Interview: Matt Lane

by Gladys Ganiel

In July, Matt Lane made his second appearance at the U.S. Olympic Trials at 5,000 meters. The 26-year-old was hoping to improve on his fourth-place finish at the 2000 Trials. Instead, Lane finished in that heart-wrenching fourth position once again.

The frustrating experience was complicated all the more by the complex procedure whereby athletes were selected for the Olympic team. The top three finishers at the Trials would normally have been selected for the team. But a country may send more than one athlete to the games only if they all have the Olympic "A" standard. If there is not more than one athlete with the "A" standard (13:21.50), a country may send just one competitor, provided the athlete has the "B" standard (13:25.40).

Because Lane did not run the "B" standard prior to or at the Trials, his name was not placed on USA Track & Field's four-man list of athletes who would have the opportunity to chase the "A" standard between the Trials and the Aug. 9 deadline. Those four athletes were Trials winner Tim Broe, second-place finisher Jonathon Riley, and seventh- and 12th-place finishers Jorge Torres and Louis Luchini. Broe was selected because he won, Riley because he had run the "A" standard prior to the Trials, and Torres and Luchini were selected because they had run the "B" standard prior to the Trials.

However, Lane was counseled that if he ran the "A" standard before August 9, he might still have a chance to be named to the Olympic team. That led him to the Norwich Union British Grand Prix at the Crystal Palace in London on July 30. Lane finished a disappointing 14th (13:39.72) and returned to the US to compete on the roads.

After a bout of heat exhaustion at the Falmouth Road Race on August 23 and a sluggish run at the Providence Downtown 5K on September 7, Lane took a much-needed break. The native of Yarmouth, Maine, returned to Palo Alto, California, where he runs full time for Nike and trains with the Nike Farm Team. He has gradually been building his mileage back up as he prepares for the USA Cross Country Championships in Vancouver, Washington, February 12-13.

When we caught up with Lane, he reflected on those testing experiences. But he was also excited about his upcoming marriage to Erin Sullivan, who ran for Stanford from 1999-2003 and has just started training with the Farm Team. And, he assured us, he still has plenty of fast racing left in his legs.

MensRacing.com: What was the experience of finishing fourth at the Olympic Trials again like for you?
Matt Lane: I'm just really disappointed. I think that I saw you after the race itself, and I don't really feel much different about it than I did then. It's frustrating. I think there was too much confusion [about the selection procedure] going into it. But aside from that, my own personal performance, either way I look at it, even if it had been the same kind of procedure that we'd always had, or if it was this new thing with [people who had] the 'B' standard jumping over people without a standard — fourth place doesn't get the job done either way. It was just really, really disappointing for me. And I just didn't come through with the results I was looking for.

It was hard because I had always said I never wanted to be fourth twice. It was a big thing in 2000 when I was fourth because before I'd been ninth at the US championships [the previous year]. So that was a big step up in the year when everyone comes out of the woodwork; I jumped up five places in the final standings. That's pretty good. But to continue and have the same result four years later when I thought I was running better and everything, outside of the 5,000, [indicated] that I should be able to do it... I just couldn't get the job done at 5,000 meters. Whether it was pressure or whether it was this or that or the other thing that I needed to do training and just didn't do it, I don't know. But every indication outside of that specific race was that I was ready to go. I had PRs in everything from 1,500 to 10,000, but not the 5,000. That was just really hard to deal with.

MR: Could you describe how the race itself unfolded for you?
ML: Well, the thing about the final was that I think we, meaning the Farm Team with Coach [Frank Gagliano], tried to maybe over-script the race. We tried to push the pace along. We felt that was the only way that I was going to make the team. What I needed to do to make the team was to run a "B" standard. And I thought I was totally capable of doing that.

It started out well with Sean Graham, my teammate here on the Farm Team and also he was my teammate at William & Mary [setting the pace]. I felt really comfortable running with him. He led off at the beginning and we were supposed to trade off leads with a couple other guys. That was supposed to get us to a split at 3,000 meters or two miles [that would put us on pace for] the "B" standard at least. It just didn't happen. We slowed down in the middle and I felt sort of forced to go to the front again. [This] happens to me, I always take [the lead], it's like bait. I don't really want to most of the time, but I just make a quick decision and go for it. But with two miles left to go in a 5,000-meter race, it's pretty tough to commit to start running [63-second 400s]. I didn't quite have that confidence at that distance to be able to pull something like that off.

And then the rest is as it goes. Those guys wait, wait, wait — and then finally Bolota [Asmerom] helped out a little at the end and got things going, but then with [700 meters to go], [Tim] Broe made his big move. You knew it was coming. And when it came, I just felt like I was running through sand. I just really didn't have what was left in the tank to do it. The result makes it seem closer, because I only finished a second behind Bolota, but Bolota was looking over his shoulder because he couldn't beat those other guys and stopped running as hard as he could... It was the same thing, I was not that far behind Nick Rogers in 2000, but those guys — I got flat out beat by them.

