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The new name in American coaching is Brad Hudson. In the last
couple of years, the former 2:13 marathoner has assembled a group
in Boulder, Colorado, that would be the envy of any veteran coach,
including: two-time Olympian Shayne Culpepper; 2003 national steeplechase
champion Steve Slattery; 2001 national marathon champion Scott Larson;
top American at October's world half-marathon championships, Justin
Young; and, most recently, Olympian Dathan Ritzenhein.
Hudson
was a star in high school. Running for New Jersey's North Hunterdon
High School, as a junior in 1983, he set a course record of 12:15
for the storied cross country course at New York's Van Cortlandt
Park; the record stands as of this writing. As a senior at South
High School in Eugene, Oregon, the following year, Hudson set a
national high school indoor track record of 14:29 for 5,000 meters.
Hudson stayed in the state to attend the University of Oregon, where
he was an All-American at 10,000 meters. On the roads, Hudson ran
a 2:17 marathon as a 19-year-old in 1985. He ran his PR of 2:13:23
at the 1990 Cal International Marathon, and won the Columbus Marathon
in 1992 and 1993.
Outside
of his running performances, Hudson's biggest claim to fame before
coaching was portraying Spanish runner Javier Alvarez in the Steve
Prefontaine biopic "Without Limits." He works at Parsec
Time and Distance, an "endurance technology" store in
Boulder.
MensRacing.com: Let's start with how you went from being a marathoner
to a coach.
Brad Hudson:
I always wanted to coach, but coaching at the university level wasn't
something I was interested in. I wanted to work with elites. As
I got older as an athlete...well, I made a lot of mistakes. The
last few years, my training and racing really suffered. I wanted
to learn what I should have done differently instead of just putting
my head down and grinding away. So I just started spending a lot
of time learning about the different things that happen to the body,
that can happen with different types of training, especially at
altitude.
About
two and a half years ago, I started helping out my girlfriend at
the time, Sarah Toland. And I would advise Steve Slattery —
we've always been close, we share roots back in New Jersey. I wasn't
coaching Steve, but helping to advise him. They were starting to
get good results — Sarah made the World Cross team, Steve won
nationals in the steeple. About a year ago, [I started working with]
Shayne Culpepper. She'd done some workouts with Sarah and was looking
for ways to train smarter and better. She talked to a lot of coaches,
and I guess what I said made sense to her. Her results speak for
themselves. Now I've started hearing from a lot of people. I've
had to turn some people down. I want to keep the group pretty small
and cohesive.
MR:
Do you coach people other than ones living in Boulder?
BH:
I work with a couple of athletes not in this location. Like Keith
Dowling, he's a veteran athlete, doesn't live here in Boulder. But
here is better. You have to see if the athlete is absorbing the
training. All the runners I coach, it's not a dictatorship, there's
give and take on how the training's going. Some people, you can
do that from far away, but not as well as in person.
MR:
What are your sources of information for how to coach?
BH:
You name it, I've read it. I've tried to talk to as many coaches
as I can, the most respected coaches out there. And some of the
not so respected coaches. I'm a big fan of the Oregon system, having
come up through it. Bowerman and Dellinger, obviously, they're big.
The
thing is, at altitude, you have to be smarter. It's easier to overtrain,
to mess up your immune system. You can't just take one plan and
apply it to everyone.
I'd
say the Italian coaches, their system, is my biggest influence.
The Portuguese, I get some things from their system. Mark Wetmore,
we're close, I've learned a lot from Mark. Renato Canova. An Italian
coach named Gigliotti. Renato has helped me; we've traded e-mails.
I collect training from a lot of people, as many people as I can.
I've seen what a lot of the top athletes are doing. Some of them
— I can't say whose training I've seen — but I have a
lot of the top athletes' training.
MR:
Can you explain a little more what your system is after you've absorbed
all these influences?
BH:
I can say it's not Lydiard, not super periodized. We're doing what
you would call 'workouts' in every phase. I believe in a lot of
hills to build strength throughout the body. Mileage...mileage is
obviously important to provide the aerobic support for everything.
But it's not just mileage, mileage, mileage. We're always working
toward being able to accomplish more specific work.
MR:
Meaning what?
BH:
There are no phases where we're just doing 140 miles a week at 7:00
pace. We're always recruiting the nervous system. Every athlete
I work with is always working toward short-term goals, long-term
goals, and intermediate goals. What those goals are and how you
reach them are different for every person. It's important to individualize
each athlete's program.
MR:
When you're just starting to work with someone, how do you know
how to tweak their training to individualize it? Like with Ritzenhein,
how do you know what you want to change in his training?
BH:
With Dathan, I know Mark Wetmore very well, I know Mark's program.
The important thing is to see what has worked for an athlete, what
elements have brought them success. I've read through Dathan's logs.
