By RACHEL BLOUNT

Before she ever considered running 26.2 miles, Kara Goucher felt a connection to the marathon. During her childhood in Duluth, she joined thousands of spectators every year along the Grandma’s Marathon course, handing out water to the runners and soaking up the fun of her hometown’s biggest summer party.

She still hasn’t run Grandma’s. But the 2008 Olympian returned for its 34th edition last month, to lend a little inspiration to others while finding some for herself. Goucher, 31, is taking a break from her running career while awaiting the birth of her first child. When she resumes, she will begin looking toward the 2012 Summer Games — and, perhaps, her hometown debut as an elite athlete.

Goucher and her husband, Adam, are preparing for the birth of a son in September. Since moving up to the marathon distance in 2008, she has remained focused on that race and plans to compete in the Olympic trials in January 2012. If she makes the Olympic team, Goucher wants to run in Duluth’s Garry Bjorklund Half-Marathon — held the same day as Grandma’s — as a tuneup for the Summer Games in London.

First things first, however. Pregnancy has helped Goucher slow down just a bit, allowing her to take a broader view of what she wants from life and where running fits into it. Though her athletic ambitions have not diminished, she has come to see them as only part of who she is.

“We always wanted kids, but it’s hard in our job to step away, because there’s always something coming up,” said Goucher, who lives in Portland, Ore. “We finally had the bravery to just do it, because we wanted this more. This is more important.

“I know it will change everything. But I’m still going to be competitive, and I’m still going to have all these goals. It’s just that I’m going to be able to leave that when I go home, because my son isn’t going to care if I won or if I set some record. I feel like I already have a pretty good perspective on running, but this will make me realize even more that it doesn’t define me.”

A strained back has kept Goucher off the running trails recently, but she has continued to train through her pregnancy in consultation with her doctor. Fellow marathoner and friend Paula Radcliffe, who is due to deliver her second child on the same date as Goucher, has given her plenty of advice on maintaining fitness while pregnant and returning to serious training afterward.

With no major international championships scheduled for 2010, the Gouchers decided this would be an ideal year to have their first child. They pushed back their timetable by several months when Kara faded to a third-place finish in the 2009 Boston Marathon after leading for much of the last five miles. She didn’t want to step away from the sport on such a disappointing note, so she chose to go on to the world championships in August.

Goucher wasn’t much happier when she finished 10th at the worlds, but she was able to let go of it — which revealed an important step forward, personally and professionally. In the past, that defeat would have crushed her. Now, she could view it in the wider context of a life full of blessings, which gave her a new sense of peace and strength.

“A couple of years ago, that would have sent me into a spiral, with tears and all that stuff,” she said. “Instead, I thought, ‘That stunk.’ And then I moved on.

“In the last few years, I’ve gotten a better perspective on what I want. When you get so focused on training, you can lose touch with what really matters. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to win really badly, but I’ve just learned it doesn’t change who I am. The people who are there for me are going to be there long after I’m done running, and that’s given me a more even-keeled outlook on everything.”

By: Kevin Pates

Duluth native Kara Goucher of Portland, Ore., was in Duluth as a guest speaker and race course radio commentator during Grandma’s Marathon weekend June 18-19. The U.S. track Olympian and marathoner indicated at the time she’d been dealing with lower-back pain, the result of being six-months pregnant, and said she would be having surgery on her right big toe to eliminate a bone spur. The toe surgery was last week and if you’d like to hear ALL of the details you can to Competitor.com and read about it on Goucher’s blog here.

For something QUITE A BIT LIGHTER, there is a great video, a woman-to-woman, completely-for-laughs, exchange between Goucher and sometimes training partner and one-time Olympic teammate Shalane Flanagan, now also living in Portland. Goucher said she was a little nervous about doing the video and asked her employer, Nike, about the project and was given a solid green light to go ahead. That video is here. The Goucher-Flanagan toe-to-toe verbal exchange starts about 3 minutes, 55 seconds into the video.

Kara Goucher isn’t running at Grandma’s, but she got rock-star treatment Friday when she spoke at a running expo.

Hundreds of people packed into Edmund Fitzgerald Hall to hear the Duluth native and 2008 Olympian talk about her career. Goucher, 31, is pregnant with her first child, and during her layoff from competition, she welcomed the chance to visit home.

“I haven’t been back for Grandma’s since high school,” said Goucher, a prep star at Duluth East who finished ninth in the 5,000 meters and 10th in the 10,000 at the Beijing Olympics. “I always watched it, and I handed out water. To see how the community continues to embrace it, it’s really cool. It’s a part of everyone’s lives.”

ANNE M. PETERSON

On her whisper-slim marathoner’s frame, Kara Goucher’s five-month baby bump is more of a baby blip.

The Olympian, one of America’s best female distance runners since Joan Benoit, is still so tiny to be so close to her next big challenge: motherhood. And she’s approaching it with the same mettle as she would a race.

“Right now I’m really just focused on being a mom, and being a really good mom, raising this boy to be happy and to be a good person,” she said.

Goucher and her husband, Adam, a fellow Olympian, are expecting their first child in late September.

It’s the latest — and some would say most significant — accomplishment for Goucher, who made her marathon debut in the 2008 New York City Marathon. She came in third, becoming the first American woman on the podium there since 1994.

While the decision to have a child just as her marathon career is taking off may be puzzling, for Goucher it has always been about timing.

She was the 2000 NCAA champion in the 3,000 and 5,000 meters at Colorado, but after college her professional career foundered. Enter Alberto Salazar, who won three straight New York City Marathons in the early 1980s and now coaches for Nike’s elite Oregon Project stable of runners.

Kara and Adam moved to Portland to train under him and never left.

The alliance with Salazar began to pay off for Goucher almost immediately and at the Olympic Trials in 2008 she finished first in the 5,000 and second to American record-holder Shalane Flanagan in the 10,000.

But after her finishes in Beijing — she was 10th in the 10,000 and ninth in the 5,000 — Goucher began to doubt herself and her goals.

“Beijing was really an eye-opener for me. I was hurt. I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t proud to be there. I was ashamed,” she recalled. “My coach was like, ‘I know what kind of goals you have. Those goals are realistic, you’re just not running the right race yet.’ That’s when I said, ‘OK, tell me what to do.’”

Salazar told her she should run marathons. So she did, and instantly became one of America’s brightest stars. After Goucher became the darling of the NYC marathon, she came in third in the 2009 Boston Marathon.

But all the while, she was being tugged by the desire to be a mom.

Goucher figured she had a window in which to start her family. Too late, and she wouldn’t be ready to run in the 2012 Olympics in London.

Right on Goucher’s self-imposed deadline, she got the happy news. The couple waited before going public because they wanted to make sure the baby was healthy.

She has been able to keep up an amazing training regimen while pregnant. Just last week she logged 80 miles, but that made her a bit tired, so she’s probably going to keep it around 75 miles. She’s also been training on Nike’s antigravity treadmill, which allows athletes to run at less their actual body weight, making for a less laborious workout.

She’s planning to run all the way until the birth, if possible.

“It’s strange, I have to be honest with that. Someone just asked me if I loved being pregnant, and I do. But it’s an adjustment,” she said. “Normally my job is running 110 miles a week and being really fit and working out all the time. Things change, and you have no control over it. It’s an adjustment.”

It’s fine for Goucher to run through her pregnancy as long as she’s closely monitored by her physician, said Dr. Linn Goldberg, professor of medicine and head of Health Promotion and Sports Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University.

Pregnant women need to be especially wary of high blood pressure, diabetes and injuries from increased body weight. They should also not run at a level that would restrict oxygen flow to the blood.

“Being pregnant is not the time to say, ‘I’m going to run a marathon,’ if you haven’t exercised before,” he said. “But for elite athletes, there’s no reason you can’t continue to train through pregnancy if there are no complications.”

The competitive juices still flow for Goucher. She ran in a “fun” run at 16 weeks and found herself taking it way too seriously.

“No one knew I was pregnant so I started picking it up a little more and picking it up a little more. Halfway through I thought, if I can run a 5:30 mile, I can win the women’s division,” she said. “It was crazy. After that my husband was like, ‘No, you can’t enter races for fun anymore. You don’t have the capability to just run easy.”

Goucher will run in an organized race just once more, the New York Mini 10K on June 12, but she promises this one will be for fun only. She’ll be joined by British marathoner and buddy Paula Radcliffe, who has been a valuable sounding board.

Not only is she the world record holder, Radcliffe ran through one pregnancy — her daughter is now 3 — and is expecting again with the same due date as Goucher.

Once she delivers, Goucher doesn’t plan to be away from competition long. She’s even set a goal “in pencil” of running in the Boston Marathon next spring. She said she’s figured out in her mind where she went wrong in 2009: She pushed too early and had no kick at the finish. So she wants another shot.

Asked if Goucher could be ready in time, Salazar replied, “Absolutely.”

“If she begins to train in October, after having her child, she will have almost seven months of normal training to prepare herself for the marathon,” he said via e-mail while traveling overseas.

Then it’s on — hopefully — to London. When told that babies tend to shift priorities and that might not be how she will feel some four months from now, she smiled.

“I’m so excited about this baby and I don’t want people to think I’m not, because I really am so excited. And I know my priorities once he’s born will change and he’ll be the No. 1 priority,” she said. “But I love running. Running has given me so much in my life. I can’t wait to get back to racing.”

By Aimee Berg

There is a dizzying amount of material available to help runners prepare for a marathon but nothing trumps experience, so eight top American athletes and coaches shared a few tips they have learned along the way.

KARA GOUCHER converted to the marathon after competing in track at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. She placed third in her 2008 New York City debut and third at Boston in 2009. Her biggest struggle?

“Nutrition while racing,” she said. “I thought I practiced enough, and then on race day twice, I had not practiced it enough.”

Before Goucher’s New York City debut, she tried taking nutrients on the fly maybe twice. “I was confident it would go well, but when you’re racing, it’s really different. My body was like, ‘No. I don’t want this. This is agitating.’ It takes your body time to learn how to absorb calories under stress. I just didn’t do it enough.”

Nonetheless, Goucher recorded the fastest debut ever by an American woman (2 hours, 25 minutes, 53 seconds). At the 2009 World Championships in Berlin, however, another nutritional error left her dehydrated in 10th place.

“It was such a rookie thing,” she said. “I still can’t believe I did this. I practiced with one type of sports drink then, on the day of the marathon, I used a different one.

“I practiced with a blueberry flavor and switched to grapefruit for the race. I tasted [the new flavor] at the Niketown in Berlin and was like: ‘This is so refreshing and nice and light and crispy.’ But in the race, it felt like I was trying to put pure freshly-squeezed grapefruit juice down my throat. It was so acidic. It was burning my throat. What was I thinking?”

Goucher’s advice: “Use what you practice with. Don’t switch anything at the last second. And practice taking nutrition during your workouts. I usually have my coach set up a table at the track; I realize most people don’t have access to do that, but you can still practice it. Either go out ahead of time and leave the bottles on the side of the road, bribe someone to bike along and hand you water bottles, or repeat a loop where you’re constantly going by your home and have them sitting out there. You can even wear those little belts, which aren’t the coolest-looking things, but if you’re going into the trails by yourself, it’s probably going to pay off.”

DATHAN RITZENHEIN’s four marathons include the 2008 Beijing Olympics where he led the US with a ninth-place finish. In 2009, he ran personal best at the London Marathon (2:10.00) but his biggest lesson came from his 2006 New York City debut.

“I completely ran out of energy,” he said. “I went from a 2:10 [finish] pace to 2:14 and it all happened, really, in the last mile. I’ve never had a feeling quite like that.

“I totally underestimated how much fuel you need. I think I took in maybe a total of 200-300 calories and only drank maybe four ounces at each of the 5K bottle stations along the way.”

Since then, Ritzenhein has consciously increased his intake during the race. “Now I probably take in way more than anybody else in the elite [field]. I take up to 1,000 calories by dissolving gel packets in the bottles or just taking them straight out on the course. I try to drink more fluid, like six ounces at every 5K mark. I also try to drink in between [the elite water stops], at the other ones on the course.”

Ritzenhein’s advice: Find out what works for you and rehearse it. “It’s something I definitely practice a whole lot – even in shorter, faster workouts where I don’t even need that amount of fuel.”

Note: To estimate your calorie expenditure, “The simple rule is that for every kilometer you move (walking or running) you burn one calorie times your body weight in kilograms,” said Trent Stellingwerff, a senior scientist at the Nestle Research Center in Lausanne, Switzerland. To convert your body weight to kilos, divide by 2.2. (For example, someone who weighs 170 lbs, or 77 kg, would burn about 77 calories per kilometer.) A marathon is about 42 kilometers (so a 170-lb person might burn roughly 3,234 calories over that distance).

