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Brent Vaughn: on Houston and Becoming a National Champion - KIMbia AthleticsPublished by
Brent Vaughn is the Colorado University school record holder for 5000m with his 13:18 from 2008. However, it was only just this week that he joined forebearers such as Dathan Ritzenhein, Alan Culpepper, Jorge Torres, and Adam Goucher as a US National Title Winner. By claiming the victory at Saturday’s USATF Cross Country Championships, Vaughn now has a signature win as a professional and hopes that time will come to show that his performance in San Diego was a watershed moment in his career. He talked with us about the race, and that which led up to it: I feel like there’s been a lot of excitement about the win in San Diego, so I’d love to get a little bit into the race. So the first thing is, I know until Houston you weren’t really planning to do Cross Country. What was your thinking following the drop-out there in Houston?
I mean, I was pretty disappointed but, immediately after the race, I was, I don’t know, I wasn’t thinking about anything to do with running, really. [I was] just frustrated and thinking about not running. Then Jorge came up and started talking about Cross [Country Nationals] afterwards and then it hit me. And I called Tom [Ratcliffe] [Brent’s agent] right away and I knew I just wanted to get back in a race because my workouts have been going better than they have in a really long time so I knew I was fit. But I really lucked out that I had a race just seven days later because I rested up for Houston a little bit and then I just did one workout in between but it worked out perfectly. I feel like running, usually you have a bad race and you have to wait to three or four weeks to get back at it, but it was nice that I only had seven days in between. I think it worked out well.
And where did drop out in Houston, exactly?
I think it was around mile 8. So it wasn’t like you were all the way out.
No, I mean, it was just like a nice AT [aerobic threshold] run, really. And then it went bad fast.
Going into Cross Nationals, you made a pretty marked break. When you went to the front you went with a lot of purpose. Was that a plan you had with Jay [Johnson, Brent’s coach] or was it just kind of play it by ear and kind of trust your gut? But then I kind of got pushed to the lead. I wasn’t necessarily planning to take it that early. I took one of the tangents on the course and found myself in the lead and then I put a little surge in on one of the turns and I got a bit of a gap so I was like, Well, might as well just break it open. I think it was a little windy so I think I got a little gap with the wind at my back. And you never, you don’t want people sitting on you into the wind so it was nice to get a gap when I did. The move felt good, it felt smooth. I was crusing for a while, so... Read the full article at: kimbia.net
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