Interview: Clint Verran

By Alison Wade

MensRacing: So what's going on right now?
Clint Verran: I've got a big race coming up in about two-and-a-half weeks -- the U.S. Marathon Championships in Birmingham, Alabama February 8th.

MR: So what are your goals for that race?
CV: I've got two goals; one is that I want to run under 2:12, the Olympic 'A' standard, and then my second goal is that I want to win the race.

MR: Do you know what kind of competition you'll be up against?
CV: Kyle Baker -- he actually lives here in Michigan...

MR: (Interrupting) Wasn't he about four seconds ahead of you in Chicago?
CV: Yup, we were together until about 200 meters to go, and then he's a lot faster than I am; he just put me away at the very end. We were actually roommates about a year-and-a-half ago here at Hansons. He was one of the three original Hansons guys. Now he's got an assistant coaching position at Michigan State University. He'll be doing his second marathon and this will be, I think, my eighth marathon.

MR: Do you know who else is running in Birmingham?
CV: Ryan Shay is also going to be running -- he was right with us in Chicago.

MR: This is like a rematch of your pack from Chicago.
CV: Yeah, exactly. Peter de la Cerda, who was in that pack as well [is also running]. Then there's Chris Graff from the Farm Team and Scott Strand, who just won the Houston Half Marathon this past weekend.

MR: So why did you choose this marathon, is it because the Olympic Trials are going to be on the same course?
CV: That's one of the major reasons I chose it; I want to intimately know this course. Also, this is the selection race for the (2003 Paris) World Championships, they're taking the top three runners from this race.

MR: So the top three automatically go to Worlds?
CV: There are five runners on the team so the top three automatically go, then they're taking two more based on time.

MR: So, ideally, if you run well in Birmingham, you'll run the World Championships, and then your next marathon will be the Olympic Trials?
CV: The World Championships are on August 31st, I figured that was a good fit because it's sort of like a fall marathon, it's just very, very early in the fall. With Chicago this year, I think it was pushing it just a little bit to recover in time for Birmingham. It's less than four months.

It takes me a long time to recover, I think partly because I'm a little bit bigger. I'm about 6'0", 150 pounds and I think sometimes the lighter guys recover quicker because there's less pounding on their legs. I'm sort of like a lumbering guy.

MR: So how long do you think it usually takes you to recover after a marathon and when do you start building up again?
CV: I usually take two weeks of nothing, just being a couch potato. And it's usually about two months before I feel normal running again. I can still run and everything, but before I feel like myself, it's probably about eight weeks.

MR: So how are you feeling right now?
CV: I feel great, actually. I just ran a workout this morning -- it was 2 x 10k and I ran it faster than I did before Chicago, and the wind-chill factor this morning was -6 degrees here in Michigan, so it was really cold. My breath was turning into snow instantly, out of my mouth.

MR: Are you worried about going from really cold weather to racing in possibly warm weather?
CV: Not really. I'm going down a week early and I've been looking at the weather in Birmingham; the highs have been around 50 degrees or so, so I'm not afraid that it's going to be 60 or 70. And I'll be down there a week ahead of time to acclimatize.

MR: Are you mostly going to focus on marathons at this point, or will you run some other, shorter races?
CV: My primary focus in my training at this point is the marathon. However, I think it's important to keep your roots in the track. For example, running a marathon in February this year, I will have an opportunity to get back on the track in April, May and June. I really want to run fast in the 10k; I'd like to run something in the range of 28:30, or faster.

MR: So do you think you'll be running US Nationals on the track?
CV: I plan on it. A lot of it depends on how this race goes. If I make the US team, I'm definitely going to run the World Championships in August. Now if something happens and I don't make the team, and I don't get my qualifying standard, I may look at another race, like Grandma's Marathon, which is on the same exact weekend as the track and field championships.

So I'm expecting to make the team and I'm expecting to run the World Championships, but if for some reason I don't, I'll probably run Grandma's or something else like that.

MR: Was your race in Chicago last fall also a sub-2:12 attempt?
CV: My goal was sub 2:12 and that was the goal of basically every American guy in the pack. We hit halfway right at 1:06 flat. I sort of knew at halfway that it wasn't going to be a day for any of us to hit it. It was a little bit windier than we had hoped out there and also no one seemed to want to take the initiative to bring the pace back down. I thought I was really fit going into that race but I caught a cold from my wife about five days before the race. I had a bad cold while I was racing, so I didn't feel like I could physically take it out myself. I was just hoping to hang on to the pack that day. I was happy to run a personal best, but I was disappointed in that I knew that my preparation was better than a 2:14 effort there.

