Scott Larson

By Peter Gambaccini

Scott Larson won the 2001 U.S. men's marathon championship in New York City last fall with his 2:15:26 and is returning to race in the five boroughs on November 3. Larson, a "walk on" runner at the University of Colorado in Boulder who became an all-American, got away from his familiar surroundings this autumn and spent five weeks training in Kimberley in the interior of South Africa, where his host was 2:06:33 marathoner Gert Thys. Larson was fourth in the 2000 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in 2:17:15 and set his marathon PR of 2:14:57 in Chicago in 1997. He is coached by Mark Plaatjes, the South African-born U.S. citizen and World Championships marathon gold medalist. Larson and his wife Robyn are expecting their first child on or around December 24.

MensRacing.com: How was it decided you should go to South Africa rather than do your altitude work at Boulder as usual?
Scott Larson: The main reason is I just needed a change, I think. I've been doing pretty much the same thing since college. I just wanted to try something a little different and mix things up.

MR: And you're the University of Colorado guy who actually grew up in Boulder, so it's been a lifetime of ... Boulder.
SL: Right, right.

MR: Why did you specifically choose South Africa? Because of the Plaatjes connection?
SL: Yeah, it was mainly because of Mark. He knows all those guys. He and Gert were talking one day and Mark mentioned my name and Gert was like 'Yeah, you know, send him out. If he can get out here, I'd love to have him.'I said 'Alright, I'll give it a shot.'

MR: Tell us about the trip. It wasn't a question of just flying into one of the major cities.
SL: I went to Johannesburg first and then flew into Kimberley. It's kind of in the middle of the country. It's fairly flat, kind of grasslands with shrubby bushes everywhere. I don't know if you've ever seen "The Gods Must Be Crazy," but it kind of looks like that.

MR: Were there any animals around?
SL: I saw some baboons, and some springboks. But it wasn't quite like I imagined. I thought it would be kind of in the middle of nowhere, dirt roads everywhere. But the town was like a normal town, and actually we did most of our running on pavement.

MR: Is this part of a high plateau?
SL: Pretty much, yeah. There are some rolling hills. There are no mountains. I think it's 3,500 feet (altitude).

MR: Who was there? Was Gert Thys there to serve as host?
SL: Yeah, I stayed at his house. There were two other athletes there, Tobias Hiskia (tenth at Chicago in 2:13:16) and Ian Syster.

MR: How did the training differ from your norm? Were they much harder-working than you were used to?
SL: It wasn't that they worked harder. It was different. I ran far less mileage than I ever have for a marathon, but pretty much six days a week, it was hard. Most of it was longer type tempo runs. They had adapted to the training a little bit more. Gert had warned me it would be hard for me to get used to what they were doing. He said the other two guys, Toby and Ian, had had the same problem. I wasn't recovering as fast.

MR: How many hard tempo runs a week would there be?
SL: Well, Sunday would be a long run. Monday would usually be the track, some 1,000s or something, Tuesday would be like a 10k. Wednesday would be like 25k. Thursday would be like an hour, harder. Friday would be track, again.

MR: So there was no easy day, per se?
SL: There was no easy day, except for Saturday.

MR: Was Saturday an off day?
SL: Saturday would either be just 40 minutes of jogging, or just completely off.

MR: You must have been happy when Saturday came around.
SL: Oh man, yeah, I needed Saturday.

MR: What kind of things were there to do in Kimberley besides the running ?
SL: I'm sure there was stuff to do there, but I didn't do any of it. I just laid around all day, pretty much. I read six books while I was there. The town itself is pretty small.

MR: A lot of Americans who go to train in Africa are amazed at the kind of work ethic that exists there. Did you sense that with Gert and his guys as well, that they just seem to work a lot harder than Americans are used to? Did you get a sense of how this guy would be a 2:06:33 marathoner?
SL: You can see it, they definitely work hard. I wouldn't say they work harder than we do. For me, it was tough to adapt to their type of training. You can see where if you did adapt to it, it would just be like any normal hard training. It would be hard, but it wouldn't be like you have to dig down really, really hard every day to do it. I ran with Gert every day, or he ran with me is more like it. I'd fall back a few paces behind him and would just hang on to him. I pretty much completed everything he did, but he was just not working nearly as hard as I was. But I see how you could adapt to it and it would like any normal type of training. They do work extremely hard, and they're very dedicated to it. But going over there and then coming back here, I wouldn't say Americans don't work very hard, because we do.

MR: Were there any dietary adjustments you had to make, being in Gert's house?
SL: The food was really good. Gert's wife did a lot of the cooking. There was a lot of rice, chicken. this corn meal mush, some lamb. Not really any red meat. They eat fast food and stuff. There was a [Kentucky Fried Chicken] there. KFC in Africa is much better than KFC here.

MR: When you came back to the States on October 9, were you feeling appreciably more fit than in the past?
SL: Definitely. When I was doing their stuff, I never really thought 'Oh man, I'm getting fit for New York.' I was just trying to get through each day, looking one day ahead. There was no one point where I was saying 'I'm getting fit.' But now I've had some good rest and I'm feeling pretty fit.

