doing print, TV and radio and using the Internet. LetsRun, Runner’s World, EliteRunning, Mensracing, and Fast-women – these are all pages that people hit on daily. We have gone out of our way to make sure to get to these groups. There’s a nice symbiotic relationship between them all. You don’t have that fierce competition like you have in the newspaper or magazine business. Everybody understands that we are trying to get to the same place, which is to promote our sport.

MR: How did the partnership with LetsRun come about?
PJ: Things have changed in the last two-three years. The Internet is really the new template by which we communicate. Whether people who run admit it or not, just about everybody reads LetsRun. It is a major way that our core base communicates. I knew that we needed to somehow incorporate them in our promotion for the cross country championships. I have raced Weldon [Johnson] on the circuit – we have always had a lot of respect for each other as athletes. I am not quite sure how it came about but it is one of the most important partnerships that we have. Not everybody gets the newspaper anymore. That’s just the reality of things. A lot of our core base get their news on the Internet. It’s sometimes hard to keep up with it, but if you are trying to put on an event, you have to keep up with it.

MR: I imagine this event has really taken a lot of your time.
PJ: Yes, I’ve spent a lot of time on this the last two years and even more these past six months on top of my other responsibilities. I’m working from 9 in the morning to 10 p.m. or midnight every day. That’s okay because on February 11, it will all go away. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. But everyone is busy, whether you’re a schoolteacher, a stay-at-home mom, or a guy on Wall Street – the day is packed for everyone so it’s no different for me. Of course it is hard work but I am really enjoying this. We are talking about running here. It is not really that serious.

MR: So would you do something like this again?
PJ: This has been a very difficult job because it is so comprehensive. It keeps you up at night. You scribble stuff down on notes when you wake up. What a lot of people don’t understand is that I really love coaching. I look forward to my job at Metro State. I think you can keep running and coaching but I don’t think you can manage races and coach – it is just too much. I don’t enjoy the process of putting on a major cross country race but I will enjoy the product. I am going to see this race be the best cross country race ever. That is going to be awesome and that makes it all worth it. Would I do this as a profession? Absolutely not. I don’t care if someone offered me $10 million, I wouldn’t do it.

MR: With everything you’re doing, are you still finding time to train and compete?
PJ: My running is on maintenance right now. But I’m planning to race the USA Men’s 8K Championships in New York City in March and then the Eugene Marathon in April. The 8K Championships is my favorite road race. I have run it at least twice. The New York Road Runners are the model that we all aspire to be as race directors. The USA Cross Country Championships in New York City last year was an example of that. With Mary Wittenberg, David Monti, Sam Grotewold and everyone, they do it the way it is supposed to be done. The sponsors, the agents, the volunteers – they are all made to understand that it is not about them, it is about the athletes. I’ve applied that thinking to the Cross Country Championships here in Boulder so that every decision I have made is centered on ‘is it right for the athletes?’

MR: Why did you choose the Eugene Marathon?
PJ: I was born in Eugene and grew up in southern Oregon. I was a Duck fan and went to Portland. Eugene has always been a special place for me. I certainly want to support the committee that is out there putting together this race. The race is on April 29 so I still have a little time to get prepared. As soon as U.S. Cross is over, I’m going to have a beer or two and actually get some sleep for a few days. Then, I don’t have a problem with getting up early and being done with my running by 7:30 and getting to work by 9:00. I have never had a really good marathon but I love the event. The same goes with the mile. I have run 4:01 [for the mile] and 3:42 [for 1500 meters] like a million times. My favorite events are the mile and the marathon.

MR: So your goal is to get to the Olympic Marathon Trials in New York?
PJ: My goal is to finish a marathon and be pleased – to say I had a good day and know I can go faster. I would like to go under 2:20 at Eugene. I ran 2:15 in Chicago five years ago, which was my best. Every time I have run I was thinking 2:10 but I should have thought I should first be running 2:14. For the majority of us, the marathon is a process that you just have to fine tune and you have to learn from each one. If you run enough of them, you understand it. I wish I would have known that 10 years ago.

MR: Any final comments about the Cross Country Championships?
PJ: We are really excited to have this event. We feel fortunate that USATF gave us a shot to show what we can do out here in Boulder. As far as who makes the team, I think it’s going to be those runners who don’t care what the clock says, they just want to win or place. The conditions could be pretty brutal so it’s not going to be easy. But the men and women who come here and finish in the top six (for women) or the top nine (for men), will know how to compete at the world level. They will know how to race.

Interview conducted January 30, 2007, and posted February 6, 2007.