MR: What's your current work arrangement -- are you working in the Hansons Running Shop, as a physical therapist, or both?
CV: I work about 12-15 hours a week as a physical therapist and I still work in the stores, but only on rare occasions when it's desperately needed. For example, I had planned on running the Fall Cross Country Nationals (which the Hansons team won), but about a week after the Chicago Marathon, I came down with a bit of achilles tendonitis which sort of hampered my recovery for a few weeks. I just, honestly, was not fit enough to contribute as an athlete at the cross country championships. So I sort of did my part as a teammate and covered for the guys in the running shops while they were out there. They took like 10 employees out to California for four days -- we have four shops -- so if you take 10 employees away, it helps if you have someone who can step in.

MR: Are you still living in one of the Hansons-owned houses?
CV: No. About a year ago, I bought my own house here in Rochester Hills. I live about two miles away from the rest of the guys in the other two houses. I got married about six months ago, so I'm married, I have my own house, however I did live in the houses for about two-and-a-half years, starting in 1999. That was great, it allowed me to save a lot of money, and save up to buy my own house.

I'm a bit of a financial graduate of the program, I don't receive a lot of the benefits that the other guys do. I don't receive housing or health insurance and I don't utilize the employment opportunities, but I still receive my training equipment and the coaching and management services from Hansons. The coaching is probably the most important thing that I get from Hansons.

MR: Do you have any other forms of sponsorship?
CV: No. I run solely for Hansons. I think if I looked around, I might be able to find a company to give me some shoes or something like that. But at this time, I don't need that extra support and, also, I don't want to feel obligated to an outside sponsor right now.

Basically, the Hanson brothers are the reason that I'm running post-collegiately and I feel a great deal of loyalty to them. I honestly believe that they're the best coaches out there. If I could pay any coach in the world to coach me, I would pay Kevin Hanson. He's the best coach for me.

MR: How did you originally hook up with the Hanson brothers?
CV: I was lucky because I grew up in this area; I grew up in Lake Orion, which is the next town north of here. I grew up knowing Kevin and Keith Hanson and I ran for Eastern Michigan University, which is less than an hour away from here. So they knew of me, however, when I graduated from college, I wasn't at the level that they were looking for. They were just starting the program up, they had had Jim Jurcevich and Kyle Baker come in from Michigan State. They both had significantly faster times than me. They brought me in basically because they had a five-bedroom house and only two guys. Originally, my role was to be sort of a punching bag for the other two guys to beat up on during their everyday runs. Fortunately I sort of came around and started improving quite drastically, and now I'm one of the better guys on the team.

MR: What were your PRs when you joined Hansons?
CV: I'd run 14:14 for 5k and I'd run 2:28 for the marathon.

MR: Oh, so you were already a marathoner?
CV: Yeah, I had run two marathons, just for fun basically. Now my PR is 2:14, so I guess I've dropped 14 minutes off my time.

MR: What is the Hansons training philosophy and what do you think has brought your times down so much.
CV: The Hansons training philosophy is that there are no shortcuts in distance running. We are approaching development with a long-term perspective. So, for example, in the 10k, our goal is for our guys to drop 15 seconds per year. We feel that's a reasonable amount of improvement per year. It really adds up. If you take a 28:50 guy out of college and he drops 15 seconds per year, four years later when he's 26 or 27, he's running under 28 minutes. That's their philosophy. With the marathon, it's the same thing. We try to improve every time out. And actually, in the Olympic Trials in 2000, I ran 2:20. At New York in 2001, I did 2:17. In Boston this past year, I did 2:15, and then in Chicago I did 2:14. So I've run a PR in four marathons straight.

As far as the training goes, we're mileage-based and we also believe in racing only when it's appropriate for our development. So we don't race just for the sake of racing, we don't race just because we need the money. The idea is that the Hansons supply the money, the housing and the health insurance, so that we're not relying on a paycheck at a race. That allows us to race only when it suits us.

MR: It seems like we see Hansons runners racing in local races quite a bit, are those races used as workouts or something?
CV: We've got a large group now and it's expensive to travel, to take take a whole slew of guys, say, to California. What we've started doing is we require our guys to demonstrate their fitness prior to Hansons spending money on their trip. So for the US (Fall) Cross Country Championships in California, the guys were required to run a 10k (road race) on Thanksgiving morning and there was a qualifying standard. So we get a workout in, we get to prove our fitness here locally -- which doesn't cost us any money -- and then the guys that are in shape and ready to run are then taken out to California and all their expenses are paid.

MR: So how many runners does Hansons have right now, approximately?
CV: We've got ten guys living in the two houses, five in each, and we've got probably another four guys that do not live in the houses and have different situations. Like myself, where I'm married and have a part-time job separate from the store. We have a few other guys who work outside of the running shops and don't take advantage of the housing. I think that's going to be a bit more of a trend for us in the future. We're going to start to attract more guys who want to come and live in the area, but maybe they don't want to live in the house, but they want to take advantage of the power that is our group.