MAGDALENA LEWY BOULET has finished 12 marathons in nine years. This month, she finished second in the 2010 Rotterdam Marathon in a personal best, 2:26.22, at age 36. Having also coped with two DNFs (including at the 2008 Beijing Games) and a hiatus in 2005 to start a family, Lewy Boulet has learned how to finesse her mental game.

“After a break, I have to train myself to get through certain workouts,” she said. “It doesn’t happen right away. I like to reflect on the progression I do. Every week I progress, I get stronger. I rely on my physical training to give me a boost mentally. It goes parallel. The physical training can’t happen without the mental.”

Also, she said, “I think it’s pretty critical to find the mileage you can tolerate and know how to break up mileage on a weekly basis. My coach Jack Daniels and I tried more than one long run during the week, longer runs in the morning, shorter runs in the evening, doing mostly single runs. We try to experiment with all the options to find out how I respond.”

Lewy Boulet’s advice: On mileage: “Listen to your body and how you’re recovering. When you get up the next day after a hard session and things don’t quite feel right – if you run and start to feel better, it’s a good sign. If you start to feel worse, then you’re starting to do some damage.” On the mental grind: “You’ve got to fill [your mind] with positive stuff throughout the whole race. One way is to concentrate on little things. I look forward to my water bottles. Breaking the race into sections lets you concentrate. Before you know it, you’ll be at the last water stop.”

ABDI ABDIRAHMAN is a three-time US Olympian in track who has finished five marathons and placed as high as fourth, in Chicago in 2006, with a PR of 2:08:56. Recalling his 2004 New York City debut, he said:

“I wish I knew how important the long run was. You can run 10 to 12 miles even faster than marathon pace, but you have to be prepared after 20 miles. That’s when a difference comes in. I learned the hard way.”

Before New York City, Abdirahman’s longest training run was 14 or 15 miles, and his ability to sustain faster-than-marathon-race-pace speeds over that distance made him overconfident. “Coming from the track mentality and being fit in track – you think you’re fit like a marathoner, which is not true. In the race, I noticed I didn’t put enough miles in at mile 23 or 24.”

Abdirahman’s advice: “Do a couple long runs before a marathon to see how it feels to be running that long. Some people try to train by doing intervals, but a 12-16 mile long run is more important than 10 times a mile at a fast pace.”

FRANK SHORTER, a two-time Olympic medalist (1972 gold, 1976 silver) said he never had a catastrophic moment that led to an epiphany, but after running about 60 marathons, he is sure of two things:

“A lot of us in the early wave of the running boom discovered stuff through our own trial and error, so my view is that the most productive way is to follow your intuition about what works.

“One thing I discovered early is: never run more than 20 miles. It’s simple arithmetic. You have 2,000 calories of glycogen stored in your body and you burn it at 100 calories a mile.* Do the math. What happens after 2,000? When you [exhaust] that as a primary energy source, suddenly recovering becomes much more difficult. Instead of being able to go hard on Sundays for your long run and then hard on Monday for the interval session, you’re shot till Wednesday. It throws off the most important aspect of your training which is consistency. Do you want to train basically at your best seven days a week, or 3-4 days a week because you went beyond 20 miles?”

Note: This caloric burn rate is based on a 140 lb marathon runner. To estimate your own expenditure on a 20 mile run, use the formula mentioned earlier. Convert your body weight to kilos and multiply that number times 32 (because 20 miles is about 32km).

TERRENCE MAHON coaches two of the biggest names in US distance running: Deena Kastor (winner of London and Boston and a 2004 Olympic bronze medal) and Ryan Hall (2008 Olympian who finished third and fourth at Boston in 2009 and 2010, respectively).

“I think the best [marathoners] have great ability to adapt to the conditions,” Mahon said. “It’s inevitable that a wrench gets thrown in – whether it’s a travel snafu, your normal meal gets messed up, or the wind’s blowing in the opposite direction. The great ones don’t let their emotions overrun them.

“The classic with Deena was in Athens. She ran so opposite of what she normally wants to do. Deena’s typically a front runner, very aggressive with the pace. But because it was hot, humid, and the course was hilly in the beginning, she had to adapt a totally different style and make that her own if she was going to be successful.”

She was a 2:21 runner but Mahon said she would probably need to run 2:27 or 2:28 on that course to earn a medal. “Tell that to an athlete who has run six minutes faster, and they don’t get that excited about it,” he said, but “she had faith in the process. If she was emotional and thought, ‘These are the Olympics and I have to be up front if I want to get a medal,’ more than likely, she wouldn’t have.

“The way Ryan ran the Olympic Trials was a similar case. Central Park is a hard, hilly course. One of the big issues we talked about is not to run the whole 26 miles super-hard. He was really, early on: ‘Well, what if some random guy’s leading, and we’re jogging at a six minute pace? I hate that. I want to run honest and make it a hard effort for everybody.’ We basically had to break it down and come up with different goals for that race so that he wouldn’t get overwhelmed emotionally. We talked about running really well for the last 10 miles and rehearsed that in practice, so once he got to that point in the race, he was, ‘Okay, this is what I was supposed to do.’ Then he felt like he had a lot more energy than he would have had.” (Hall won easily, 2 minutes and 5 seconds ahead of the runner-up, Ritzenhein.)

Mahon’s advice: “Understand the big picture.” Resist the tendency to be myopic. “If the weather swings 20 degrees and you think it’s only hot for you, you’ll have a meltdown – as opposed to: it’s the same conditions for everybody and therefore you can make a better adjustment.”

MEB KEFLEZIGHI earned a silver medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics and won the 2009 New York City marathon. After 13 marathons and myriad injuries, he takes nothing for granted.

“If you can stay healthy and have consistent training, there should be no reason why you can’t run well,” he said.

“For me, the key is not even the running part. It’s what I do afterwards. [UCLA basketball] coach John Wooden used to tell his athletes that it’s not the two hours that we practice, it’s how you take care of yourself in the next 22: sleeping, eating, resting, nutrition.’ I believe that.”

Keflezighi’s advice: When you’re running, “Try to build [miles gradually]. Run on a soft surface when you can; if there’s a bike path and grass, stay on the grass.” Afterwards, he said, “Ice is one of your best friends. And stretch – for at least two minutes!”

Finally, none of this advice – practice taking nutrition, determine your caloric needs, experiment with mileage, stay positive, adapt to conditions, and take care of your body – can be done as effectively without the final tip, from 71-year-old BOB LARSEN, the former UCLA track coach and co-founder the Mammoth Track Club in Mammoth Lakes, California, who has worked with Keflezighi since 1994.

To train effectively takes time. “I think people would have a richer experience if they chose a marathon two years from now – or at least a year from now,” he said, adding that the longer people adhere to the positive lifestyle changes associated with training for a marathon, the longer they would be likely to stick with them years later.

Ultimately, he said, “The marathon is a reward that you did this work – that you built your mileage up to 50 miles a week or more – that you enjoyed the process, that you didn’t rush it.”

Marathoner Kara Goucher is due in September, giving her time to train for the 2012 Olympics

Kara Goucher met her deadline for becoming pregnant and will have about 22 months after the birth of her baby boy to prepare for the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Goucher, 32, and husband Adam are spending the down year of 2010 — with no major championship on the calendar — to begin their family and move into a new home in Northwest Portland.

The running community has been abuzz over Goucher’s pregnancy since she publicly stated last year that she planned to try to have a baby and then proceed with her goal of winning a medal in the marathon at the 2012 Games.

Goucher said her pregnancy is going well, and she is looking forward with all of her competitive goals intact.

There will be about 15 months after she gives birth to train and prepare for the Olympic Trials marathon, set for Jan.14, 2012, in Houston.

“The question for me is, I took the year off, can I get in a marathon in before the trials?” Goucher said. “That’s been a concern, but I feel like I’ll be able to run a spring marathon (in 2011).”

After she finished third last year in her first Boston Marathon — a loss that stung her deeply because she felt she made a tactical mistake that cost her the race — Goucher decided to keep training and run one more.

She ran in the IAAF World Championships marathon in Berlin, in August, and finished 10th.

After swallowing the disappointment of that result, Goucher moved into a window of off-time in order to have a baby.

Goucher said she doesn’t regret going public with her intentions but was surprised by how many people took an interest.

“I don’t regret saying I wanted to have a baby because I’m a terrible liar,” Goucher said. “I do wish I had been prepared for the fact that every question that came after that was going to be about the baby. It became the focus of a lot of interviews.”

There was certainly some pressure, then, to get pregnant. And month after month last fall, it didn’t happen.

It was a difficult time for her, emotionally.

“I was very frustrated because I felt like I had no control over my life,” she said.

It was when she let go of that control, and started thinking it wasn’t going to happen before her self-imposed deadline had lapsed, that she got the good news. That came Jan. 18.

“The month that I really didn’t have any hope is the month that it happened,” Goucher said.

Paula Radcliffe, the British marathoner and world record holder, was in Portland for a three-month visit, during which she trained daily with Goucher and imparted her own experiences with time off for pregnancy and the return to high-level training.

And Radcliffe was under the same schedule for trying to have a second child with time to prepare for the Olympics in her home country.

Three days after Goucher learned she was pregnant, Radcliffe got identical news. And the doctor who saw them both set their due dates on the same day: Sept. 29.

“It helped to have someone going through (the pregnancy) at the same time, even though we didn’t have the exact same feelings on the exact same day,” Radcliffe told The New York Times. “If you haven’t gone through pregnancy, you don’t know what that type of tiredness feels like, what being wiped out feels like. I didn’t sit down and lecture (Kara); I passed along bits (of advice) to her.”

Goucher intended to tell the world of her pregnancy after her first trimester screening in March, but her doctor’s measurements revealed that the baby had a 1 in 32 chance of having a chromosomal abnormality — instead of the typical 1 in 1,000.

Goucher said she met with Radcliffe after she got that news and spent a morning sobbing with her, worried sick that something was wrong. For six weeks, the Gouchers nervously waited to have another test that would reveal more information about the health of the baby.

The test result, during the 18th week of Goucher’s pregnancy, showed that everything was normal.

“Only when I sat down and finally wrote a long-delayed group e-mail announcing my pregnancy to my old high school friends did I break down crying for joy and relief,” Goucher wrote on her blog.

Goucher continues to run, albeit slower. She said she would tally as many as 80 miles last week — half by jogging outside and half on an Alter-G treadmill, a training device that minimizes impact on her legs and feet.

“I do my hard workouts on the treadmill and do my easy runs outside,” she said. “I like to say I’ll run all the way up to the day I give birth, but we’ll see.”

Goucher is under almost constant supervision by her doctor and plans to use a fetal heart-rate monitor during her third trimester.

“I definitely want to work out every day at least once,” she said. “I cannot see myself taking a day off.”

That attitude comes from her work ethic and a competitive desire to be the best. She doesn’t feel good about her day — pregnant or not — without running.

“I don’t want to let myself go because I want to come back quickly,” Goucher said. “But my priority right now is the baby. Running comes second.”

– Doug Binder, Special to The Oregonian

By Peter Gambaccini

Kara Goucher, the 2007 World Championships 10,000-meter bronze medalist and third-place finisher in the 2008 New York City Marathon (2:25:53) and 2009 Boston Marathon is (along with husband Adam Goucher) expecting her first child, a son; the due date is September 29. The pregnancy was a very well-kept secret until a “New York Times” article divulged it this past weekend. Goucher and world marathon record-holder Paula Radcliffe, with whom she trained for more than three months in Oregon, are actually due to give birth on the same day.

Goucher was second in the 10,000 and won the 5000 at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene and was 10th in the 10,000 at the Beijing Olympics in a personal best 30:55.16 and ninth in a slow-paced 5000. Her 5000 best is 14:55.02. In 2009, Goucher won the NYRR Women’s Mile at the Millrose Games in New York (4:33.19) and the 3000 at the Reebok Boston Indoor Games in 8:46.65. In September 2007, Goucher won the Great North Run, a half-marathon from Newcastle to South Shields, England, defeating Paula Radcliffe in 1:06:57. The former Kara Grgas-Wheeler attended the University of Colorado and won the 3000 and 5000 at the 2000 NCAA Track & Field Championships outdoors and was the 2000 NCAA Cross Country champion. She and husband Adam Goucher, another Colorado alumnus, live in Portland, Oregon, and are coached by Alberto Salazar, the three-time New York City Marathon champion.

Congratulations. You learned of your pregnancy in January, which is happy personal news for you, but it also means there’s a feasible timetable for you to get back in shape for the Trials (the U.S. Olympic Women’s Marathon Trials on January 14, 2012 in Houston).
Kara Goucher: Yeah. That situation is different for me, obviously, because I’ve taken this year off. We had some problems getting pregnant but we found out in January, and for us, that felt like a relief because it was a few extra months (to come back after motherhood). I kind of have this dream that I’ll be able to run Boston next year. It might be a little rushed. But it just is great. And I’ll be able to do a full track season next year, and I will be ready for the Trials. I’ll definitely be ready for the Trials.