When I started working with Shayne Culpepper, I read through the
last four years of her logs.
The
starting point is to get an idea where they're coming from. I try
to make a program tailored for the athlete and not just force something
on them. That's why I have a lot of respect for athletes like Shayne
and Alan Culpepper, who are always thinking about how to do things
better. They're not afraid to try tweaking things. Almost everyone
can find ways to train better.
MR:
You said you've been hearing from a lot of people who want you to
coach them. How do you decide who you're going to work with?
BH:
At the end of the day, I have a lot of loyalty to the athletes I'm
working with now. I don't want to add too many more. I don't want
a lot of personality conflicts. The group we have now is good that
way. If you get too big a group, there's more of a chance for personality
clashes. Really, it comes down to who I think is a good fit. I'll
always be loyal to the athletes I work with now, sort of the first
group.
MR:
How often do the people you coach run together?
BH:
Sometimes a lot. I just like having people work out together, when
it makes sense. For example, if Justin [Young] is doing a long workout,
I like to have some people take part of his workload. It's good
to have people there together, even if they're not doing the same
work. You know how it is — it helps you when other people are
on the track, even if you're doing different workouts.
But
I'm not a big fan of big groups running together all the time. I
think that's overrated. It's too easy to overdo it if you're doing
all your runs with a lot of other people. Anybody can take 100 people
and run them hard and come out with one or two success stories.
To me, if one of my athletes is having problems, that pains me.
I would rather work with a smaller group where everyone does well
versus getting one gold medal out of 30 people. Or like the Japanese
system, where you take 100 people and get three or four who survive
and run great. I respect that the Japanese have gold medals, but
I'm not willing to sacrifice any of my athletes' performances.
MR:
How often do you see the people you coach?
BH:
It varies a lot. Some people you can help a lot more being there,
some people can operate fine alone. Shayne Culpepper, she's been
doing this for 10 years, she doesn't need someone there on every
run. I see her twice a week [at the track] when she's in more serious
training. I don't believe in more than two track workouts a week.
I
pretty much am in daily contact with all of my athletes. It's important
to be in touch to see how they're responding to the work, especially
at altitude. You don't recover the same at altitude. So yeah, you
could say, 'Run slower between workouts because we're at altitude,'
but you can't leave it at that. Different people respond differently.
It's more important to stay on top of your recovery.
MR:
Or what happens?
BH:
Overtraining, sickness, injury. It's just so much easier to break
down at altitude. You have to always take it into account. Altitude
is a stress that needs to be individualized, like any other training
stress. Some people come to altitude and just try to train like
they're at sea level. You can't do that.
MR:
You hear about people from sea level going to altitude for a few
weeks while building up to a big race. What should they do to get
the most out of their time at altitude?
BH:
You want to already be highly fit when you get to altitude. A key
benefit of being at altitude is that you make more aerobic enzymes.
So you would want to emphasize that type of work, what some people
might call 'strength' work — aerobic runs to make more aerobic
enzymes. Boulder is a good place for that. It's just enough altitude
to hit that stress, but not enough to automatically break you down.
Like I said, at altitude, you have to be more on top of how you're
feeling. At sea level, you can feel good all the time. Like anything,
altitude has its positives and negatives.
MR:
Other than the recovery thing, what are other negatives?
BH:
You can't do glycolytic, ripping fast stuff with short recovery.
After long hard runs, your cortisol levels stay high longer. Everything
you do, your lactate levels take longer to recover. But you're also
making more aerobic enzymes, so that's good.
MR:
Where do you learn about these sorts of effects of altitude training?
BH:
I think I learned a lot from the destruction of myself! But I was
also running 140 miles a week when I was 17, so it wasn't just the
altitude. In the end, it comes down to there not being a lot of
people who know a lot about altitude. I try to talk to as many people
as I can, I try to get as much information about it as I can. But
you also have to take everything with a grain of salt.
I'm
not claiming to be doing anything new. Every good training program
I've seen has you working all the energy systems. It's not like
the Ethiopians are doing something no one else is, or that they're
leaving something out. It's that there's a lot of ways to get there.
My job as a coach is to help my athletes get there in the best way
for them.
MR:
Are there elite runners who don't need a coach?
BH:
I think Alan Culpepper is doing a pretty good job on his own! I
understand that, that some people can do it on their own. It takes
a very mature person, someone who can be honest with themselves
to a high degree. That's a rare person, and Alan is one of them.
He can make good decisions while setting his emotions aside. Mark
Nenow [ran] an American record, he did pretty good on his own. But
I think there's something about having a relationship with a person
who cares when you're doing hard work. It's a big positive.
MR:
I'm curious about Scott Larson. He's been around a long time, and
then started working with you and just ran a PR in the marathon.
What did you change in his training?
