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[Note:
Shortly after we posted this interview, Shay pulled out of the USA
8K Championships due to illness.]
Ryan
Shay will be one of many national champions competing at the USA
8K Championships in New York City's Central Park on March 27. Shay's
national titles came last year in the marathon and half-marathon;
he also was the NCAA 10,000m champion in 2001 while at the University
of Notre Dame.
After
graduating from Notre Dame in 2002, Shay joined Team USA California,
and splits his time among team training bases in Chula Vista, California
(near San Diego), and Mammoth Lakes, California, and his hometown
of East Jordan, Michigan. He is coached by Joe Vigil. Among Shay's
training partners in the group is Meb Keflezighi, who will attempt
to defend his title at this year's USA Men's 8K Championships.
Shay
finished 15th in 23:13 at last year's USA Men's 8K Championships.
He comes to this year's race after a 23rd-place, 2:19:19 finish
in February's Olympic Team Trials - Men's Marathon, where he was
hampered by a hamstring strain.
MR:
What's the status of your hamstring?
RS:
It's pretty much healed, about 90 percent there. At the Trials,
it just wasn't functioning properly — very weak, complete muscle malfunction
on that last lap, maybe operating at 40% strength.
MR:
When did it start bothering you?
RS:
Two weeks before the Trials. I was doing a 10K tempo run with Eddy
Hellebuyck and Ibrahim Aden. Six hundred meters from the finish,
you come out of a couple little turns. I felt it tighten up. I let
up, but I extended it, a quick contraction and extension that strained
it.
MR:
What then?
RS:
I couldn't run for four days after that. I flew back to Michigan
to see my applied kinesiology chiropractor, out in Holland, Michigan.
I felt like, with him, I got a lot of the strength back, but I missed
a lot of days. I was in Michigan three days. When I went back to
San Diego I was able to run, light running at first, gradually increasing
it. I did a two-hour run the Sunday before the Trials, and one workout
on that Tuesday before I left for Birmingham. It was better, but
I could feel…things just didn't feel right. It was too much
effort to do the workouts, especially for being in tapering mode.
MR:
What did you do after the Trials?
RS:
I went back to South Bend to be at Notre Dame. Holland is about
an 80-minute drive from there. I've been home here at my parents'
place in northern Michigan now for the last week. I've been working
with the chiropractor to get 100% healthy.
I
found out there were other things going on, prior to the hamstring.
Earlier that week, I'd had a wisdom tooth extracted. There were
a lot of complications from that. The trauma can affect your body
— any kind of infection can have an effect on muscle function.
I've also had infections from a root canal, where the dentist butchered
up my mouth. So these problems have been affecting my body since
last year, where I'm always fighting a virus coming or going. I
could feel it in my training, and not know why. The chiropractor
examined my mouth — his father was a dentist — and asked
me about any dental work I've had done. He showed me how every tooth
is related to a muscle. Then last week the infection really flared
up. I had to call my dentist in the middle of the night to get painkillers.
The
last couple of days, it's not as bad. I'm feeling like I have more
energy.
MR:
How about the hamstring itself?
RS:
I think it's pretty much healed. I've done a few workouts, and it's
been okay.
MR:
Will the 8K be your first race since the Trials?
RS:
Right, it's my first race back. As far as what type of expectations
I have? Not much. It will be a good indicator of how my body feels
under competition. I'd rather find out there than on the track in
late April, early May. I was talking with [USA 8K Championships
elite athlete coordinator] David Monti. I told him I wasn't going
to race again too soon after the marathon. But he said, 'Come out
and have a good time and don't worry about being super fit We'd
like to have you here.' I appreciate that.
MR:
After the 8K, will you be focusing on track the rest of the year?
RS:
That's what I want to do, but I have to sit down with Coach Vigil.
I want to be sure I'm 100% healthy before I commit to anything on
the track. Vigil has talked about Mt. SAC, but I wouldn't mind running
the Cardinal Invite in late April for my first track race. I'll
see how it goes in my first track race, and if I feel strong and
have a positive experience, I'll start thinking about the Trials.
If not, I'm not going to push the issue. I don't want to put my
body behind, always be in this cycle of trying to come back too
soon, racing, getting knocked back, especially when I want to have
a good fall marathon.
MR:
Before the Trials, the word was that you were running hellacious
workouts, like a 47:13 10-miler. With your injury and down time,
do you feel like a lot of that fitness is lost?
RS:
It's still there. When my body is rested, when I'm not fighting
an infection on a daily basis or having a muscle malfunction, then
my body will benefit from all the work I put in for the marathon.
The good thing now is that I don't have to put in a base —
I already did that getting ready for the marathon. Now I don't need
to be at more than 90 to 100 miles a week. I've had so many 120+
weeks, up to 140. I can step away from marathon training for awhile.
MR:
47:13 for 10 miles — that'll
win you a lot of races. Where was that?
RS:
We have a measured course at Bonita Park in Chula Vista. It's a
5-mile loop around the golf course. I remember I negative-splitted
it. I was feeling great during that period of training, early January.
MR:
Have you picked where you're doing a fall marathon?