Even while trying to get pregnant in 2009, had you been running a pretty full load of work in those months up to January?
KG: No. I backed off a lot during that time period. And I backed off a lot during the first eight weeks (of pregnancy). I mean, I was running every day, but I had backed off significantly. And once I found out I was pregnant, I didn’t lift weights for about eight weeks or so. And once I got the okay that everything was progressing and I was kind of out of the woods of a miscarriage, then I kind of started to do more and more to where I am now, which is about 70 miles a week and lifting three days a week. But it’s all relative.  I have great days and I have bad days. I just have to roll with it.

There are reasons why women don’t want to reveal any news in the first trimester. But this, the prospect of your pregnancy, was an ongoing topic on message boards and such. People were thinking “well, it’s getting to be April, it’s getting to be May, if nothing’s happening, maybe she should do a fall marathon.” You managed to keep the world in the dark about all this.
KG: You know, that actually wasn’t my intention. At 12 weeks, I was ready to tell the world, and at 12 weeks, I went in for a first trimester screening and I had positive screen for a baby with a chromosomal abnormality. So I wanted to know if my baby was going to be healthy or what I was going to be dealing with before I told the world. And I wasn’t able to have an amniocentesis, basically, until 18 weeks. There was a long stretch there where I was dying to tell, and Paula (Radcliffe) was ready to tell, but I couldn’t tell. I just needed to know what I was going to be dealing with before I shared it with the public. I was very open about wanting to have a baby so I wanted to very open with everybody once I was pregnant, but I just felt like if I do have a special needs baby, I need to know that and accept that and everything before I share it with the world. That’s why it took me so long to tell.

Did that apparent chromosomal abnormality amount to anything?
KG: We tried to have an amnio at 15 weeks and we couldn’t do one safely then and we tried again at 16 weeks and it still wasn’t safe. So we had one at 18 weeks, and we found out within 24 hours that it was perfectly healthy. It was a roller coaster. My sister was also pregnant and she lost her baby at 14 weeks; she had the same due date as Paula and I. So it was a very big roller coaster of emotions and we’re just so happy now to have good news and be able to just not worry about it anymore and enjoy it, ’cause for those six weeks, until I found out there wasn’t a problem, were quite stressful, to be honest.

I’m sorry you had to go through that.
KG: It’s okay, and everything happens for a reason. Now we’re overjoyed. We really are.

It’s always interesting when secrets can be kept. The baby bump must have been visible to people in the Oregon running community and writers for the ‘Register-Guard’ or the ‘Oregonian’ could have spilled the beans, but it seems everybody decided to respect your privacy.
KG: Everybody was really respectful. And I know a lot of people have known. I mean, it’s obvious (laughs). I don’t look like I normally look, and I have quite a bump.  I’d be doing track workouts and just dying, and people would cheer for me and say “why aren’t you running faster,” and then they’d realize “really?” But everyone was just really respectful about it. No one really asked me about it, so it worked out great. It isn’t like I didn’t want to share, ’cause I did. I wanted to tell everybody. But like I said, I just needed to know what we were dealing with before I told.

We had seen the blog you wrote about your friendship with Paula, who’d spent three months in Oregon, and how tearful you were to see her leave. But there was an unspoken element in that piece, which was that you were both expectant mothers. But her arrival in Oregon and the training you did together – did that start before either of you knew you were pregnant?
KG: She actually came out in early December and just sort of checked out the (Salazar) program. Alberto was encouraging her to come check it out and just see, because she’d had these little nagging injuries over the years 2009 Millrose Games Madison Square Garden, NYC, NY January 30and maybe there’s something missing from her preparation. She came out and worked out with us for a few days and we talked a lot then. She knew I was trying to get pregnant and was just a great person to talk to. Then she went to Ireland for the holidays but she came right back in the very beginning of January and she stayed for a little over three months at that point. That’s kind of how it happened. She decided to come out and to learn our new program, our new weight and strength program, just see if she could get over some of these things that have cost her a chance to run at the World Championships, a chance to run at the Olympics, little nagging things that have been creeping up with her.

You and Paula have the same ‘due date,’ September 29. Did you actually find out on the same day?
KG: I found out earlier, because I actually went to the doctor and had a blood test, and she was doing an at-home kit, which takes a few days longer. But when she found out, she ended up going to see my doctor and they measured the baby and everything, and we have exactly the same date.

From the time you spent with Paula, from the point of view of an athlete and a runner, what did you learn from her?
KG: She just sort of demystifies everything because she’s run so fast in every event from the 3K up – I mean, even the 1500 up through the marathon. You just think that there’s some secret thing she’s doing that you just don’t know about. But after training with her for so long, she’s good because she does the work, and she never skimps. She always does her second workout and she always does all her strength stuff and all the little extra stuff – the core stuff, little exercises she does. Over time, she told me a lot about her workouts. We did one long run where I just pestered her about what she did before she ran 2:15 (2:15:25, Radcliffe’s marathon world record), and it was great. It made it seem like anything can happen. She really reiterated that with proper training and just no limits set on yourself, anything can happen. She got there just from working hard. There is no secret potion.

We first saw her in New York in 1995, when she came in for the Fifth Avenue Mile. She lost; she came in second. She wasn’t going to let that stand. She came in the next year and won, and came back the year after that and own, and then moved on to the rest of her life.
KG: You know, she is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my life and she is gracious to everybody, all her competitors, but she is tough as nails. And she’s as competitive as anybody. You cannot imagine how badly she wants to perform well. I think sometimes people get tricked because she’s genuinely just that nice, but there’s a fire in her to be the best at everything, and she’s pretty awesome.

Well, this is something else that must mean a lot to you as a fellow marathoner. I know that in your first marathon, you obviously ran a lot with her (ultimately placing third in New York in 2008). But she’s capable of putting the hammer down at right at the beginning and going all the way regardless of what anybody else decides to do. When you ask her about what other people might have been up to in the race, she pretty clearly indicates it’s her race, she’s capable of handling the entire pace and burden by herself, it doesn’t matter what anyone else does.
KG: We talked about that quite a bit, because she knows that one of my goals is to run 2:18, and she said “you will not do it by sitting behind and running tactically. You have to be willing to just hear the gun go off and do the work.” And she really reiterated that with me, that there will come a point where I just have to do it. And she’s in control; when she races, everyone else is basing their plan and their strategy off of what she’s doing. And she’s not going to anything that isn’t right for Paula. It doesn’t matter who’s in the race. And I think she’s really great, because she knows herself so well.

In the ING New York City Marathon with Gete Wami in 2007, there were a couple of points where Paula feel behind late, and there were people in the press room saying ‘oh, Wami’s going to win it.’ I was not one of these people. But when I asked her later if those moments concerned her, she quite flatly stated ‘no, I know exactly what I was doing.’ She might have been as many as 15 meters behind, and it looked a little scary, but she was confident.
KG: I remember. I was on the press truck, I was freaking out, because she had led the whole thing and I was like “great, now she’s going to lose,” and then the next thing I knew, she was pulling away from her (from Wami). Nevermind.

What was it like for you to watch the spring marathons without being able to participate?
KG: I’m just a fan of track and field in general, and marathoning, so I like to watch it, but it was the first time that I was like “I really miss it. I miss competing.” In the fall (of 2009), with New York and everything, I was just so busy with trying to get pregnant, and my mind was really preoccupied. But especially watching Boston, I really wish I was there. I was a little envious.

You mentioned you’re now doing 70 miles a week. From what we read, you’re evaluating your situation with coaches and doctors, almost on a daily basis, how this can and should be adjusted and how much needs to be adjusted, right?
KG: Yeah, I talk to my doctor quite a bit. Yesterday, I did mile repeats in 4:55 on the Alter-G (treadmill). We’re trying to move my harder workouts more to the Alter-G but we’ll still trying to determine that that’s going to be safe. It’s just constantly calling experts. Between Alberto and my doctor, everyone’s just talking. Alberto has so many resources. There’s a lot of discussion constantly. You know, I will not do anything that’s not safe. I would never do that.

Obviously, the reason for the Alter-G is that lower impact, if it can be achieved, is desirable.
KG: Yeah, and also, I am slowing down, and I can’t run 4:55 miles anymore outside. It’s a chance for me to keep some of that muscle memory alive. I took off 10 pounds yesterday (Sunday) and I was able to do 4:55. If I went outside, I don’t know if I could run under 6:00 right now. It’s another way for me, at least in my mind, to feel like I’m keeping that edge and think that I’ll be able to come back quicker because the muscle memory will be there. Maybe that’s not true, but I believe it’s going to work (laughs).

Just so people understand, when you say ‘take off 10 pounds,’ it means the Alter-G is adjusted so that the impact is equivalent to a person who weighs 10 pounds less than what you weigh.
KG: Right. It’s calibrated to what my weight is right now, and I can literally take off five pounds, 10 pounds, 15 pounds, two pounds, whatever it is that I want. And I’ve been running with 10 pounds off, and I’m able to do workouts I was able to do before.

As we said, this will be evaluated as you go along, but when it gets to be August, what do you think will be happening?
KG: I’ll just have to see. I really imagined I would just train through the whole thing. But talking to Paula, in her third trimester (with her first child, daughter Isla), she really did back off quite a bit. But she still worked out every day; maybe it was in the pool, or maybe it was on the bike. I’m hoping to go all the way and train through the entire pregnancy. But I’ve been surprised at how much slower I’ve gotten, even in the last two weeks, so I know I won’t be able to keep up, maybe, the intensity that I have so far.

Long ago, I saw a woman who’d once came in second in the New York City Marathon out running when she was very pregnant with twins, and she was doing speedwork. I think she gave birth that week. That was certainly a new idea at the time.
KG: And it’s all relative. I’m sure it was crazy to see her doing speedwork. But I’m sure to her, the speedwork was so slow. The other thing people need to understand is, like I said, I’m not out there doing mile repeats in 4:55. I’m out there doing easy runs and doing 200s in 37. It’s all relative. Those are workouts I’d be ashamed to be caught doing normally.

You’re going to making appearances at road races for a while, aren’t you?
KG: Yeah, June is actually a pretty busy month for me because that’s probably the last month that I’ll feel comfortable to travel a lot. So I’ll go to a couple of Rock ‘n’ Roll races. I’ll go to Grandma’s Marathon (in Duluth, where she grew up). And I’ll be at the Mini in New York.

And the plan is to run the New York Mini (a 10K) with Paula at a reduced pace?
KG: Oh, definitely a reduced pace. It will not be fast. We’ll just run together and enjoy it. Yeah, we definitely want to run it.

This will obviously have to be re-evaluated after the birth of your child, but we assume you’ve had conversations with Alberto about a spring 2011 marathon. Assuming all goes well, do you think from October 1 to April whatever, you could regain quite a bit of your fitness and speed?
KG: Just like you said, we’ll have to see how it goes. It’s a goal in pencil, it’s not a goal in pen, to be ready to run Boston, honestly. We know it probably won’t be my best marathon ever but we don’t  think there’s any reason why it couldn’t be a really good solid one. Just with the placement of the Trials and everything, it really might be my only chance to run a marathon (before the Trials). But if I’m not ready, we’ll not do it. But that seed’s been implanted.

But it would appear likely you’ll only do one marathon before the Olympic Trials.
KG: Yeah. I think that if I couldn’t run a spring marathon, I most likely would not run a marathon before the Trials. I would just run a half. I don’t really see myself running a World Championships marathon. I see myself running on the track (Goucher can qualify for the Marathon Trials with a half-marathon time).

What’s up with your husband Adam’s running? Has he had a little injury setback?
KG: He had a little setback, yeah. He was going great. He had had eight really great weeks at over 100 miles and started to feel a little soreness in his hip and it turned out to be a stress reaction in his hip. He had to take a couple of weeks off. He’s just started train again and he’s hoping that the training will come back really quickly. He was going to do the Healthy Kidney (10K in New York on May 15) but he’s not going to do that right now. He would love to do some road races and especially a half-marathon or two this summer so we’ll have to see how quickly he comes back.

Mother’s Day touched Duluth native and Olympic runner Kara Goucher for the first time Sunday. She found out in January she was pregnant with her first child, and she and her husband, Adam, were told 10 days ago that the baby boy was completely healthy.

By: Kevin Pates

By SARAH BOWEN SHEA

In January, when the elite marathoner Kara Goucher found out she was pregnant, she knew exactly whom to ask for advice. Paula Radcliffe, the women’s world-record holder and mother of a 3-year-old daughter, had just arrived in Portland, Ore., to train with her.

The topic of pregnancy became more personal for Radcliffe a few days later when she, too, learned she was expecting. She and Goucher are due to give birth on the same date in late September.

