Interview: Tim Broe

by Scott Douglas

Tim Broe finished 11th in the Olympic 5,000m final in Athens in 13:33.06. His placing was all the more impressive given that, at the start of the year, he had just resumed training after a 10-week break. In the fall of 2003, Broe had surgery to remove a cracked sesamoid bone in his left foot. By July, he had advanced his fitness enough to win the Olympic Trials, but still lacked even the Olympic "B" standard. On July 30, however, Broe ran a PR 13:18.61 at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix meet to ensure his trip to Athens. In Athens, he nearly matched that PR in his semi-final, where he ran 13:20.29 and made the final as the fastest non-automatic qualifier.

One of America's most versatile distance runners, Broe's other PRs include 7:39.23 for 3,000 meters, which is the American indoor record, and 8:14.82 in the steeplechase. In addition to this year's Olympic Trials, Broe's national championships include the 2003 outdoor 5,000m title, the 2001 and 2002 indoor 3,000m titles, the 2001 and 2002 4K cross country titles, and the 2002 8K road title. On September 12, he won the USA 5K Championship in 13:36 at the CVS/pharmacy Downtown 5K in Providence, Rhode Island. He was also the NCAA steeplechase champion in 2000 while at the University of Alabama.

Broe lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he is an assistant coach to Ron Warhurst at the University of Michigan.

Mensracing.com: Your last race was the 5K in Providence. Will you be doing other road races this fall, or are you done for the year?
Tim Broe: I'm definitely done for the year. I would have liked to do a couple of more road races, but my foot really bothered me after that race. It bothers me more when I road race. So I'm done racing for the year, and will be preparing for outdoor next year. Maybe some indoor, depending on the foot.

MR: What's the foot problem? Same as before?
TB: Yeah, same thing, surgery pains. The doctor said it would just take time. I've never really given it recovery time, a chance to heal, other than the two months after surgery. Most people could then ease back into things, but I didn't have a choice. I just had to jump right back in. Now I can finally let it rest so that it doesn't ever bother me again, knock on wood.

MR: So are you running but not racing? Doing workouts? Just jogging?
TB: Just running, probably for the next six weeks, maybe eight weeks. I'm not doing any workouts. Maybe I'll do some tempo stuff if it feels good.

MR: If your foot weren't bad, what were your plans after the Olympics?
TB: My hope was that after the Games I would take a break...well, not a big break, I've had 12 of the last 24 months off. But I was hoping to take just a little down time, then do some races this fall, some ekidens, the road 10K championship. But after that race [in Providence], the foot really flared up, and I thought, 'I better think long-term and get this behind me.'

MR: So no real indoor season coming up?
TB: I would like to do indoors. If things come around and in the next month I can do some workouts without aggravating it, yeah, maybe some indoor races. But if it's still bothering me, I'm not going to push it. I'm just enjoying being able to run — this is the first fall in three years I've been able to run.

MR: Do you consider yourself more injury-prone than others at your level?
TB: No, not at all. I'm pretty durable. I really have had only this one problem with my foot, where I messed it up back in 2002 at outdoor nationals, and then I didn't take care of it. Then last year I had a stress fracture in my back from compensating for the foot. Other than that I've never had an injury that's kept me out of running for more than two or three days. I haven't had an overuse injury. This isn't an overuse injury, but a stupid steeple accident.

MR: Will you be returning to the steeplechase?
TB: If I'm able to get back to it, if I have no problems with my foot, yeah. But I'm never going to be exclusively a steepler, like Robert Gary or Mark Croghan. Not that there's anything wrong with that, with just being a steeple specialist, but I like the variety, also doing the 5K.

MR: I read that after your 13:18, you said, 'I still do not like the 5K.'
TB: It's such a tough event. On the world stage, if you're not running 13:05, you're not in it. You're not really racing, you're just hanging on the whole time. In the steeple, if you run 8:15, you're in the mix. I think of the steeple as more quick and painful, the 5K long and painful. Pick your poison.

MR: For you to return to the steeple, is there a level of, for lack of better words, biomechanical health you need that you don't need for flat races?
TB: I don't think so at all. If you can run 13:20 and 3:39 [for 1,500 meters] and hurdle somewhat, you can run 8:20, 8:25 [in the steeple]. But there are a lot of guys like that who can't stay on their feet once you put hurdles in front of them.