RS:
No, I haven't. That's under negotiation.
MR:
You went to the marathon pretty much straight out of college, which
is different from what a lot of people do. Do you still think that
was the way to go?
RS:
For me, that was definitely the thing to do. I don't regret it at
all. Financially, it puts you in a much better situation, being
on the roads. That's one of the downfalls of track in this country
— there's no money on the track unless you're super fast.
For
example, let's say I go to a 10K road race with decent prize money.
Let's say I win in just under 29:00. Let's say that gets me $1,000.
I can go on the track and run just under 29:00, and I'll get nothing.
The bonus structure in my contract doesn't even kick in until I
break 28:00 on the track. The financial incentive to be on the track
is just not there. People can say, 'You should do this for the love
of the sport.' That's great, but I still have to support myself
and plan for my future.
MR:
What about in some hypothetical situation where money isn't an issue?
RS:
If I was in a situation with full financial support? And I could
run whatever I want? It's hard to say. It's so weird because last
year with the national championships marathon and this year with
the Trials, they're both in the winter. I haven't had that situation
where you run a fall marathon, take your time off, and then build
up to track season.
I
think I like the approach I took. I see myself more as a marathoner
than a 10K track runner. It's a whole different thing — how
you're treated at a road race, the atmosphere. It's more focused
on distance running, because that's all there is, those one or two
races. You get so much more exposure at road races. The general
public can hop right into the race with you. They can relate to
road runners more than track runners.
MR:
As part of Team USA California, you move around a lot to train in
different places. Who determines where you go when?
RS:
I do. Well, basically, I'm going to be where Coach Vigil wants me
to be. After the Trials, I knew that no matter what, I was taking
two weeks off, so that was already planned that I would come east.
But then with being hurt, the group was going from San Diego up
to Mammoth Lakes, and I didn't want to go there to altitude just
as I was getting back into running, so I asked Vigil if it would
be all right if I stayed out here until the group comes back from
Mammoth. But then my time here got extended with the 8K, because
I didn't want to fly out to California and then turn around and
fly to New York. And staying here, I can continue to work with my
chiropractor.
MR:
Before the Trials, how much of your training was with the group?
RS:
The group was very small this year. I'd say I did 90% of my pre-Trials
work on my own. For a long time I was the only one there at the
center in Chula Vista. Around the first of the year, others start
coming around, like Matt Downin and Ibrahim Aden, but Meb and I
were the only ones doing the Trials, and Meb, with being sick and
hurt, wasn't on the same schedule as me. So I was on my own up until
about a month before when Eddy Hellebuyck showed up.
MR:
So it's not a big change when you're not there, to run on your own?
RS:
No, especially for what I'm doing now, with coming back. And when
I'm in South Bend, I can run with the team and have access to the
indoor track there.
MR:
With all this moving around, where's the bulk of your stuff? Where
do you consider home?
RS:
That's the tough thing. My stuff is kinda all over the place. My
parents' home is where most of my stuff is. It's so tough to keep
popping around, a couple of months in San Diego, then up to Mammoth
Lakes. I'm looking forward to eventually picking somewhere to live
and have my home and train there.
MR:
When will that be?
RS:
At the latest, after 2008. Right now I'm buying a piece of property
a few lots down from my parents' place on the lake they live on,
and I'll decide whether to build on it or hold on to it as an investment.
Next
fall, I'm going to start taking classes for chiropractic school.
I have to take some prerequisites that I can take pretty much anywhere,
and then I have to decide when I'm going to go to chiropractic school.
With taking these prerequisite classes, I'll find out what kind
of time management I need to still be able to train at my level.
I think it will be good for me — after 2008, I don't want to
be almost 30 and thinking, 'Where do I go from here?'
MR:
How did you pick chiropractic school?
RS:
I started out in pre-med at Notre Dame, but after some courses…the
courses didn't get into what I wanted to do. Plus, Notre Dame has
a pretty ferocious weeding-out process for pre-med, so I changed
majors.
MR:
There was an interview with you before the Trials where you said
you'd just read the Bill O'Reilly book, and on the USATF site it
says your favorite book is Sartre's Nausea. That's quite
a range.
RS:
I read a lot of different stuff. I'll read stuff I know I'm not
going to like just to try to get the view from all sides. Well,
some stuff like that I read as much as I can take before I stop
reading it.
MR:
Was the O'Reilly book one of those?
RS:
No, that was a good book, Who's Looking Out for You. It's
a lot different from his show.
MR:
What's something you gave up on?
RS:
My father's not going to like this, but Michael Savage, Savage
Nation. Most people know I'm a pretty conservative guy, but
that book, he's taking some unoriginal conservative ideas and taking
them too far.
That's
one of the reasons I thought about going back to school — I
spend a lot of time reading anyway, so I figured it wouldn't be
too bad to be reading for classes. That's what I did at Notre Dame,
and although my training is more intense now, it'd be good to have
that outlet, and not be thinking about my running 24/7 and maybe
overanalyzing it.
(Interview
conducted March 11, 2004, and posted March 25, 2004.)
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