“We were both really excited and really happy,” said Goucher, who had been forthright in her desire to have a baby in time to regroup for the 2012 Olympics.

Before this year, the friendship between Goucher, a 32-year-old American, and Radcliffe, a 36-year-old Briton, was based mainly on e-mail messages with occasional meetings at races. They became acquainted at the 2007 Great North Run, a prestigious half-marathon in England, in which Goucher staged a surprise win over Radcliffe. A few weeks later, Goucher watched Radcliffe win the New York City Marathon.

“There was a lot of respect there, but I didn’t know her well enough to classify her as a good friend,” Radcliffe said in a phone interview.

They grew close while spending their first trimester together.

“She’s now one of my very best friends,” Goucher said in a recent interview at Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Ore. “I feel I can ask her anything, and she’ll tell me. That came over time. It wasn’t like I asked her everything on our first run.”

In the first few weeks of pregnancy, Goucher and Radcliffe met every morning at 9:30, after Radcliffe dropped off her daughter, Isla. They ran together, doing tempo runs, hill repeats and track workouts wearing heart-rate monitors to gauge their intensity. They occasionally met in the afternoon for a second workout, although Goucher often napped instead because of pregnancy-induced fatigue.

“It helped to have someone going through it at the same time even though we didn’t have the exact same feelings on the exact same day,” Radcliffe said. “If you haven’t gone through pregnancy, you don’t know what that type of tiredness feels like, what being wiped out feels like.”

Goucher, who finished third in the 2008 New York City and 2009 Boston marathons, benefited from Radcliffe’s advice to leave her watch at home during hill repeats and to cut runs short when she feels a twinge.

“She’s been giving me a lot of advice on chilling out,” Goucher said. “She helped me realize I’m not failing. She’s helped me realize I can just push to my limits.”

Radcliffe said she did not see herself as a “mommy mentor.”

She added: “I didn’t sit down and lecture her; I passed along bits to her,” by consulting the training diary she kept during her first pregnancy. “It helped her accept it.”

Radcliffe reminded Goucher to eat before lifting weights, which they started doing together at Week 8 of their pregnancies.

“I felt a bit like a mum when I’d nag her to eat,” Radcliffe said, laughing.

Goucher cited recent solo workouts as proof she had listened.

On May 2, she ran 13 miles at 6 minutes 50 seconds per mile. But the next day, she ran six miles at an 8:15 pace.

“I was tired on that run,” Goucher said. “That used to upset me when I’d have a bad day, but now I know it is what it is. When I feel really tired, I’ll just cut my mileage back and in the afternoon do the elliptical or bike.”

But Radcliffe said they were “competitive animals” who occasionally pushed themselves too hard. They told of a track workout that consisted of various sprints, and they took turns leading.

Goucher said she ran too fast “because it was Paula Radcliffe running behind me.” Then Radcliffe felt she had to lead as fast as Goucher had. Looking at their monitors during a brief respite, their heart rates skyrocketed, Goucher said. They recruited Radcliffe’s husband, Gary Lough, to lead them for the remainder of the workout.

Their training is intense but within the most recent physical-activity guidelines for pregnant women from the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

“The recommendations say women can sustain the level of their activity prior to pregnancy,” said Danielle Symons Downs, an associate professor of kinesiology and obstetrics and gynecology at Penn State who researches pregnancy and exercise.

Radcliffe and Goucher, she said, are “right in the guidelines with their vigorous activity.”

Other experts disagree.

“I don’t know it’s safe for high-level marathon runners to run at that level during pregnancy,” said Dr. Mona Shangold, the director of the Center for Women’s Health and Sports Gynecology in Philadelphia. “It has not been shown that running for that long, for that intensity, is safe.”

Nonetheless, Goucher and Radcliffe are planning to convene for the New York Mini 10K, a women’s race on June 12 in Central Park put on by the New York Road Runners.

“It’s an excuse for us to get together; a chance to hang together before we get too pregnant to travel,” Goucher said with a laugh. “We are really just running it for fun. Not racing.”

Radcliffe agreed, adding that they may have Mary Wittenberg, the Road Runners’ president, accompany them to ensure that they do not go too fast.

As for their competitive paths and relationship after they give birth, Goucher and Radcliffe intend to qualify for the 2012 Olympic marathon in London.

“When both of us stand on the start line and the gun goes off, we both want to win that race,” Radcliffe said. “But there’s room for a really good friendship at the same time.”

The guys hit Fan Five again, talk Vikes Draft, Twin, and then interview Great Duluth Marathoner Kara Goucher.

Download

It was a gorgeous day for a run at Lake Nokomis in Minneapolis! And who better than 2009 World Champion marathoner Kara Goucher to signal the start of the Live Earth Run for Water Minneapolis!?! To nobody’s surprise, Kara was also the first to finish the 6K run/walk.

Selection of Houston over New York, Boston draws mixed reactions from runners, ire of NYRR

By Joe Battaglia, Universal Sports

Mary Wittenberg knew an announcement was imminent, but hadn’t heard a word.

As the president of the influential New York Road Runners she was perhaps more anxious than anyone to learn if she would get the chance to host the U.S. Olympic Trials marathon for the second straight quadrennial.

On the morning of March 1, she placed a phone call to USA Track & Field.

Not too long thereafter she received an email.

“We were exchanging messages for a while on both sides and when it got to be the Monday after the (USATF) board meeting, I was wondering, ‘What’s the deal?’” Wittenberg said. “I reached out to them that morning and then we get an email saying that we didn’t get it and they were announcing in an hour that Houston was getting it.”

When USA Track & Field announced that Houston had been selected as the host city for both the men’s and women’s Olympic Trials marathons to be held on January 14, 2012, a day prior to the 40th anniversary run of the Houston Marathon, it was received with surprise by many in the sport.

Given the overall success of the men’s Olympic Trials marathon in New York in November of 2007 and the women’s race in Boston in April of 2008, it was widely believed the two cities, home of two of the five World Marathon Majors races, would be shoe-ins to host again.

USATF CEO Doug Logan even believed, for a while, that the Trials would go back to New York and Boston. But upon further evaluation, he said Houston, which hosted the women’s Trials in 1992, became a more viable option.

“I was pretty much locked into a two track approach, saying these two tracks served us well last time, they’d serve us well this time,” Logan said during a sit-down interview in Doha, Qatar during the IAAF World Indoor Championships in March. “When I took that level of entrenchment apart and really started looking with some vitality into putting (both races) under one roof, it started to bring some interesting and positive feedback.”

It is clear that there was no single overriding factor that swayed the decision in Houston’s favor. As Logan himself said, “Intricate, complex problems often have a simple, elegant answer that is wrong.”

But the selection of Houston has raised interesting questions weighing what’s best for the athletes and what’s best for the long-term strength of distance running in America. It has also revealed signs of a potential rift between the national governing body and a major player in the running industry.

“It’s like a cold shower,” Wittenberg said last week in Manhattan. “What this says is that despite my and our desire to work in a climate where we you pull together, this suggests we’re maybe better off focusing in on things that we can own and control and delivering for the sport in that way. I’m not ready to conclude that, but it’s certainly what the question becomes for us.”

Let the bidding begin

According to Wittenberg, the process for securing the right to host the Trials began in earnest a year ago. She said that she and George Hirsch, chairman of the NYRR Board of Directors, met with Logan in Boston during marathon weekend to discuss hosting the Trials, and at that time there was no bidding process outlined.

“We met again in New York the night before the marathon and we found out that there was going to be an official process and that bids would be entertained during the USATF national convention in December,” Wittenberg said.

Wittenberg said that the NYRR, along with representatives of the Boston Marathon and Houston Marathon were in Indianapolis for the convention and presented bids to a committee that included Logan, USATF Associate Director of Marketing and Long Distance Running Programs Jim Estes, athlete representatives Magdalena Lewy Boulet and Eduardo Torres, USATF Long Distance Running Committee chairs Virginia Brophy Achman and Glenn Latimer, and a representative of Nike.

According to Logan, Houston proposed to host both the men’s and women’s Trials and bid $1.7 million to host both races, while New York and Boston both bid $500,000 in proposals to host one race each, with USA Track & Field expected to make up the difference monetarily.

“We proposed that effectively we would share the cost and thought it was natural for them (USATF) to pick up a portion,” Wittenberg said. “First we said let’s try to go and drive a lot of revenue together by trying to bring in corporate partners, as hard as that is, try to see if there are donors who would support it, and then let’s be closer to splitting the difference. We wanted to know from the beginning that we’re not holding the whole bag.”

Wittenberg said that she soon learned that New York’s bid was not going to cut the mustard.

“I talked to Doug again later in December,” Wittenberg said. “He said, ‘You’ve got to up that bid substantially.’ He said if we upped it, we would be in the running. It was clearly a numbers issue at that point. So I went back to our staff and our Board and we carefully considered it. We take a commitment of a million dollars seriously, even when it’s for something as phenomenal as the Olympic Trials. We felt like the best thing to do for the sport and for us over these next 18 months, what better way to elevate everything we’re doing with the kids and everything else, then to host the Trials again.”

Wittenberg said that while Boston was unprepared to raise the amount in its financial package, NYRR agreed to fully fund hosting of one race provided that an agreement could be reached on advertising revenue. Although Wittenberg said she was involved in a number of productive sponsor and donor calls with Estes and the USOC, it is clear USATF was not willing to concede on this issue.

“I think there was some hubris involved,” Logan said. “If the bids were in spec from day one, and they said, ‘We’ll put our money up,’ I’m not sure of what I would have done. I think for them to think that their name meant dollars, and that I was going to forgo almost a million dollars on their good looks is hubris.”

A more attractive bid

As New York’s bid seemed to come with more conditions attached, Houston presented USA Track & Field with a Godfather-style bid.

In the end, it was one Logan could not refuse.

Firstly, its overall package of $1.7 million involved no calls for sharing of advertising revenue and its promise of $300,000 in prize money exceeded the USATF recommendation of $250,000. Secondly, the civic support for holding the event was overwhelming.

“I’ve been to (the Houston Marathon) the last two years and stuck my nose into every nook and cranny,” Logan said. “Those guys know what they’re doing. They are as good of event managers as there are. And the city is extraordinarily enthusiastic. The press announcement was done in City Hall with the mayor and members of the city council in a rotunda with 80 or 90 important people to the LOC.”

According to Houston Marathon Committee board chair Brant Kotch, it was all part of their strategy.

“We went into [the bidding process] with our eyes wide open,” Kotch told Universal Sports in January. “Plus, the timing of our race [mid-January] is perfect for the Trials.”

In addition to the financial package, Logan said one of the things that made Houston’s bid so attractive was where it falls on the calendar. Contesting the Trials on January 14 would give athletes approximately 30 weeks to prepare to race at the London Olympics.

“When I was down there, I said, ‘Why Houston? You ought to go thank January,’” Logan said. “Prior to taking this job, I did not go to Boston to see the women run. I did see the men’s Trials in New York. It was a great spectacle. It was a nice course, visually a very appealing course. But there was some question in my mind as to whether we got the right bang for the buck by having the Trials split.

“The races were four-and-a-half or five months apart so you had two completely different training regimens, men and women. One could get in an additional race and the other one there was some question as to whether or not the recovery time was right. The more I talked to people, they said New York is too long of a period of time and Boston is too short of a period of time.”

Wittenberg disagrees.

“Distance runners are not gearing up for January ever,” she said. “These are all people who train for a spring and a fall. Not that they can’t break out of that, but why not go with what they know and have been doing year in and year out”

Timing is everything

Is January what’s truly best for the runners?

Not surprisingly, it depends on the runner.

Kara Goucher, who has taken the entire 2010 season off while trying to start a family, had mixed feelings about the timing of the Trials as it relates to her personal situation.

“As a person who truly believes she can medal, having the almost eight-month time between the Trials and the Olympics is perfect,” Goucher said. “My only concern is that it eliminates the chance to do a spring or fall marathon.  I know that for most athletes this is no big deal, but for me, taking all of 2010 off, I would like to have had the chance to run another world-class marathon before the Olympic Games. But, this is my own personal situation that I have put myself in by taking this year off.  If I wasn’t taking this year off, I’d run two marathons this year, a spring in 2011 and be all set.”

Abdi Abdirahman, a 2008 Olympian in the 10,000m who is focusing on earning a place on the U.S. marathon team in 2012, does not like the fact that timing of the Trials in all likelihood would prevent him from running a fall marathon, like Chicago or New York, in 2011 or a spring marathon, like Boston or London, in 2012.

“Having most of a year to get ready is okay, but from what I understand it won’t allow us to run any marathons in between and they shouldn’t be controlling people like that,” Abdirahman said. “You really only need three or four months to train. A place like New York would be perfect because the timing of the race would allow you to make the team, train, and run another race.