All the guys on the team would tell you that any improvement they [make] when they come here is because they're running every day with a large group of guys. It's quite amazing to see 10 or 12 guys running down the street in the morning when it's six degrees below zero. So our strength is in our numbers and we're trying to emulate the group mentality that the Kenyans and Ethiopians have had success with.

MR: Is there ever a disadvantage to having so many guys to train with every day, in terms of running yourself into the ground or trying to run near the front of the group, even when you're not feeling good?
CV: I think that can definitely be a disadvantage and the way you get around that is basically experience. It seems like we've always got one or two guys who are on the edge of being overtrained or on the edge of being fatigued for that very reason. They've wanted to be at the front every workout and they've wanted to win every training run. I've just learned through experience that I need to pick my battles. There are times when, out of 12 guys, I'll be the last guy in on a run. And you just have to not take it personally and just have confidence in what you're doing. That comes with experience, and I think our younger guys who lack experience are some of the guys that get caught up in that overtraining cycle. This entire experience is an experiment and we're learning every day how to perfect the system and how to prevent things like that from happening.

MR: As a physical therapist, you may have a little more expertise in this area; when you're running high mileage, how do you prevent yourself from getting injured and what do you do to help speed your recovery time between workouts?
CV: I think one of the most important things is your actual rest inbetween workouts. In 'rest' I include sleep. A lot of times when you come out of college, you're sort of used to staying out late at night and going out on the weekends. Unfortunately, when you do that, you don't have enough time to recover from the strenuous training that you're doing. So I think it's what you're actually doing when you're not running, how much sleep you're getting.

Also, I think nutrition is pretty important. You want to keep on top of your nutrition and make sure that you're eating the right things and getting enough iron and protein. Also, I think stretching after you run is pretty important. The number one thing is just listening to your own body and knowing when you need to ease off, and knowing the difference between just being sore from a run and having pain that's caused by an injury. A lot of that is just experience, and again, it's one of those things that the longer you're here, the more you learn about what it takes to recover between workouts.

MR: You mentioned nutrition; are you careful about what you eat? Do you eat things like cookies and cake, or are those things off-limits?
CV: I have my moments when I'm really good about my nutrition, and then I definitely have my downfalls. If there's an open box of cookies in the house, sometimes I can't resist eating a bunch of them. Frozen pizza is another thing which I have a real weakness for. But as I get closer to my big competitions and as my training intensity increases, I try to become better at it. I try to eat more meals throughout the day and make those meals a little bit smaller. I try to get some carbohydrates in right after I'm done running, I think that helps with recovery. I try to make sure that I have a little bit of protein with every meal. Like I said, I'm a little bit of a bigger guy, so sometimes it helps me if I don't pig out late at night; I try to avoid beer and cheese right before I go to sleep. But I'm not at a point where I'm measuring my food out or buying organic foods because I think that will help.

I think that a lot of times it's not so important what you're eating, but it's when and how much. When you're running this much, when you're running 20 miles a day like I am, your body uses food on an energy-first basis. So it's not quite as important if it's whole-grain or processed, your body needs it as energy first. And then after that, you want to make sure that you're getting enough of your nutrients in each day. So I'm not real strict about my diet.

MR: What is your fueling strategy during a marathon? What do you take in and when do you take it?
CV: I don't take in any solid food during a marathon. The calories I take in are usually from a Gatorade-like mixture. That's something I've always done. I know through physiology and physical therapy that my body can store about 20 miles worth of carbohydrates, so I know that I need to take in carbohydrates during the race. I've just found that it's easier for me to drink it. So a Gatorade solution seems to be the best thing for me. I've been pretty strong at the end of my marathons; I've never felt like I've run out of fuel at the end of the race. It's just something that I've found works for me and I've stuck with it.

I've never really tried taking GU or a gel or eating a Power Bar during the race. I've tried it in training and sometimes I think it's too much of a hassle to open that thing up and you've got to swallow that GU down, it's just something that I don't need to worry about.

MR: How often do you drink during a race and how early do you start?
CV: I start at 5k. I think early on is when it's the most important. I start at 5k and try to go approximately every 5k. And then once I get to 20 miles, I really don't concern myself with fuel anymore. I just think that if I'm taking something in at mile 20, it's not going to help me with anything, except maybe my cooldown. But water is another story. If it's warm, I think it's important to take in water more frequently than every 5k.

