Interview: Jonathon Riley

Reported by Parker Morse

Jonathon Riley has had national attention since he was a high school senior in Brookline, Massachusetts, when he won a mile/two mile double at indoor nationals. Since graduating, he has been part of NCAA champion teams at Stanford, winning the 2001 NCAA outdoor 5,000m title himself, as well as the 1997 USA Junior title at that distance. Riley represented the USA at the World University Games in 1999 and 2001, but his 3,000m win at the 2003 USA Indoor Track & Field Championships was his first senior title. The win qualified him for his first senior World Championships, the World Indoors in Birmingham. Riley spoke to reporters after his win in Boston.

On Dan Browne setting a fast early pace:
I think it helped. I've been doing a lot of track work, so I was pretty comfortable. If it was a slow race that picked up at the end I'd be all right there too. It made it a little tougher this way, but I think it really shrunk the field down, so there were just a few of us in the end.

Coming in to the meet, Bolota and I were the only ones with the Worlds standard, so Dan had to take the responsibility to get the pace going. I think it made for an exciting race, it was a lot of fun to run.

On winning in front of a "home" crowd:
I was thinking a lot about all the times I ran here in high school. I get a good feeling when I come here, and I was really looking forward to the crowd. When it was getting tough in the end, I felt that the crowd was going to help me out a lot.

My coach (Vin Lananna) had told me, maybe three or four laps to go, make a move. I've been doing a lot of strength training, so he knew I'd be strong on the second half of the race. He thought if I moved with three or four laps to go, and moved strong, it was going to be tough for anyone to beat me. You never feel good with three laps to go, so it's tough to commit and go. I really was banking on some crowd support to keep me going for the last few laps. I've been thinking about that for weeks, actually, about what it would be like coming in to this race.

On the last lap with Bolota Asmerom:
I knew he's such a strong runner, I didn't know if he was going to come back, and he did come back. When he wasn't able to cut in before the turn, I thought I had him there. I just ran as hard as I could for that last 100 meters.

On the rivalry with Asmerom, a Cal graduate:
We trained together for a time after we graduated, so we're good friends. We definitely have some friendly competition with each other. I've run that race in 1,500s, 3,000s, and 5,000s, all going back and forth with Bolota.

I knew Bolota had the fastest time coming in, and he was one of the toughest guys out there. After running against him for so many years, it's like we're climbing the ranks together. Just by pushing each other, I think we're both gaining from it.

On Bolota's time in Palo Alto:
He moved down and was training with the Farm Team. He did that for about a year. Now he's gone back to Berkeley and he's training with the Berkeley coach again. He does a lot of his own training, so I think he likes that freedom. It was great to have him on the team, and I think he will be coming down to Palo Alto off and on to get some workouts in. He has a good relationship with the athletes down there, and the coaches.

On where this race ranks in his career so far:
Definitely a lot more recognition goes with winning a National Championship. And being able to qualify for the World Championships, this is the first World team I've been on -- well, I made the World University Games, but this is the first senior championship team I've made, and it's exciting. I couldn't think of a better place to have indoor nationals than Reggie Lewis. And fortunately they're having the outdoor nationals at Stanford now, so it seems like things are really going in my favor.

On the differences between indoor track and cross country:
Good footing. Cross country [Winter Nationals in Houston] was really frustrating. I think I could do really well at the 4k distance, but I had a poor start and the conditions were so bad, it was really tough to try to get up to the lead. There wasn't much I could do about it. I came home and did some hard runs to get it out of my system. But all year I've been looking forward to this meet, and I'm more excited for this than for cross country.

On his training group at the Farm:
I've been training more with the longer distance guys. The Farm Team has a whole fall where they compete in the different cross country races, so I was really on my own for a lot of the time, doing a lot of mileage and a lot of longer workouts. Now that we're indoors and we're overlapping more, I've been working out with the 5k guys mostly. Jason Lunn, who won the mile last night, a lot of our training overlaps. We help each other out, he brings the speed aspect for me and we'll also do the longer pace runs, the mile repeats, together. In cross country, he was 29th at the NCAAs as a miler, so he really is a strong runner. He's been my main training partner.

On his mileage:
During the fall I was up to 110 miles a week. Now I've been running 70 or 80, since I've been racing the last few weeks.

On the indoor to outdoor transition:
It's been nice being finished with college, where I didn't have to take the fall season too seriously. Actually, this is my first opportunity to get a lot of volume in. Racing every week in cross country, you can't really get adequate training. This is the first time I've been able to run 100 miles a week consistently. I think that's helped me out a lot, because all I had to do was sharpen up a little bit and I was ready for indoor, I didn't have to worry about trying to continue a base all through the winter. After the World Championships, I'll do another base cycle in April, then just start racing again in May. One of the main reasons Coach wanted me to get such a big base in the fall, and to get a lot of strength, was to go all the way through.

On goals for the spring:
First of all, I want to run the "A" standard in the 5,000m, which is 13:21.50. If I don't get that time, it doesn't really matter how well I do at U.S. Nationals. I'll just focus on running fast. I've got high expectations as an athlete, and Coach Gagliano and Coach Lananna have really high expectations for me as well. I don't think I've been running as fast, in the last few years, as I'd really like to, so we're really going to put a lot of effort into making things fast this spring.

(Interview conducted March 2, 2003)