“As it is now there are going to be a lot of guys who won’t be able to run another race for almost a year. When running is your livelihood, you will be losing a lot of money in appearance fees and prize money by not getting to run another race. We’re going to be stuck like in the middle of no-man’s land.

“It’s also hard for guys like me and Dathan (Ritzenhein) who also like to run on the track. I was hoping to go to the World Championships next summer but I’m not sure I will be able to if I am focusing on the Trials.”

Wittenberg believes that from a national-team standpoint holding the Trials in January was a brilliant move by USA Track & Field because it practically guarantees a strong U.S. marathon team for the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea.

“From Doug’s perspective, the top athletes will now run Daegu,” Wittenberg said. “Why not? They can’t run Chicago and they can’t run New York. He’s got a World Championships team because it is the only race of any significance that athletes can run, other than Berlin, after the spring of 2011.”

2004 Olympic marathon bronze medalist Deena Kastor, who sits on the USATF Board of Directors, acknowledged that the timing of the Trials would most likely leave the World Championships and the Berlin Marathon as the only viable race options prior to the Trials.

“I probably won’t run a spring or previous fall marathon unless it’s September time,” she said. “That would give you enough time to recover after that race. World Championships and Berlin would be in play. Chicago and New York would be a little late to prepare properly for and then recover in time for the Trials. But crazier things have happened. I wouldn’t be surprised to see someone try it.”

Meb Keflezighi knows a thing or two about running on short preparation. Following his silver medal victory at the Athens Olympics in 2004 he ran in the New York City Marathon on just 77 days of preparation, and finished second. He said he is unsure how he will attack the schedule.

“I would have to sit down and talk to my coach,” he said. “But I know I have done something that really no one else has done, and that’s run two major marathons in 70 days (Athens Olympics and New York City Marathon in 2004). The Trials are all about making the team. You don’t have to set world record. Given what I’ve done, I can’t say it would be out of the question.”

Getting the team on course

According to Logan, two of the other swaying considerations that went in Houston’s favor were the course and the willingness to host both Trials races.

Logan said that although the exact course route for the races is still being worked out and about six months away from being finalized, the layout will be flat and fast, similar to what is expected of the London Olympic course.

“The athletes really like the idea of being able to replicate the London course,” Logan said. “It’s going to be a very flat course, very similar to the kind of course they will get over in London. They really like that, men and women, and we canvassed them all.”

Abdirahman said the course being hilly or flat doesn’t matter to him.

“As athletes you prepare for any conditions,” he said. “The guys who are going to make the team can run well on the flat course or run well on a hilly course. It’s not going to matter for the top six guys. Ryan Hall can run on a flat course or hilly course. Meb is the same way. Dathan is the same way. I’m the same way. All of the other guys are the same way.”

Keflezighi added, “26.2 miles is always 26.2 miles, whether there are hills or it’s flat.”

Logan said he also liked the idea of having the men’s and women’s Olympic marathon teams decided on the same day in the same place.

“I think it is going to build a racing camaraderie having men and women there at the same time, having the six spots for the team picked there,” he said. “It’s going to create a camaraderie that quite honestly splitting them like we did in ‘08 doesn’t. At the end of the day, you could chalk it up to a wide variety of reasons, but we didn’t cover ourselves in marathon glory in Beijing.”

Some of the athletes seem to support that notion.

“Having the men and women together I think is great,” Goucher said. “It does build more of a ‘team’ feel between the women and the men.  Everyone should have an equal playing field and if we race at the same time then we both have the same time to recover and prepare.”

Kastor said that having both teams decided at the same time would be unlike anything distance runners have experienced in the past.

“I think the Trials selection to have the men and women together is brilliant,” she said. “The energy is going to be unparalleled to anything we’ve experienced before. When you get both Olympic Trials together in one place, it’s going to generate quite a buzz.”

Questions about the media

According to Kotch, creating a buzz around the event was definitely what Houston had in mind when it proposed hosting both races.

“While having both races on the same day may be unconventional, it’s a sure way to capture the most media attention,” he said. “A fundamental principle of warfare is to divide and conquer. If we don’t divide the media into two sites, we can win the battle.”

But can they?

There are certainly going to be obstacles to be overcome.

The first has to do with the timing of the event. The second weekend of January places the Trials dead smack into the middle of an NFL playoff weekend. It raises legitimate questions about how many media outlets will be willing to pull manpower, column inches and airtime away from a mainstream event in favor of what has become a niche sport in America.

But Logan, who said he has already had conversations with NBC about the weekend, doesn’t see any issues.

“Will the NFL playoffs be an interference? Not at all,” Logan said. “It’s a morning event. People who worry about that really aren’t aware of where we are in today’s day and age. Every audience is a fragment. The NFL audience is a huge fragment, but every audience is a fragment. We’re not worried about it all. We’ve talked to prospective media partners and have gotten a positive reaction.”

From a print standpoint, it would seem to stand to reason that having both races on one day in 2012 would pare the sport’s coverage in half. With the Trials in two cities and two different months during the previous quadrennial, it forced coverage of two events.

With both races together and column inches at a premium in newspapers around the country, it is conceivable that coverage could be condensed into one story.

Lewy Boulet contends that given the financial difficulties facing many media outlets, having both races in one place could promote even more coverage.

“The thought behind combining the races is to make the overall package more enticing for media outlets and for sponsors,” she said. “With news outlets’ budgets dwindling almost daily, we’ve already seen the effect on the press’ ability to cover events. Having these races on one day will actually increase the likelihood that a given outlet will be able to cover both races. Otherwise they may have had to choose one or the other, or maybe even neither. More media means more money from sponsors, which ultimately means more support for the athletes.”

Added Logan, “By having both in the same venue, people like you with pens in your hands that have to make a compelling case for travel can say, ‘Look, we have two races we can cover.’”

Was the feeding hand bitten?

Wittenberg said she foresees less promotion of the sport and the athletes under this format.

“They are going to split stories, no matter what,” Wittenberg contends. “You’ve got to be really focused on promoting the athletes. If no one cares about those athletes and no one is going to watch, then there is no business to the sport. Once there is no business to the sport you don’t have anything. You don’t have logos on their chests, you don’t have supporters at these events, and who’s going to care because there is no fan base. If Nike doesn’t promote Kara then who is going to fall in love with Kara?”

It could be argued that no single outlet has played a more significant role in the promotion of distance runners and training camps in America than Wittenberg’s. Over the last five years, the New York Road Runners has pumped $5 million into the sport and has spent nearly another $4 million on professional athletes in its events.

That level of support was one reason why many assumed New York to be a front-runner to host the 2012 Olympic Trials.

“I would have like to see New York get another chance to host the Trials,” Keflezighi said. “They have done so much for the sport.”

When asked if New York deserved another chance to host the Trials based on the success of the 2007 race and its contributions to the sport, Logan said, “They had an opportunity. I have no qualms about saying that.”

It is clear that the process has left NYRR stinging.

“If I were an organization like USATF, I would not want the biggest contributors to distance running to be positioned in a way where it is believed Houston beat New York, Boston and Chicago,” Wittenberg said. “It wasn’t smart because it makes people question us and our commitment to the sport.”

Lewy Boulet said the decision to go to Houston should in no way reflect negatively on the contributions to distance running made by Wittenberg and NYRR.

“New York and Boston did a superb job in 2008,” she said. “The New York Road Runners have always and continue to provide world class events and support for U.S. athletes. But in the end, Houston’s bid had a number of factors that made more sense.”

For his part, Logan said his primary concern during the Trials selection process was putting the U.S. athletes in the best position to succeed in London, not the overall vitality of domestic distance running.

“I have the following job: to select the best American team and put them in the best position to win,” Logan said. “Those who are involved with the sport told us that the best way for that to happen would be to hold the Trials in January. At the end of the day, it was my call to make and so far I’m very pleased with the decision. I don’t have in my charter, mandate, or job description making sure that those three races (Chicago, Boston, New York) are terrific. That’s not my job. That’s somebody else’s job, and they do it quite well.”

Wittenberg called that approach short-sighted and said the two interests should not be mutually exclusive.

“I think the Trials will be fine by the athletes this time,” Wittenberg said. “Houston will do a good job. I think it will be fine but it won’t be great. We were at a point after being at the bottom of the barrel where we made some quantum leaps. This is not going to be a quantum leap for the sport.

I think it’s a leader’s job, USATF’s job and our job, to make sure the Trials work for the athletes, but to also look beyond. Athletes can only look at their four years or eight years or even that one day. Our job as leaders is looking longer term. It’s got to be in the best interests of the athletes in the context of what’s best in the long run for the sport and the athletes. I think there is a balance there that needs to be better struck.

“What’s going to happen four years from now?”

Stars allign for Haiti benefit

Usain Bolt, the fastest man in the world, and Kenenisa Bekele, one of the most highly decorated long distance runners of all time, have pledged their support for the Run for Haiti 4-mile run/walk to benefit the earthquake victims on Saturday, February 20, it was announced today by New York Road Runners officials.

Jamaica’s Bolt is the world record-holder at 100 meters and 200 meters, and is a three-time Olympic gold medal champion. Ethiopia’s Bekele is the world record-holder at 10,000 meters and 5,000 meters, and also a three-time Olympic gold medal winner.

“I am delighted to take part in the NYRR virtual Run for Haiti and would encourage everyone to sign up and run for this worthy cause,” Bolt said in a statement to race officials.

“The Run for Haiti is a great chance for all of us in the sport to come together, regardless of distance specialty, to help in a time of great need,” Bekele said in a statement to race officials. “My heart goes out to Haiti.”

Bolt and Bekele join an illustrious line-up of many of the sport’s greatest stars, such as Grete Waitz of Norway, Paula Radcliffe and Mo Farah of Great Britain, Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia, Vivian Cheruiyot and Linet Masai of Kenya, and Americans Meb Keflezighi, Kara Goucher, Dathan Ritzenhein, and Shalane Flanagan, who have registered to participate in the four-mile virtual run, held in cooperation with NYRR, through MapMyRun.com.

The Run for Haiti, which will be held in Central Park at 9:00 a.m., is a joint effort of New York Road Runners, the Mayor’s Office of New York City, and NYC Department of Parks & Recreation. More than 9,000 people have registered for the Central Park run and nearly $400,000 is expected to be raised, according to NYRR officials. All entry fees will go directly to New York City’s Haiti Relief Fund, which is administered by the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City and directed to the following organizations: the American Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, Partners in Health, and the United Nations World Food Programme.

Kara Goucher always had huge talent, but she also had crises of confidence that sabotaged her big races. Goucher’s admissions about her psychological struggles are rare for an elite athlete, but they will ring true to all of us.

By Bruce Barcott

Her head has always messed with her. For as long as she can recall, it’s thrown hammers at her feet. Some runners have trick knees or fragile hamstrings. She has an undermining psyche. When she toes the line in a 10-K, the runners around her wonder if she’ll set an American record. Inside her head, though, she’s wondering if she can finish without walking. Her mind spits out doubts like a pulsating sprinkler. Chck-chck-chck-chck. It tells her she’s not worthy to compete at nationals, at the World Championships, at the Olympics. Look at the women around her. She’s out of her league. There’s a world record holder. There’s a gold medalist. Compared to them, who is she? She is Kara Goucher, one of the most accomplished American runners of her generation. A decade ago, she won NCAA national titles in 3000 meters, in 5000 meters, and in cross-country. Five years ago, she became the first woman to join the Nike Oregon Project, an elite squad coached by running legend Alberto Salazar and based at the company’s suburban Portland, Oregon, headquarters. In 2006 and 2007, she was a monster in the middle distances: the top-ranked American at 10,000 meters, second at 3000 meters, and top-five at 5000 meters. In 2008, she decided to try her first marathon, an out-of-the-way road rally known as the New York City Marathon. She came in third. Last year she ran Boston—her second 26.2-miler ever—and missed breaking the tape by a mere nine seconds.

And still she has doubts.

“I have a lot of negative chatter in my head,” Goucher tells me in a recent interview. “If I don’t rein it in, my mind will tend to obsess about what everyone else is doing in the race around me. I’ll start comparing myself to everyone else.” When she does that, she says, she saps the strength from her own legs. She morphs from great into okay. When she can block out the critical self-talk, she runs like a champion.

Goucher’s struggle exemplifies a hidden challenge that every distance runner faces: the wrestling match with the mind. I traveled to talk with her in Portland not because the struggle is easy for her but because it’s hard. At 31, she seems to have it all: Top rankings, a long-term deal with Nike, a supportive husband (three-time national cross-country champion Adam Goucher, an Oregon Project teammate), and the beauty of a young Julia Roberts. Yet she’s been remarkably candid about her battles with the mental game. “Everyone has their weakness,” she says. “Mine is confidence. It’s something I’ve struggled with for years.”

Bright, articulate, and witty, Goucher operates with a high degree of self-reflection. She’s one of those rare elite athletes who’s comfortable letting the public peek under the hood. Goucher was a psychology major in college. So not surprisingly, she’s curious about what’s going on in there.