On the world level, the 5K is so much deeper, the chance to be in it in the steeple will draw me back. I mean, I'm really not able to run 12:45. That's just not going to happen. An 8:10 in the steeple, that's still fast, but there are a lot fewer guys at 8:10 than there are 13:10 5K guys.

MR: Why do you think there's not depth at that level among Americans? In the 10K, we had a bunch of guys with the Olympic "A" standard, and in the steeple, too. But at 5K...
TB: I don't know. I don't understand it for the life of me. I would not have believed in June, in the kind of shape I was in, after all that time off, that none of those guys would be ahead of me at the end of the year.

Of course, those guys at 10K could run the "A" time. But we have a lot of guys who've been at 13:25 to 13:30 for a long time. I don't understand why they're not able to make it to the next level. I know most of those guys. They're good guys, they're all as hard working as me. It's not like they're not doing the work.

MR: Could one factor be a lack of venues? Like someone like Matt Lane, where can he go to go from 13:25 to maybe 13:15, given what you're saying about how fast the races are overseas? I mean, your 13:18, you weren't really a factor in the race up front.
TB: Somewhat yes, somewhat no. There are some opportunities. Stanford, Mt. SAC, they are usually set up as 13:20-type races. But they're early in the season, when you don't want to be too sharp. In Europe, they're not going to be set up slower than 13:10. You want to go in thinking, 'I have a chance to win.' It's pretty demoralizing to know you're never going to be in it.

But you also have to run within yourself. We take a lot of criticism from people saying, 'Hey, just go for it.' But there's a thin line in that situation between smart and stupid. You can't just say, 'I'm going to go out at 13:00 pace and hold on and knock 30 seconds off my PR.'

People also don't understand the effects of the time change once you travel over there, being out of your element. I'm fortunate in that I have a base when I'm over there, so I'm not living hotel to hotel, and if I decide I want to go race in Belgium, it's a half hour flight. Most of the big names, really, all the top Africans have a base to operate from. Contrast that with a lot of our guys, living hotel to hotel, just chasing times. It gets old real quick. You just start thinking, 'I just want to go home.'

MR: Speaking of times, you said after your 13:18 you had another 8 or 10 seconds in you. Did you mean this year? The rest of your life?
TB: This year. I'm pretty convinced in that race...I mean, you always say after a good race, 'I could have gone faster.' My goal in that race was 13:20. With a mile to go, I had to run 4:15 or 4:16. Usually at that point, it's 'Hang on, hang on,' but this time it was, 'I got this easy.' I probably could have gone 8 to 10 seconds faster in that race if I'd run less conservatively. Long term, some day I'd like to get down to 13:00. I think I have that potential over the next three or four years.

The thing about times is, people read too much into times. In the Games, in the semis I think I had the 4th slowest time in my heat. So what? I beat a lot of 13:07 types in that race. Just looking at your time going in doesn't mean crap.

MR: How hard was that semi compared to your 13:18?
TB: I ran as hard as I could in the semi, but it was all in the last mile. I sat back early on. I knew the times from the first heat. I knew I needed to run 13:22 to get in. With 1200 [meters] to go, I was 10:23. I said to myself, "I have to run 3:00, I have to run 60s to make the final." Five guys wound up going by me. I probably could have hung back with those guys and kicked to get in on place, but I didn't want to take that risk.

MR: How did you feel coming back, what, two days later for the final?
TB: Three days later. I knew I was a little tired. The track was very hard. My hips were sore, my foot was sore. I knew I didn't have a ton in me. I've always been a realist. I wanted to put myself in it, but I knew with the way they run and my lack of background...I mean, I'm coming in half cocked, they're 100 percent prepared. But I wanted to stick my nose in it. The most proud I was all year was the way I ran in the final. With six laps to go, they got away. I was back with the first pack. I surged for as long as I could. I wanted to give everything I had to be with the lead pack as long as possible.

I told my training partners and my coach this, but I haven't told many people: Last winter, I would tell them, 'If I can get in shape to get to the Games, and get to the final, my goal is to be in the top 8.' They said, 'Dude, just get back to 13:30.' It shows you what's possible.

MR: Who are your most frequent training partners?
TB: All spring, I did 90-something percent of the work on my own. With others, it was [Nick] Willis and Alex L'Heureux the most. Alex is a Canadian steepler. I was kind of semi coaching him for his Trials. We would do maybe a workout a week together.