I didn't do what needed to be done in the race, and in hindsight, I think probably just letting the race do what it was going to do probably [would have been] the best way for me to finish higher than I did. But at the same time, had we just let the race do what it was going to do, it probably wouldn't have gone fast enough to beat the "B" standard. It may have, but I don't think we had the personnel to do it. The type of guys who were in that race who were going to go to the front and lead were not guys who were capable of pushing it to a 13:20 type of race. [However,] if I had just gone out and run my own race and didn't worry about the splits and just competed to win, I still wouldn't have gone to the Olympics. And that's the goal of the Olympic Trials — to make the Olympic team. And the only way to do that was to try to run the "B" standard.

MR: What made you decide then to go and run the 5,000 at the Crystal Palace?
ML: I was told by some people that if I ran the "A" standard, I might still have a chance of going to the Olympics. If I went over to Crystal Palace and ran the ["A" standard in the] 5,000 before [the August 9] deadline, [they said] that they might be able to do some things. I was told, 'Yeah, go over and try and we'll work it out later,' which turned out to be completely untrue from what I understand now, so I'm pretty irritated that I even went over there, to be honest. I love the Crystal Palace race, though. I love being over there. And I think that Ian Stewart does a great job with that race and I appreciate all the times I've been able to run over there and I would love to in the future — but as far as that one moment, going over there to run another 5,000 [was not a good idea]. I was defeated in the 5,000, and it showed, too. I was just mentally exhausted and physically exhausted in that race. I wish I had just come and done something else just to start the process of getting past the disappointments of the 5,000. Because it just reinforced it over and over. You're in the same race where Tim Broe gets the 'A' standard and you just get worked again by a bunch of people. I just felt that I couldn't run that race. It was really a bizarre feeling, and I think more mental than anything at this point.

MR: And why do you think you were told that you might still have the possibility of going to the Olympics?
ML: I don't know... The day after the race, when we all went to team processing, I was really annoyed with that. Because there was no way I was going. The reality of the situation was that there was no way that I was going. There was no way that Bolota was going. There was no way that Mark Menefee was going. And all three of us were at team processing. Team processing, when you're not going, is a real kick in the pants. Trust me, I've been there twice and had to do it. You sign all their forms and you listen to their spiel about talking to the media when you're at the Olympic Games. It's like, why don't you save that till the end so the people who are going home dejected don't have to suffer through this 20-minute video about how great it's going to be in Athens, but watch your mouth in front of the camera. That kind of thing is just unnecessary, I thought. And that's just my two cents on that. I'll get off my soapbox now!

MR: When you came back from London you ran some road races on the East Coast. Could you describe how those went for you?
ML: Falmouth was totally what the doctor ordered as far as running was concerned. [Lane finished 11th in 32:38.] Falmouth was just what I needed. It's just such a different atmosphere running road races. I mean, we were all warming up together — me, Chris Graff, John Mortimer, — I can't remember all who were in there, Adam Tenforde, Ryan Shay, everyone was just warming up together, everyone's got a smile on their face, nobody's really stressed out about it. It's just such a different atmosphere. And then the race itself went really well.

I started out and the Kenyans were running along the yellow line in the road, kind of moving with the turns of the road. Khalid Khannouchi was in the race and I took one look at him after about a quarter mile or 800 meters. Khannouchi was cutting the tangents on almost every turn. Anytime you see someone of his caliber not tucked in and trying to cut the tangents, it just dawned on me that he wasn't feeling his best. And he was still recovering from the injuries that he had, I can't remember what was going on, but he was working his way back to his usual dominance. So he wasn't [in] top shape at that point... So I just stuck on him and decided that I was going to run with him till I couldn't run with him anymore. It went really well. I felt good for about three-and-a-half miles. He kind of dropped me on that section where it's really flat and hot and you get baked by the sun, and then I managed to hold on. But the end of that race was the part that was really fun, because I just thought the finish was earlier than it really was. I came over one of the last little hills and didn't see the giant flag that Chris [Graff] had told me would be there. So I was thinking, where's this giant flag? And then I realized that the finish was not where I thought it was. At that point I started to come apart and I pretty much wobbled my way to the finish line. I managed to stay on my feet, but I was really having a hard time. I really didn't know what was going on. I never lost consciousness, but as soon as I crossed the finish line, the [medical team] grabbed me and took my temperature. My temperature was 107, so I fried some brain cells on the way in.