Goucher also represents the next evolutionary phase of the Nike Oregon Project. Nine years ago the shoe company hired Salazar to put together a dream team of American distance runners who might, at long last, challenge the dominance of the Kenyans and Ethiopians. In the past, Salazar has experimented with high-tech strategies to gain speed. From 2001 to 2005, he set up some of his runners in a house that used oxygen-thinning technology to simulate a high-altitude atmosphere, which accelerates the production of red blood cells. Now he’s targeting the mind. Three years ago, the Oregon Project coach brought in a sports psychologist, Dr. Darren Treasure, as a consultant to tune up his team’s mental game. Treasure’s input proved so valuable that last autumn Salazar persuaded the psychologist to relocate to Portland and work with the Oregon Project full time.

A 40ish former rugby pro, Treasure speaks with a faint British accent and dresses business casual. He doesn’t claim to be Goucher’s personal guru or Svengali or even her coach. What he is, he says, is an important member of her support team. He works right alongside Salazar, making sure Goucher’s mind can handle the training load the old marathoner puts on her. Over the past three seasons, their relationship—athlete, coach, and sports psychologist—has developed into one of the most fascinating teams-within-a-team in distance running.

“This isn’t a linear process,” Treasure says. “There are challenges. There is adversity. There are setbacks. But over time you learn to handle the adversity.” He pauses and leans forward to emphasize his next point. “The Kara you see today,” he says, “is a very different person from the young woman I met two and a half years ago.”

The story of that evolution—the development of Goucher’s inner game—is a tale that holds lessons for runners at all levels of the sport.

I DON’T EVEN THINK OF THE PROSPECT of not winning—it never occurs to me,” two-time Olympic decathlon champion Daley Thompson once said. “I really am that confident.” Thompson’s rock-certain belief in himself demonstrates a kind of mental strength we often assume is standard equipment among the world’s top athletes. But if you talk to sports psychologists, you’ll hear another story.

“At the highest levels of running, golf, tennis—whatever sport—confidence is, if not the number one issue, then it’s in the top two or three,” says Jeff Troesch, a California-based mental trainer who’s worked with distance runners, NBA players, Major League Baseball pitchers, and the U.S. women’s soccer team.

Distance runners can be especially exposed to fear and doubt. “The longer the event, the more time you have to think and worry,” says Gloria Balague, a professor of sports psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago who’s worked for many years with USA Track & Field. “The marathon requires a lot of self-discipline, because there’s so much training involved. So distance runners can often be perfectionists. That means that in their minds they always tend to look at what should have been better, and worry about potential adversity.”

One of the keys to confidence, many psychologists say, is for runners to recall and trust their training. “The basis of confidence is performance accomplishments,” says Treasure. Past performances can cut both ways, though. Triumphs can boost confidence. But disasters can rise up like ghosts. Goucher suffers from no shortage of past brilliant performances—and a few spectacular crashes.

There was high school, for instance. Born in New York City, Goucher lived in the area until she was 4, when her father was killed by a drunk driver on the Harlem River Drive. Her mother moved the family to Minnesota. Kara built her reputation at Duluth East High School, winning four state titles in cross-country. During her senior year, though, a growth spurt threw a kink into her biomechanics. She moved slower. College scholarship offers dried up. She failed to qualify for the Foot Locker Cross-Country Championships, the nation’s premiere high school invitational. That was all bad enough. But then came the race with her sister.

“Kendall was only in eighth grade when I was a senior, but in Minnesota, eighth-graders can run for a high school team if they’re good enough,” Goucher says. “She was good enough.”

How’s this for a confidence killer. You’re leading the race. You’ve gapped the pack. There’s only one runner sticking with you. You can’t shake her. And she’s your eighth-grade sister.

“She was afraid of passing me, so finally I said, ‘Just pass me!’ and she did.”

Sigmund Freud couldn’t make this stuff up.

The psychic wound healed quickly enough. Goucher entered the University of Colorado as an anonymous freshman and stayed under the radar during her first two seasons. Chris Lear’s book Running with the Buff aloes, an insider’s look at the CU men’s cross-country team’s 1998 season, makes no mention of her. “She fought those demons a little bit even back then,” says Kara’s husband, Adam. Back then Adam Goucher, an NCAA mid-distance and cross-country champion, was an assistant coach with the CU team. “When she first started out [in college], I’d tell her, ‘You may be a little nervous, but you’re better than everyone else. You’re on a different level.’”

Under the tutelage of CU coach Mark Wetmore, Kara blossomed. Within four years, she turned herself into one of the greatest athletes in CU history, claiming NCAA titles in the 3000 meters, at 5000 meters, and in cross-country.

All that training in the Boulder foothills took its toll. Goucher struggled with compartment syndrome, and cracked her kneecap in a fluke accident during a trail run. The injury took a long time to heal. “I trained through it, ran nationals with it, ran the Olympic Trials with it, ran my senior year of cross-country with it,” she says. “But I pushed on it so hard for so long that eventually everything came crashing down.”

Goucher had a year of big events in 2001. She married Adam a few months after college graduation. Nike signed her to an endorsement deal. And then injuries overwhelmed her. “Part of my patellar tendon ended up dying,” she recalled. “I had to go on bed rest. I ended up sitting on the couch watching soap operas all day. It was a completely depressing time.”

Her USA Track & Field stat sheet tells the sorry tale—2002: “did not compete.”

“It was a tough time,” says Adam. “When you’re laid up with injuries like that, your mind knows how good you’re supposed to be, but your body doesn’t allow you to do it.”

After a year of rehab, Goucher decided to make her comeback at the Mt. San Antonio College (Mt. SAC) Relays. The Walnut, California, track had good history for her. She’d set a number of PRs there. Though she’d never run a race longer than 5000 meters, Goucher decided to give the 10,000 a go at one of the nation’s highest profile meets—after not running a competitive meter for nearly two years.

The results were disastrous. “I was hurting within the first three minutes,” she says. “I wasn’t fit. I’ve run a lot of races, and I’d never walked before. But at Mt. SAC, I walked.”

Recovering from injury can be one of the toughest psychological challenges any athlete faces. “Part of it is lack of control over your own body,” says Troesch. “And part of it is the unknown. ‘How permanent is this? Where am I going to be able to go with this injury?’ It’s easy for a runner to fixate on what they used to be able to do, and there’s a lot of fear about not being able to return to those top times.”

Shaken by her poor showing, Goucher retreated to what she knew: the 1500 and the 5000. She threw herself into training. Her body couldn’t keep up. Stress fractures showed up again and again. She’d been NCAA champion at 5000 meters in 2000, but in 2003, she couldn’t qualify for the national championships.

Little by little, the fun drained out of the sport. “I grew to hate running,” she says. “The fact that I had ever been good at it felt like a curse.” She felt ashamed. “I felt unworthy to have the goals and dreams that I had. I wanted to be an Olympic champion, and I couldn’t even qualify for local meets.”

KARA AND ADAM BOTH WANTED A fresh start. So in the autumn of 2004, they went looking for new coaches. Alberto Salazar invited them out to Portland. They loved the place. The Nike training facilities were world class. And the chance to train with Salazar? It seemed crazy to turn down the opportunity.

Still, Kara wasn’t sure. One of Salazar’s assistant coaches hit her with a little tough talk. “Maybe you’re scared because if you come here, you’ll have the best of everything,” he told her. “Then if you don’t make it, you’ll have to face the fact that you’re just not good enough.”

She realized he was right. What if her body recovered, she ran full strength, and still couldn’t win? “That’s a horrible thing to have to confront,” she recalls.

She took on the challenge. Kara and Adam moved to Portland in late 2004. It took her another 18 months to fully heal.

By the summer of 2006, Salazar had her chasing the qualifying standard for the 2007 IAAF World Championships in the 5000 meters. Then came something of a minor miracle. Goucher and Salazar were in a hotel in Belgium, looking for a race to run. Salazar called all over Europe. There was no 5000. But there was a 10,000-meter race in Helsinki in four days.

She froze. “Ohhh no,” she said. Memories of the Mt. SAC 10,000 walk of shame flooded her mind. “No way. You have no idea.”

Salazar reassured her. “We’re going to the track right now and you’ll do some easy strides at a 10-K pace,” he said. “You’ll see how easy it feels.”

They hit a local track. She ran. “It was so not easy,” she says.

Salazar was firm. “This is what you need,” he told her.

In Helsinki, the coach kept up his line of soothing nonchalance. “The first mile will feel so slow,” he told Goucher.

Except it wasn’t. The leaders went out in 4:58. Nevertheless, Goucher stayed on pace. The first 5000 meters were agony. But then something happened. She started feeling better. Running smoother. She thought, Well, I’m not dying… A little bit of confidence crept into her game.

Toward the end of the race, Salazar began shouting every lap. “They’re gonna die!” he said, referring to her competitors.

God, shut up! Goucher thought, glancing at the other athletes around her. They seemed so smooth, so confident. They’re kicking my butt!

But Salazar was right. Others were falling back. With a mile to go, Goucher found herself neck and neck with fellow American Jen Rhines. “If you can take it, take it,” Salazar yelled at her. Goucher kicked. She crossed the line in third place.

Her time read 31:17.12, but Goucher didn’t know what it meant. She hadn’t looked at a 10,000-meter time in years.

After the finish, Rhines approached her. “Do you realize you just became the second fastest woman in American history?” Rhines said.

“In what?” Goucher said.

“At the 10-K!” Rhines said. Goucher had come within shouting distance of Deena Kastor’s 30:52.32 American mark. And she had no idea.

DARREN TREASURE GOT THE PHONE call late on a Saturday night. It was early 2007. Alberto Salazar was on the other end of the line.

Salazar said he’d heard good things about Treasure’s work. After a brief rugby career, Treasure left his native England in the early 1990s to study at the University of Illinois, the birthplace of sports psychology in the United States. By his early 40s he’d established a successful private practice, working with runners, wrestlers, major-league ballplayers, NFL stars, and members of the U.S. women’s soccer team. When Salazar called, Treasure had just finished a season working with the UC-Berkeley men’s water-polo team. Cal had ruled water polo in the 1980s and early 1990s, capturing seven national championships in 10 years. But the Bears hadn’t tasted a title in 13 years. With Treasure’s help, they won the crown in 2006—and again in 2007.

Salazar wondered if Treasure might have time to consult with Galen Rupp, the schoolboy phenom who was struggling through a year of physical setbacks. Salazar had coached Rupp, a Portland kid, during high school, and continued working with him as Rupp ran for the University of Oregon.

Rupp and Treasure hit it off, Rupp returned to top form, and soon Treasure was working with other Oregon Project runners. Kara Goucher was leery, though. She’d worked off and on with other sports psychologists, and she hadn’t really clicked with any of them. “Look, I think you should just sit down and meet with him,” Salazar told her.

Goucher and Treasure met in March 2007. It turned into a pretty heavy session. He asked her how she got into running. She told him about high school, her triumphs in college, all the injuries after that. She told him about the 10,000-meter race in Helsinki. “I did this great thing last summer and now I’m worried about it,” she told him. “Maybe I won’t live up to that race.”

After Helsinki, Salazar had urged her to aim for the 10,000, not shorter distances. Now that she was training for the longer event, though, Goucher worried that she’d disappoint everybody. She questioned whether her body could withstand the increased mileage. And she was tired of the self-doubt on race day. “I know I’m really good, I just haven’t been able to show it,” she told Treasure. “Every time I go to the starting line, I doubt myself. I sabotage myself.”

By the end of the session Goucher was in tears. But she also felt a great weight lift from her shoulders. For years she’d struggled inwardly with all the demons of confidence. It was a relief to finally say it out loud.

THEY HAD THREE MONTHS. AFTER that meeting with Treasure, Goucher and Salazar set their sights on the USA Track & Field Championships, scheduled 12 weeks later in Indianapolis. The top competitors would go on to the IAAF World Championships in Osaka, Japan. Salazar wanted Goucher to compete in the 10,000. A race she had run, in her lifetime, twice.

“First we had to establish belief,” Treasure recalls. “Belief that she could actually run a competitive 10-K.” She’d already done that—hello, Helsinki—but Treasure and Salazar had to convince Goucher that Helsinki wasn’t a fluke. Salazar systematically increased the volume and intensity of Goucher’s workouts, a little more every week. Treasure reinforced her ability to handle the work, forced her to acknowledge what her body was doing.

“We realized very early that Kara was capable of handling an awful lot of volume and intensity from Alberto,” Treasure says. “She has an incredible ability to handle the pain and discomfort that come with those longer distances. Alberto and I came to the conclusion that she could go to some places that very few athletes are capable of going to.”