MR: And ideally?
TB: Ideally? There'd be a couple of guys at my level who would fly in for workouts twice a week. And then in the winter we'd go someplace warm. And then we'd go to altitude.

MR: Okay, how about somewhere in between. If you were healthy all year, would you have done more workouts with Willis?
TB: Probably not. Actually, maybe a little. He was doing longer stuff to prepare himself for the end of the season. But when he and Nate [Brannen] are together, they're way too fast for me. The 5K is so different from what they're doing.

MR: How long have you been the assistant coach at Michigan?
TB: I started when I moved here, so that's since the spring of 2002.

MR: And what does it entail?
TB: Really not much more than if I weren't assistant coach. I travel on a limited basis with the team — I get fed up enough with the travel I have to do on my own. I'm like a player coach, like Jordan. Yeah, I'm the Michael Jordan of running. How does that sound?

Seriously, mostly I work with the younger guys. I know how it was when I was their age. I help keep the freshmen and sophomores from drowning in such a big program. I always remind them, 'I was one of you guys.' I was never a superstar, or even really a standout. It's tough for them. Every day, they're comparing themselves to Nate and Nick. I tell them, 'I promise you, I swear to you, I was never one of those guys when I was your age. Stick with it.'

MR: When you were their age, did you ever see yourself being 27 and having just run in the Olympics?
TB: I didn't know what I wanted out of it. In high school, I had no real intention of going to college until Alabama said, 'We'll give you a full ride.' I knew I had talent. I didn't know how much. I don't know that I thought about running long term. Really, in college, all I thought about was beating Arkansas.

MR: When did you start to realize or at least think you might stick with it?
TB: When I went to the 2000 Trials, I had zero expectations. Outside of college stuff, I had never done any national-level racing. That year, I had no intentions, even in the indoor season, for the summer — I had no plans to go to the Trials. But then I was second in my semi, and all of a sudden I'm fourth in the final by 0.09 seconds. That was a huge wake-up call for me. But even after that, there were a lot of people who didn't take me seriously, because, in all honesty, there are a lot of NCAA champs who never do anything else after that.

MR: This is kind of a tangent, but you don't really weigh 175, do you?
TB: [Laughs] No. That is so weird — someone asked me that the other day.

MR: That's what it says on your bio on the USATF site.
TB: Where do they get that stuff? Right now, 151. If I could lose 10 pounds...hey, maybe I should lose 30 pounds, 40 pounds, so I could look like [Dathan] Ritz[enhein]. But yeah, the other day, this guy on the team, we're doing a long run, and he asked if I weigh 175. He said there was a big argument on the internet about who weighed more, me or [Paul] McMullen. That's so funny that people would think I weigh more than him.

MR: Another tangent: There were clips on the internet after the men's Marathon Trials of you doing interviews. How did that come about?
TB: I met some folks, the folks behind Michigan Runner magazine, they also do a golfing magazine. They had approached my fiancée — she's a golfer — about doing some internet TV. We had so many Olympic hopefuls in the area that we did some internet TV interviews. Basically it was two with Ron, one each with Nate, Willis and [Kevin Sullivan]. Then I was down in Birmingham when the Trials were held.

MR: Do you enjoy that?
TB: It's a learning experience. I thought, 'I sound like an idiot.' It's a lot different than asking questions over the phone — no offense. You can't say, 'Uh' or 'Um,' and you have to always be thinking two steps ahead. And if you space out, you sound like a dork. I never watched the Trials one until the other day. I watched me interviewing Meb and thought I sounded horrible.

MR: In the sense that people always think their voice sounds weird?
TB: No, just the whole package, like facial expressions. After watching that, I have total respect for people like Bob Costas, who are so smooth.

MR: Back to Michigan, how often are you there at practice?
TB: Pretty much every day. Well, I travel a lot. During the summer and fall here it's nice, but in the winter, I try to get out of here.

The thing about being assistant coach is that it's required for me to have some position with the university to be able to train with the team, because I'm not an alum. It's a good experience, because ultimately I'd like to coach. I love working with the kids and seeing them get better, especially the ones who aren't the stars. I mean, I'm still involved with Nate and Nick. Just because they've run fast, [it doesn't mean] they know everything. And I don't know everything. It's good to have people sharing experiences.

(Interview conducted September 27, 2004, and posted September 30, 2004.)