[However,] I ran fast and felt like I could still run and have a good time doing it. Unfortunately the heat stroke/heat exhaustion thing that I went through pretty much set me back the rest of the way. Those things can take a long time to recover from. I never really felt normal again all the way through to the [CVS/pharmacy Downtown 5K] road race in mid September. [Lane finished 22nd in 14:35.] I just didn't really feel right going into it and on that day, I felt awful. I went out in the same mile split that I went out in at Falmouth. And I knew it was over. I was planning to going to the Great Cow Harbor 10K the next weekend on Long Island and at about the two-mile mark of the Providence race, while the race was still going on, I was saying to myself, 'I'm definitely not going there. I'm going home!' It was over. You know when it's over. I wasn't going to get any better in the next week and the 10K was only going to magnify this. And so I just decided I'd go home, take a little rest, take a couple of weeks off, get the batteries recharged — that kind of thing. I had a couple of blood tests that showed that everything was fine, so nothing was wrong from the Falmouth race and now I feel much better.

MR: So what stage are you at right now in your training?
ML: I've been climbing back up the mileage ladder for a while. Things have been going pretty well. I have my mileage back up to close to what my top mileage was last year already, which is a bit of a quicker climb than I would usually do. But the way I feel about it now is that I don't really want to be as cautious as I was maybe when I was in college or when I first came out here. Just because there's no reason to tip toe around hard training anymore because you never know — I'd rather take my chances on training harder or running more miles and chancing the injury for the bigger payoff. The more miles and the better training you do the better you're going to run. I think that's fairly self-explanatory. So I'm not as concerned. You just want to make sure it's a slow, gradual increase. You want to make sure you're not overdoing it in certain areas and that kind of thing. That's pretty much where I am. I'm trying to do things a little more accelerated but also be smart about it. I'm not accelerating my long runs as quickly and I'm also not accelerating the workouts. I think this time of year is a dangerous time for a lot of people. They go out and they get excited about the new year and they go out and try to do too much in their workouts. They try to press the issue a little too much and try running some paces that just are too fast at this point. You don't need to be running, in my opinion, intervals at 4:25 this time of year. There's room for that — that stuff will come. But I think sometimes people jump over the moderate stuff in the middle as far as the building blocks. That other route has worked for a lot of people, but I feel this way because that's just what worked for me all through college. Coach [Andy] Gerard's plan at William & Mary was just building on a few different types of workouts as the mileage was coming up.

MR: So what sort of mileage are you at numbers wise?
ML: Right now it's between 80 and 90, at least this week. So the idea is to continue to go up from there. I think usually my mileage is in the 90 to 100 range. That is what it was last year at its highest. So I'd like to push that up even more as I start to think about some of the longer road races in the future.

MR: What are the next races that you'll be targeting?
ML: I'm definitely going to run the US cross country meet in February. I may run club nationals that first week in December, but I think the people on the Farm Team who have separate contracts with Nike will not be able to compete for the Farm Team at the club nationals again. I think that's up in the air. If we had been able to compete as Farm Team members then I would have definitely run club nationals, but with that up in the air , I'm not so positive about that. But I'm definitely sure about [February's USA Cross Country Championships]. [Beyond that,] I haven't really thought too much about it.

MR: Will you be staying in California to train with the Farm Team?
ML: For right now. The question is — well, Erin Sullivan and I — we're getting married on April 23rd. So that's the big event for the spring. And she is looking at some graduate schools, some of them being on the East Coast. So we probably will move and it's likely that we'll end up some place like New York or Boston. It's possible, but not 100% certain at the moment.

MR: So that wouldn't be until April, then?
ML: Yeah. We're getting married in April but we're definitely here in California through then. But as far as being absolutely sure — everything's up in the air after that. As far as running and training, no matter where I am, this will be what I'm doing for the time being. We'll see what happens but we're not sure what's going on.

MR: As far as your contract with Nike, are you still running full-time?
ML: Yeah. I'm still running full-time. For the last month or so, I've been volunteering [for] some of the local political campaigns. But outside of that, there's nothing else really going on besides running. For me, there's still a lot more running that I feel like I have left to do. I feel like I haven't explored the possibilities. I think I've focused so much on one race for the last two or three years that I've just abandoned some of the other races. I've seen really good potential for myself in races like the 10K and the road races. So those are still areas that I'm excited about.

MR: What would your long-term goals be as far as what you'd like to achieve in the next few years?
ML: Well, other then successfully pulling off this wedding in April, other than that, I think I'd like to focus more on some of the longer races. For instance, starting out track with the 10,000 being a little bit more of a focus than the 5,000. Still running the five of course, but focusing on the 10,000 a little bit more than I have in the past. And also some of the road races from the 8K distance up to even the half-marathon in the next year-plus or so. And then from there I think the marathon is the next thing on the horizon, within the next 18 months to two years. I want to try and at least see what it's all about. I mean, everyone else seems to be doing it! So running those longer races are somewhat exciting to me at this point. And I think I would like to move a little bit more in that direction and sort of work my way into it instead of being so totally focused on trying to get my mile speed fast enough to compete at 5,000 meters.

(Interview conducted November 4, 2004, and posted November 18, 2004.)