RITZENHEIN READY FOR 2010 DEBUT AT CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS
By David Monti
(c) 2010 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved - used with permission
Dathan Ritzenhein is a runner transformed.
The
27 year-old American began his 2009 campaign with solid credentials:
track personal bests of 13:16.06 and 27:35.65, for the 5000m and
10,000m, respectively, and a half-marathon best of 61:25. He was
well-respected, had already made two Olympic teams, and won three
national titles in cross country and road running.
But after he
closed down his competitive season last October, he was simply a
different athlete. He had bettered Bob Kennedy's American record for
5000m, running 12:56.27 in Zürich; notched the highest finish ever by
an American at an IAAF World Championships 10,000m, placing sixth in a
personal best 27:22.28; and became the first American ever to medal at
an IAAF World Half-Marathon Championship, taking the bronze in a
personal best 60 minutes-flat.
"For me last year was just a huge
turning point, physically but mentally, too," Ritzenhein told reporters
on a teleconference yesterday in advance of Saturday's USA Cross
Country Championships in Spokane, Wash., where he is the favorite to
win his third title.
That turning point came last June when
Ritzenhein made the toughest decision of his professional career. He
decided with wife, Kalin, to take daughter Addison and leave his
comfortable home on a wooded cul-de-sac in Eugene, Ore., and move 125
miles north to Portland where he would be coached by three-time New
York City Marathon champion Alberto Salazar. In Eugene Ritzenhein had
worked with Brad Hudson.
"I was very excited about it,"
Ritzenhein said about his coaching change. "I always knew that was the
direction I would take if I split with Brad. That was always there.
There was a fear of breaking out of that shell. Alberto's taken me
under the wing."
As a coach, Salazar is well known for his
all-encompassing approach: running, weight training, altitude training,
nutrition, anti-gravity treadmill, drills, core work, etc. Some
athletes find his style too intrusive and controlling, but Ritzenhein
said he needed somebody who could give him strong guidance, and
sometimes make decisions for him.
"I think I've really found the
right spot and have a relationship which works really well," he said.
"One of the big problems I had is I needed someone to tell me where it
is. I just trust him now. That trust is what makes this relationship
work so well."
Under Salazar, Ritzenhein has a new training
partner, Galen Rupp, and uses a more periodized training program. His
entry into Saturday's cross country meet, his first competition since
winning the bronze medal in the World Half-Marathon last October in
Birmingham, England, is part of a strength building phase which both
athlete and coach hope will lift Ritzenhein to a faster 10,000m time
and a stronger marathon performance in the fall. He's run 2:10:00 and
finished ninth in the Beijing Olympics, but feels he has a lot of
untapped potential in that event.
"He really wants me to
periodize my training," Ritzenhein explained. "The body needs to
recover. I was constantly a little overtrained."
A top-6 finish
for Ritzenhein in Spokane will qualify him for the IAAF World Cross
Country Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland, on March 28. Ritzenhein
has already won a World Cross medal (he won the bronze in the junior
race in 2001), and is anxious to get back to that championship. He
hasn't raced World Cross since 2005 when he finished a miserable 62nd,
plagued by blisters.
"I think at this point we really want to
get in and race against the best guys there are," he said. "For me,
after the race in Berlin, we had some other plans, but we took a look
back and we said we have to race these other guys on some of these
stages. We want to get in a duke it out with them as much as
possible."
One of the keys to Ritzenhein's success has been
his marriage to Kalin, with whom he is expecting their second child. A
former teammate at the University of Colorado, she's already moved with
him from Boulder to Eugene to Portland, and supports all of his travel
for training and competition. Ritzenhein said that his family,
including 3 year-old Addison, is used to it.
"We're family
people," he said. "Sometimes it's a hard balance. Last year, we
brought Addy to Europe for a month and they lived out of suitcases.
They just kind of go with the flow. She loves airplanes she knows how
to order room service." He added: "It gets difficult at times for my
wife, who is a saint."
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