BH:
It's very individualized. It comes down to working the right energy
systems at the right time. A lot of marathoners get superfit from
very high mileage, and think they're ready to run a good marathon,
and then wonder why they don't. The marathon is more about metabolic
issues than VO2 max/engine fitness. The training should lower your
consumption of fuel at marathon pace. I've seen a lot of 28:00 [10K]
guys who do a marathon, they feel great running 5:00 pace for 90
minutes, and then fall apart. No mystery — they've run out
of fuel, and their bodies don't know how to burn fat.
With
Scotty, we changed the periods of his training. It's probably the
opposite of how most people build up to a marathon. We start with
the shorter stuff, and everything's an extension from there. Instead
of sharpening with a lot of VO2 max work close to the marathon,
we're doing more at marathon race pace. We do the VO2 max work,
but earlier. Then nothing faster than 10K pace the last six weeks.
I don't think you can increase your anaerobic threshold that much
in that short a time, the part just before the marathon where a
lot of people will start doing faster, VO2 max work.
I
looked back, this is what [Steve] Spence used to do — get your
running economy and VO2 up first, to build the engine, then bring
in the marathon-specific elements so that you're trained to handle
the metabolic demands of the marathon. Then not a huge taper. This
is an area where the Italians are incredible. [Gelindo] Bordin and
[Stefano] Baldini — it's not luck to get two gold medals in
those conditions.
MR:
You sound like you like studying. What was your educational background?
BH:
I have to admit it, I was a little bit short of credits for my degree.
I didn't study exercise physiology, if that's what you're asking
about. I like to study all the science, I think it's important to
understand what's happening, but I'm more concerned with the practical
side of things. Most of the exercise physiology studies are short-term,
a lot on untrained people. I don't know how much application that
has to the athletes I work with. The exercise science, it has some
importance, but you can't be too tied to it.
MR:
Were the 2000 Olympic Marathon Trials your last real [event] as
a competitor?
BH:
I went on a little bit longer after that, but yeah, I was kind of
transitioning after that. I was so beat up and destroyed. But I
knew I wanted to stay in the sport.
MR:
How much do you run now?
BH:
I run anywhere from five to 15 miles a day. It's usually an hour,
maybe 45 minutes. I'm now running to run for the rest of my life.
MR:
Do you ever run with the people you coach?
BH:
Very rarely. I'm so slow.
MR:
What's the deal with your new store?
BH:
We're opening a new store in the Pearl Street Mall. We're Parsec
Time and Distance. We sell endurance technology — not just
heart rate monitors, but also altitude tents, lactate tests. There
will be a coffee shop. We'll definitely carry good Italian coffee.
We sell stuff that I think you can use to be a better athlete. You
can use technology to help, but you can't get too tied to it. I
believe strongly in heart rate monitors and lactate testing.
MR:
Did you do lactate testing with Scott Larson in the cycle before
he PRed?
BH:
No. You have to do the testing at the same conditions that you'll
race at. If an altitude athlete had the money, you could do some
training at sea level, and do the testing there.
MR:
Do you have all of your runners use a heart rate monitor?
BH:
I try to instill in everyone that this is something useful, but
I can't force anyone to put it on. Some people just don't like to
use them. They don't like the feeling of running around with something
strapped to their chest. You can learn a lot about your body from
one if you use it regularly.
MR:
Like what?
BH:
Like if you're doing a workout and you can't get your heart rate
up, your muscles are telling your cardiovascular system what to
do. They're tired, maybe glycogen depleted, you might be on the
verge of overtraining.
MR:
At the risk of being obnoxious, are you making a living as a coach,
or from the store?
BH:
I don't do this for the money. If they don't pay me, I don't care.
I'm trying to find a way to make my living from this — I'm
trying to get sponsorship for the group. But this is my passion.
The passion is why I spend sometimes 20 hours a day on this.
MR:
I'm sorry — did you say 20 hours a day?
BH:
I don't sleep a whole lot. It's not like I'm spending all my time
reading up on aerobic enzymes. I'm doing e-mails, or maybe out marking
courses.
MR:
What can you say about Ritzenhein's condition?
BH:
I can say that he's slowly building back, and his next races are
this winter.
MR:
Where?
BH:
Cross country races.
MR:
So he's running every day?
BH:
Yes, he's healthy and running daily. He wants to get out there right
now and take everyone on. One of the things I hope to accomplish
with Dathan is I want him to take a long-term approach.
It's
funny, I tell him — actually I tell every athlete I coach,
'If you want to go find the greatest coach in the world, that's
fine. I'll still be here.' It's not about me, but about how I can
help them. As a coach, I have to remind myself why I'm doing this.
It's about the best performances possible from the athlete —
that's all that matters.
(Interview
conducted October 18, 2004, and posted November 12, 2004.)
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