MR: You'd said that Mark Plaatjes and you had realized you'd had a bit of a struggle over the last few miles of your marathons, and that was a problem you were going to try and remedy. Obviously, overall fitness would be a solution to that, but there is something specific in regard to that that you worked on recently?
SL: Over there, running on pavement a lot, I think that strengthened my legs a little bit more. That's probably something I neglected here a little bit, because there are so many nice (unpaved) places to run. Hopefully, that will help, and just the amount of long tempo runs coming relentlessly day after day is very marathon-specific.

MR: An awful lot happened with American marathoning since you've left. Maybe we can get your reactions in chronological order as they happened. Obviously, you want to have a sense of how you fit in the overall picture and also get to a feeling for what Americans can do. First there was Dan Browne's 2:11:35 victory at Twin Cities. What was your reaction to that?
SL: I was sort of out of the loop. That was great that he did that. He's just a very talented guy in the first place. It was great that he could put it together on his first one.

MR: And Culpepper breaking 2:10 in Chicago (with a 2:09:41). Is that something you knew was probably in the cards?
SL: I knew if Alan had a good race, he would run 2:09 if not faster. Not only does he work really hard, but he's an incredibly talented guy. The course in Chicago suits him to a T. He's just a beautiful runner. He gets on a rhythm, he's gone.

MR: Much is made of the fact that he has not gone away from his home base and pretty much coaches himself. Some people question the wisdom of all that. What do you think?
SL: For most people, that might be a problem. For myself, if I'm tired and I need to back off now, it's hard for me to actually back off because I feel I'm not working hard enough. But Alan is just so in tune with his body and he has no ego at all about that. If he's tired, he's going to back off a little. He knows what to do. He never second guesses himself. It's pretty amazing. I respect him a lot. I'll be dogging him for advice as well. As far as staying home is concerned, everybody has to do their most comfortable situation. He's got a great wife, he's got a kid now.

MR: And of course we can't overlook Khalid (Khannouchi, a winner at Chicago in 2:05:56).
SL: Yeah. What can I say? I'd heard that he wanted to slow down the halfway point time for rabbits, but he might have been blowing smoke.

MR: A sizeable group of Americans ran in the 2:14s in Chicago. These might be the guys you're competing for a spot on the U.S. team with at the trials.
SL: Yeah. The marathon's a fun thing. All of those guys who ran 2:14, they probably went through on pace to run sub-2:12. I don't know if that was there plan or not. All of those guys are capable of running 2:11, for sure. Who knows? There are a lot of talented guys here and everybody works hard. Sometimes, we probably work too hard. I would say. I would never even think about taking a day off, but they have no qualms about anything now. They have the mindset almost like Alan where if they need a break, they take a break. They're not caught up in numbers.

MR: And in New York City, it's not the situation with a U.S. Championship that you had last year, but you have Meb Keflezighi to contend with.
SL: It's great that he's running.

MR: Is he capable of a performance like Alan's?
SL: Oh, for sure. He's incredibly talented also and works really hard. He's capable of a great race. New York's a much more difficult course, so timewise, who knows, but he'll be able to compete.

MR: You've mentioned that you've run large portions of marathons by yourself in the past. Have you been involved in any discussions about how the race might go out in New York on November 3?
SL: This year there's going to be a second group, I guess. That's probably the group I'll be in. I'm not going to have to run like I did last year. It'll be more even and there will be a good group. So I'm looking forward to that. I think Matt Downin will be the guy (the pacesetter), and whoever else wants to tag along.

MR: What kind of time are you shooting for?
SL: You know, I'm not going to say. I'm just going to guarantee that I'm going to run as hard as I can, and if everything goes alright, I'll do pretty well

MR: Is there anything helpful that you learned last year at any specific point along the course?
SL: Not really. The main thing is running a more even type race. There are more hills than just the bridges and Central Park. I wasn't really expecting those hills. It's good to have a feel for the course.

MR: You were a "walk on" at Colorado after being a high school soccer and basketball player. Some people think soccer took away from the pool of American runners. You had a choice to make between the two sports. What made you choose running? You'd been a fairly good soccer player, right?
SL: Basically, I transferred to the University of Colorado and they didn't have a soccer program. Running never even crossed my mind, to be honest with you, until I realized 'I need something competitive to do.' The club scene (in soccer) wasn't competitive enough for me. That's really the only reason I got into running. Soccer's a great game. It has all the attributes a great runner has. You have to be fast but you have to be fit, too. I was a starter all three years in high school and played semi-pro a little bit in the summers.

MR: So your first running at Colorado was in cross country?
SL: Right.

MR: How long did it take until you realized you'd be pretty good at this?
SL: The year that I started, my sophomore year, they lost most of their seniors. So I made the (varsity) team my first year. So that kept my interest high.

Peter Gambaccini is a New York-based freelance writer. He is a frequent contributor to New York Runner, Runner's World, MetroSports, The Village Voice, and other periodicals.

(Interview posted October 25, 2002)