When Treasure talks about “some places,” he’s talking about some very dark places. Years ago, he worked with collegiate wrestlers. “Wrestling is simply seven minutes of hell,” he says. “The agony is just unbelievable. It’s very similar to distance running.” Steve Prefontaine used to warn his rivals that he’d take them to a place they really didn’t want to go. “Our athletes [in the Oregon Project] have that ability,” Treasure says. “They’re willing to go to those places. We look for that as a critical part of their psychological makeup.”

Treasure and Salazar strengthened Goucher’s psychological foundation using a number of established techniques, including affirmations and key words. “I am a world-class runner. I deserve to be here,” Goucher would tell herself. Affirmations can sound silly, and it takes a certain amount of courage to get over the embarrassment factor. Think of Al Franken’s old Saturday Night Live character, Stuart Smalley: I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me. But here’s what sports psychologists will tell you: They work.

“The body is very suggestible,” says Jerry Lynch, a sports psychologist based in Boulder, Colorado. In Running Within, Lynch’s classic book on running psychology, he describes working with an American runner training for the 1988 Seoul Olympics, a woman who was struggling with confidence issues. Lynch gave her this affirmation: “I am a member of the Olympic team. I deserve to represent my country at the Olympics.” Simple stuff, but effective.

Treasure also worked with Salazar to plant a key word in Goucher’s mind. “The key word concept hinges on stimulus and response,” Treasure explains. “There are moments in a race that are choice points. You could either give a little bit, or step it up. Ideally, when you invoke the key word, you’ll get a behavioral response in the race, a boost.” Just saying the word doesn’t work. Salazar and Treasure plant the word deep in training sessions. On heavy, intense training days, when they’re pushing an extra lap, “that’s when I want them to think about that key word,” says Treasure. “So when they invoke that word at a critical moment in a race, they get the response they’re looking for.”

Goucher’s word that season was simple. Fighter.

“I wanted to fight,” she says. “I wanted to scrap all the way to the finish.”

In the weeks leading up to the USA Track & Field Championships, Treasure worked with Goucher on strategies to forget about the other athletes and focus solely on herself. “When it’s all about Kara, she becomes a world-class athlete,” Treasure says. “When she’s worried about the runners around her, she becomes very average.” Treasure pauses. “Of course, ‘average’ is a relative term with Kara.”

On race day, the runners around Goucher posed a formidable challenge. Deena Kastor, who was dominating American distance running, wanted a fast race. Katie McGregor, the 2005 USA Outdoors 10,000 champion, wanted to reclaim her crown. Goucher just wanted to make the team. So she blocked them out.

“We knew Deena was going for the A-standard,” says Treasure. “And we wanted none of that. From the outset, our plan was to let Deena go, and concentrate on making the team.” Survive this race, fight another day at the World Championships in Osaka. That was the game plan.

She followed it. When Kastor broke away from the pack after 1,200 meters, Goucher let her go. “That was the hardest thing we’ve ever asked Kara to do,” says Treasure. “She wants to compete. When she toes the line, she’s there to win.” But neither Salazar, Treasure, nor Goucher knew if she could sustain Kastor’s torrid pace.

The hang-back strategy paid off. Goucher came in second, a little more than 30 seconds behind Kastor, and qualified for Osaka. After the race, a reporter asked what she considered her best event. “Well, I consider myself a 1500-meter runner, but Alberto is desperately trying to turn me into a 10-K runner,” Goucher said, half joking. “He’s even brought in a sports psychologist to try to convince me.”

Two months later on the hot, humid opening day of the IAAF World Championships in Athletics in Osaka, Goucher convinced herself. The women’s 10,000-meter final featured plenty of potential distractions. The world champion, Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia, looked like a good bet to defend her title. Deena Kastor, who planned to devote herself exclusively to the marathon the following year, lined up for her last hurrah on the track. But Goucher stayed inside herself. She blocked out her opponents and focused on her game plan. While Dibaba outdueled Turkey’s Elvan Abeylegesse over the final kilometer, Goucher used her inner game—fighter, fighter—to break away from the secondary pack and clinch the bronze.

She was finally, officially, a 10-K runner. Goucher thought that was the limit. 10,000 meters! Twice over what had been her longest race!

But Alberto Salazar had other plans.

NOT LONG AFTER KARA AND ADAM moved to Portland in 2004, Salazar took Kara aside and gave her a glimpse of her future.

“You’re going to do amazing things in the 5-K,” he said. “But some day you’re going to be a marathoner.”

Yeah, right, Goucher thought. She wanted no part of that. As a girl growing up in Duluth, she’d witnessed the aftermath of Grandma’s Marathon, the annual weekend-long celebration that ended with nearly 10,000 people running 26.2 miles, puking their guts out, and limping for weeks afterward. “I never wanted to do it,” she recalls. “Never.”

But Salazar had planted the seed. Every once in a while he’d nurture it. “You’re going to be a marathoner some day,” he’d tell her. It became their little joke.

It became something more serious after Osaka. Race promoters began offering Goucher appearance fees. The Great North Run, a British race that’s become one of the world’s most popular half-marathons, offered her a huge stipend if she would attempt the distance. Goucher recalls that her eyes popped at the sum. “Alberto was like, ‘DO IT!’” she says.

“You have nothing to lose,” Salazar told Goucher. “You’re in great shape. You can run 5:10s to 5:15s. Worst case, that’s going to be top five.”

Back in Portland, Goucher got in two workouts for the half-marathon, then caught an overnight flight to Heathrow and lined up against…British runner Paula Radcliffe, the marathon world record holder. “It’s Paula Radcliffe; she’s like my hero,” Goucher says. “My whole goal for the race was just to run with her as far as I could.”

Goucher stuck with her through most of the race. At a certain point, Goucher’s competitive drive overtook her awe. She pulled away. “Somehow I gapped her,” she says, “and I kept thinking she was going to just go roaring by me.” Radcliffe didn’t. Goucher hit the tape alone.

Ironically, Radcliffe may have been racing under heavier psychological weather than her younger competitor. The British runner was coming back from a painful injury. The Great North Run was going to be Radcliffe’s first competitive race since sitting out half of 2006 and most of 2007 to have her first child and heal a stress fracture at the base of her spine. And Goucher’s appearance added another tricky mental dynamic to the race: The unknown versus the champ.

Jeff Troesch has seen this dynamic before. “I’ve worked with players who’ve risen to the number one ranking in their sport,” he says, “and often what’s tough isn’t performing against another top player. It’s playing an athlete you perceive as not being as good as you.” It’s easy to get up for a match against, say, Roger Federer. Sometimes an unknown athlete can have a mental edge because they’re playing loose, it’s house money, nobody expects them to win. “When the top player is surprised that the unknown is keeping up with them, or winning,” Troesch says, “that can create a panic: I’m not supposed to be losing to this person!”

Five weeks after winning the Great North Run, Goucher flew to New York to watch the New York City Marathon. There, she rode in the pace car and stood among the roaring crowd and saw Radcliffe win her second NYC laurel crown. A thought occurred to Goucher. Wait a minute. I just beat her.

Goucher took in the whole scene: The crowds, the adulation, the glory. I want that to be me, she told herself. I’m coming back next year. And I’m racing.

WHEN DARREN TREASURE TALKS about the evolution of Kara Goucher’s mental game as an ongoing process, always changing, never linear, he’s not spouting some airy theory. He’s seen firsthand the blind alleys and wrong turns that athletes can take. Case in point: Beijing, 2008.

Beijing should have been Goucher’s coming out party. At the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, just down the road from her home, Goucher won the 5000 meters and was second to Shalane Flanagan in the 10,000 meters. Working with Salazar and Treasure as an integrated team, she’d brought a new level of fitness and mental confidence to her game. She should have been ready to take on the world.

She wasn’t. Her husband, Adam, faltered during his own 5000 and 10,000 races and failed to make the Olympic team. Though he accompanied her to Beijing, he wasn’t allowed inside the Olympic Village. Isolated without her husband and overwhelmed by the spectacle, Goucher felt her newly won confidence slowly seep away.

The old negative chatter came back. I don’t belong here. I’m not good enough to be here. Outwardly, she looked great. Her workouts with Salazar had her running strong. Inside, though, she was already losing the race.

As Goucher warmed up for the 10,000 meter final inside Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium, she was trying not to cry. I’m not in it, she thought. When the gun went off, the shock of the hard pace delivered one final blow to her psyche.

“We really made some bad choices in Beijing,” Treasure says, reflecting on the 2008 Games. “Alberto had trained Kara for a specific race—a slower race—that just didn’t end up happening. It was a lot quicker than we’d anticipated.”

In fact, it was the second fastest women’s 10,000 ever run. Tirunesh Dibaba and Elvan Abeylegesse repeated their duel from the previous World Championships final (with the exact same result—Dibaba taking the gold), but this time there would be no bronze for Goucher.

“I’m ashamed of how I raced that day,” she tells me. “In the Olympics, it’s so much about winning a medal. And when I realized that wasn’t going to happen, I just stopped fighting.” With four kilometers to go, she found herself far behind. This stinks, she thought. This is my worst nightmare. Goucher had run 32:02 in Osaka. She dropped that to 31:37 in the U.S. Olympic Trials. To compete for bronze would have required shaving 1:15 off her prerace personal best. She wasn’t physically ready to run 30:22, the bronze time posted by fellow American Shalane Flanagan. All the old voices came into her head. I don’t know how I got here. I don’t deserve to be here. And she quit. She didn’t walk off the track physically. Goucher finished 10th in 30:55, a personal record. But mentally, by the time she stopped the clock, she had long since left the Bird’s Nest.

Adam consoled her. Alberto tried to ease her pain. “This isn’t your event,” Salazar told her. “You’re not suited to run this.”

Then Treasure gave it to her straight. “Look,” he told Goucher when they were alone. “I know you quit.”

With the tough love out of the way, Treasure and Salazar scrambled to salvage Goucher’s Olympics. She was emotionally devastated. And she had a 5000-meter semi in just four days.

“In that situation, we had to take into account that Kara’s a very smart woman,” Treasure tells me. “If she wasn’t in condition to run a very fast 10-K, she knows that dropping down to a 5-K wasn’t exactly going to be easy.”

“We all got caught up with the whole concept of medaling,” he adds, “and got away from the process that had gotten Kara a medal in Osaka. That was my mistake. If we had our time over again, we’d do things a lot differently.”

So Treasure and Salazar helped Goucher focus on the most basic psychological reason for running: personal satisfaction. “What are you going to get out of the 5-K semi and the final?” Treasure asked her.

She came up with a new goal for the 5000 semi: Prove to yourself that you deserve to be here. That you want to be here. That you’ll do what it takes to make the final.

The semi went off slow. It was more rugby scrum than footrace. Pushing, shoving, elbows thrown. Goucher gave as good as she got. She made the final and placed ninth. It was only one better than her 10,000-meter showing, but she knew the difference. So did Salazar and Treasure. She ran all out. She enjoyed the race. She enjoyed running.

BY THE TIME THEIR FLIGHT from Beijing touched down in the States, Goucher and her coaches had come to two conclusions. One: They would learn from their mistakes. They vowed that Kara would leave the London Olympics in 2012 with completely different memories. Two: Officials at the New York Road Runners Club were expecting Goucher to compete in the ING New York City Marathon in less than eight weeks. Reporters were prepping stories that would promote a showdown with Paula Radcliffe, the world record holder and reigning New York City champion.

There was only one problem. Goucher had never run 26.2 miles in her life.

Salazar immediately began pushing Goucher to her physical limits, piling up weekly miles like grain in a silo. Meanwhile, Treasure worked to rebuild the foundation of a collapsed psyche. “Alberto was running her really, really hard,” Treasure says. “Physically, she was hanging on by a thread. And mentally she didn’t know if she could complete all 26 miles.”

The surprise was this: Goucher loved it. “I loved asking so much of myself,” she says. “I loved spending time with Alberto, who’d bike with me on all my long runs. No one else in the [Oregon Project] was running the marathon at the time, and I loved that this was something that was all mine.”

Treasure pounded home the proof in performance. She was running 120 miles a week. That’s almost five marathons in seven days. Don’t just believe you can do it, he told her. Look at yourself: You’re already doing it.

During the week leading up to New York, media requests kept Goucher hopping all over the city. A posse of relatives—mom, two sisters, brother-in-law, aunt, and niece— flew in to watch her debut. Through it all, she struggled to keep negative self-talk from overrunning the ramparts. The outside world saw a radiant, confident young athlete. Back at the hotel, she’d fall into an overstuffed chair and tell Treasure, “I don’t even know if I’m going to finish.”

Not enough pressure? Consider this: Twenty-eight years earlier another world-class 10,000-meter runner had entered the New York City Marathon. It was his first 26.2-miler, too. His name was Alberto Salazar.

He won.