MR: You said the wind-chill was below zero in Michigan today, do you have a lot of snow on the ground?
CV: You know, actually we hardly have any snow right now. The weather in Michigan is variable and we had a day when it hit about 45 degrees, about two weeks ago, so that melted any snow we had. Right now, it's just so cold, I think it's too cold to snow. We get some flurries but it doesn't accumulate. I would say we have less than an inch of snow on the ground right now.

MR: Are the tracks in the area clear?
CV: The guys that are doing stuff on the track are going to the University of Windsor's track, which is about 40 minutes from here. They go there once a week. I've been doing most of my workouts on a paved path that's 10k long, it's a rolling hilly course that goes around a lake inside a metropark here. It's marked every quarter mile. My coaches will be driving around in their cars and giving me every half-mile split. That's where I've been doing my workouts; it's making me really tough, I think. Sometimes I'll do my second run on the treadmill down in my basement (laughs). Usually my second run is a shorter run, like six to eight miles, it's nice just to know that I don't have to go outside if I don't want to. I'll just come down here and do six easy miles on the treadmill a lot of the time.

MR: Speaking of not wanting to go outside, are there days when the last thing in the world you want to do is go out and run again? If so, how do you deal with that?
CV: There are definitely those days, I'd be lying if I said that I was eager to go on every run. Especially when it gets really cold, it can be tough. I think what keeps me going is the group. I know I've got 10 guys waiting for me to run. Sometimes it can be easy to let yourself down and not run, or run easy, or take a morning off. But if I know I've got 10 guys waiting for me, there's no way I'm going to let those 10 guys down. So the group sort of keeps me going. And also, my intermediate goals, my short-term goals like this marathon coming up, I'm making a lot of sacrifices in my career as a physical therapist and in my family life to do this running thing, so I need to feel like I'm giving it 100 percent, or else it wouldn't be worth it. So in order to give it 100 percent, I've got to get out there twice a day. Sometimes the treadmill helps me out in the afternoon.

MR: Does your wife run?
CV: She runs, but just for fitness. She runs recreationally. She'll run like three miles every other day, and she's addicted to the treadmill. When it's this cold, there's no way in heck she's going outside and I can't blame her.

MR: Does she understand running pretty well?
CV: I think so. She knew when she met me that running was a huge part of my life. We even had a race the day after our wedding with people from the wedding party and people from the community. She's into it, she really likes the little vacations, like going to New York, going to Boston and Chicago, and she's really good at cheering me on.

MR: Does she usually travel with you?
CV: She'll go to all my marathons, and if I'm going to some championship-type meet, she'll usually go. But a lot of the traveling we do is almost like a business trip, where you just fly in the night before, wake up, race, and then you're out. The travel's not much fun so usually she stays home for those races and that's fine with me.

MR: Does Hansons support any women right now?
CV: No, we don't have a women's program, but that's one of the things that we really want to start. We've been sort of looking for outside sponsorship for the program, and we've said that the first thing we'll do when we gain outside sponsorship is buy a third home and have that be the home for the women's program. Kevin Hanson has coached high school girls' cross country and track for over 20 years, so I think that shows he is dedicated and committed to women's running, but right now, money is the reason we haven't done it yet.

MR: Have women expressed interest? If a women wanted to train with the team, and not live in one of the houses, would that be possible?
CV: We definitely get a lot of e-mails from women who are interested, and we do have a club-level group here with some women who have qualified for the Olympic Trials or who are continuing to run after college, but they're not organized or funded in the way that our men's program is. We actually, probably in the next year or two, will have more structure to our women's program, and hopefully will be able to provide housing and employment and the same things that we provide our men. But it's just a matter of buying another house, and here in Rochester Hills, housing isn't cheap. That's what's holding us back right now.

If a woman wanted to move to the area and have someone to run with, she definitely would have that, and she could probably get some coaching advice from Kevin and Keith Hanson, but we're not going to be able to attract national-caliber women without the support that they need.

MR: Well thank you and good luck in the marathon! I completely forgot that that is coming up so soon.
CV: It's going to be unique, it's on a Saturday and there's only going to be probably 40 guys in the whole marathon...

MR: Is it not a mass marathon as well?
CV: It's held in conjunction with the Mercedes Marathon, which is the following day.

MR: So they're using the same format that they will when they host the Olympic Trials.
CV: The idea is that people will be in town to run the Mercedes Marathon and as an extra treat, they'll get to come out on Saturday and watch the US Championships. It's on a criterium-style course so we'll do several loops of the downtown area. There's one spot on the course where you can walk back and forth one block and probably see the runners nine times. If someone's really interested in marathons, that might be a fun thing for them to watch. And then the elite guys will be in town to watch the people's race the next day. I think they've got Scott Strand and I lined up to be in the helicopter as commentators for the people's marathon.

(Interview conducted January 21, 2003, Posted January 23, 2003)