On the morning of the race, Salazar and Treasure chaperoned a sleepy-eyed Goucher onto the bus that takes racers to the starting line on Staten Island. “It’s a little like the first day of school for your child,” Salazar later said. “You’re putting her on the bus with your fingers crossed.”

She did just fine. On a blustery November day, Goucher drafted Radcliffe and let the reigning champ cut through the wind. She shadowed Radcliffe so closely that when Radcliffe tossed a used gel pack, it grazed Goucher before falling to the ground. She made some rookie mistakes. She had a hell of a time grabbing water bottles from the table, a skill you don’t think much about until you have to do it.

At the 12-mile mark she thought of her father, who lived in Queens and died across the river. It gave her a little lift. Helped her stay strong. And feel like she wasn’t alone.

Six miles from the finish, her body began to rebel. Her stomach hurt. Her calves began to cramp. As if sensing Goucher’s weakness, Radcliffe broke away.

“I had to recoup,” Goucher said after the race. “I told myself, It’s a 10-K. You can do this. Pull it together.”

This wouldn’t be a repeat of the Beijing 10-K, though. Goucher called on her key word—this time it was confidence—to find the fortitude to continue on and claim third place, one minute, 57 seconds behind the winner, Radcliffe.

As in Helsinki, the significance of her time took a while to sink in. She had just run 2:25.53, the fastest debut marathon for an American woman, beating Deena Kastor’s 2001 mark by a little more than a minute. Her third-place run was the first podium finish in New York for an American woman in 14 years. But the big one was this: No American woman had ever posted a faster time in the New York City Marathon. Not Deena Kastor, not Miki Gorman, not Joan Benoit Samuelson.

Adam greeted her at the finish wearing a T-shirt that read, “Mr. Kara Goucher.”

This time she didn’t ask for a picture with Radcliffe (as she had at the Great North Run). She’d proven to herself that she deserved to be here. “I want to run against the best people,” she told reporters after the race. “No hiding from anyone. As much as I was hurting the last five miles, I’ll be back for more.”

Five months later, at the 2009 Boston Marathon, Goucher came out swinging. Before the race, she announced her intention to end the 14-year winless streak for Americans in Boston. And she nearly did it. After an unusually slow start, Goucher shattered the pack and surged into the lead from mile 20 to 25. But Kenyan marathoner Salina Kosgei and 2008 Boston winner Dire Tune of Ethiopia stayed tucked in behind her until there was a mile to go. When they kicked less than 800 meters from the finish line, Goucher couldn’t stay with them. She finished third again, nine seconds behind Kosgei’s winning 2:32:16.

This time she wasn’t just happy to finish. She was visibly upset. In tears, actually. Third place was no longer good enough. “I’m proud of how I ran,” she said in a postrace press conference. “I raced the best that I could. But I wanted to be the one who won for everybody.”

She would run one more marathon before shutting down her 2009 season. At the IAAF World Championships in Berlin, Goucher placed a disappointing 10th, more than 2:30 behind the winning time set by China’s Xue Bai.

A year earlier, a ninth-place finish in Beijing had shattered her world. This time, a disappointing 10th was…well, it wasn’t so bad. During the past year, Salazar and Treasure hadn’t just trained her to become a marathoner. They’d helped her become a different athlete. More mature. Confident. Maybe even a little more zen, a woman able to enjoy the ride as much as the destination.

This, too, is an important part of the sports psychologist’s toolkit. “One of the things I work with athletes on is helping them recognize and enjoy the sensation of their bodies in motion,” says Gloria Balague, University of Illinois professor of sports psychology. “Get in touch with that. When you enjoy the feeling of your back in good posture, your arms and legs perfectly in sync, then it’s very hard to be tight.”

In his forthcoming book, Spirit of the Dancing Warrior, Jerry Lynch encourages athletes to embrace a more Eastern philosophical attitude toward their competitors. “The word competition comes from the Latin competere, which means ‘to seek together.’ So look at your competitor as your partner. You seek greatness together.”

“Let’s say the world record holder lines up next to me,” Lynch writes. “I’m thrilled. And I hope he brings his best game. Because if he does, I’ll find out how good I am. I know for certain I will run my best, because the greatest competitors have shown up.”

That’s kind of how Goucher felt. The night before the World Championship marathon, she told Adam: “No matter what happens tomorrow, this is the happiest I’ve ever been in my whole life.”

Even during the race, as she watched her chance to medal slip away, Goucher never lost her confidence or her enjoyment of the physical act of running. “The feeling of lining up against the best women in the world, that was amazing,” she later recalled. “I loved the idea that we were all going to be out there for a while. I loved the challenge of shutting my mind off and just enjoying the race. I loved it all.”

Salazar’s prediction had come true. Some day you’re going to be a marathoner. That day had arrived. Six years after hitting bottom, Goucher had climbed back close to the top. Where once she despised running, now she reveled in it. Her fear of long distances had been replaced by anticipation. Long runs in a weight vest? Bring it on. Working with Salazar and Treasure, building up her confidence day by day, she’d beaten back the demons of self-doubt.

At the end of the 2009 season, Goucher decided to follow Paula Radcliffe’s example. Radcliffe won the marathon at the 2005 World Championships, then took half of 2006 off to have a baby. She returned with a vengeance, winning the New York City Marathon in 2007 and 2008. “Adam and I have always talked about starting a family,” Goucher says, “and this is the time to do it.” 2010 is an off year in elite running—no Olympics, no World Championships. So she’s ramping down, running 50 miles a week instead of 120. There will be no second chance at Boston or New York in 2010, but she vows to return in plenty of time for the 2012 London Olympics.

“I’ll be back,” she says. “I can’t wait to do another marathon.”

At which point Goucher will take another big step in the evolution of her inner game: the comeback.

By Ken Goe, The Oregonian

Olympian Kara Goucher, who runs for Alberto Salazar’s group with Oregon Track Club Elite/Portland, told the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Don Norcross that she will put her plans to start a family on hold if she isn’t pregnant by the end of April.

Goucher was in San Diego to be honored as Female Runner of the Year by the Competitor Magazine Endurance Sports Awards.

She has taken time off to try to have a baby with her husband, distance runner Adam Goucher.

But the layoff isn’t indefinite. If nature doesn’t take it’s course by the end of April, Goucher told Norcross, she plans to resume training in order to be ready for the 2012 Olympic Games.

By Don Norcross, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

Kara Goucher hits the grocery store running, with a list. An edited list. First she jots down the items she wants. Then to avoid backtracking, she writes the items in the order they’re to be picked up.

“I can get in and out of the store in eight minutes,” said Goucher, currently America’s best women’s marathoner.

Her closet, you can imagine, is not cluttered. Skirts and dresses are aligned on the top shelf. Then come long-sleeve tops. Items are arranged by colors. Blues and grays to the left. Whites and yellows to the right.

The middle of the closet, because it’s most accessible, is reserved for sleeveless tops and jeans.

“That’s what I wear the most,” said Goucher.

Stating the obvious, she added, “I like to plan.”

Tomorrow night, Goucher, 31, will be honored as the Female Runner of the Year at the Competitor Magazine Endurance Sports Awards at the Mission Bay Hilton Resort & Spa.

Her acceptance speech no doubt will be rehearsed. Yet Goucher admits sometimes you just have to roll with the plans.

Take her future.

Goucher might run the New York City Marathon in November. Then again, she might not. In fact, she hopes she doesn’t.

Married for nearly nine years to fellow distance runner Adam Goucher, Kara hopes to be pregnant soon. But as you guessed, there’s a plan there, too.

If she’s not pregnant by the end of April, Goucher will put off having a baby. That decision came with much forethought, also. She must leave enough time to recover and train for the 2012 Olympics. The end of April, she figures, is the deadline.

“If I didn’t feel I could medal,” said Goucher, “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

That Goucher thinks she might return from London in 2012 packing bronze, silver or gold is not a reach. At the 2008 Olympics, Goucher doubled in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters, placing ninth in the 5K, 10th in the 10K.

Three months later she tackled the marathon for the first time. The result: third at New York in the fastest debut ever by an American woman (2 hours, 25 minutes, 53 seconds).

Last April, she sampled the Boston Marathon. With a half-mile to go, Goucher was running side by side with two Africans. Goucher would fade to third, but again, the signs were encouraging.

“I love the marathon,” she said. “I feel it’s the right place for me.”

Interestingly, some forks taken in Goucher’s life happened by happenstance. Take how she got involved in running. Raised in Duluth, Minn., Goucher was in the seventh grade when she decided she wanted to receive a school award.

To earn the award, students had to excel in three areas: arts, academics and athletics. Goucher played the French horn. Her grades were fine. But she didn’t carry the athletic component, so she tried out for volleyball, even though she had never played.

“I go to the practice and it’s like chaos,” she said. “They’re doing these drills and I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m totally out of my element,’ so I left.”

And tried out for cross country.

Then there’s the story of how she stepped up to the longer distances. While her coach, three-time New York City Marathon champion Alberto Salazar, told her she’d make a great marathoner, Goucher wasn’t biting.

She had a not-so-subtle reply when Salazar mentioned 26.2 miles: “Uuuugh.”

But after finishing third in the 10,000 meters at the 2007 World Championships, Goucher was offered a hefty appearance fee to run a half-marathon in England.

“They want to give you that kind of money,” Salazar said, “just go.”

Goucher showed up, beat marathon world-record holder Paula Radcliffe by more than a minute, then said to herself, “Maybe I can do this.”

Now she wants to follow the footsteps of Radcliffe and other talented marathoners who have run fast after starting a family.

“I’ve seen so many great role models around me do it,” Goucher said.

She thinks she can do it, too. You can plan on it.

Influential Athletes Take Part in April Event to Raise Awareness and Funding for the Largest Global Water Initiative In History Aimed At Helping Solve The World Water Crisis

The No. 1 ranked American marathon runner in 2009, a nine-time Olympic gold medalist and a professional athlete and fashion model are among the latest supporters teaming up with Live Earth in support of the Dow Live Earth Run for Water – the largest global water initiative in history aimed at helping solve the world water crisis. Elite athletes Kara Goucher, Carl Lewis, and Jenny Fletcher have announced their participation in the April 18, 2010 events, which will feature a series of 6 km run/walks (the average distance many women and children walk every day to get water), concerts and water education activities taking place in countries around the world.

“I am honored to be taking part in the Dow Live Earth Run for Water event,” said Kara Goucher, the No. 1 ranked American marathon runner in 2009. “As a woman, I find it distressing that millions of women and children around the world walk six kilometers each and every day to fetch safe, clean drinking water for their families. As a runner, I’m privileged to be able to share my talent and passion to raise awareness for such an important issue.”

Water scarcity is an issue affecting countries, communities and families all over the world.  One in eight people don’t have access to safe, clean drinking water. Eighty-eight percent of diarrheal cases worldwide are linked to inadequate and unsafe water. These cases result in 1.5 million deaths each year, mostly among children under five. In these areas, women and children are forced to walk 6 km (3.7 miles) each day to secure water that is likely unsuitable for drinking.

“Committing to participate in the Dow Live Earth Run for Water is something everyone, everywhere can do,” said Carl Lewis, a nine-time Olympic gold medalist. “With every step, the Dow Live Earth Run for Water will empower the global community to get fit, while taking action to help solve this important environmental issue.”

Even the most novice of runners are encouraged to START solving the problem today and RUN in a Dow Live Earth Run for Water run/walk in their community. All participants will receive a free online ActiveTrainer plan to help them prepare for the event. Other ways people can get involved is to organize a run/walk through the Friends of Live Earth program, SAVE water in the home and local community through conservation efforts, GIVE money to support clean, safe water projects and SPEAK UP by signing the Live Earth petition to add water as a basic human right to the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights.

People can register for the Dow Live Earth Run for Water run/walk today via The Active Network at http://liveearth.org/run.  Ten percent of all registration fees go directly to the NGO selected for their country.  Those interested in organizing their own run/walks in their communities to support the Dow Live Earth Run for Water can register their run/walk as a “Friends of Live Earth” event at http://liveearth.org/friends.  Friends of Live Earth registered events receive approved materials, including event guidelines, logos, video and photos assets, as well as an invitation to join the Friends of Live Earth social network for regular updates.  

For more information about the Dow Live Earth Run for Water, or to register to participate in a Dow Live Earth Run for Water event, visit http://liveearth.org/run.

Runner Kara Goucher made her marathon debut a year ago in the Big Apple, but she’s skipping the New York Marathon this year. At the Nike Running Summit, she explained she wasn’t planning on racing again until Boston because she’s doing some planning of a different nature — family planning.

When you’re an elite runner, skipping an event doesn’t go unnoticed, making it difficult to keep it a secret that you’re trying to get pregnant. Kara explained to me in a short but sweet interview that she’s “taking a few months off to see what happens in her personal life.”

But what does “time off” mean after running 120 miles a week? For Kara it means only running 30 miles a week, a number I would love to have as my hard-core weekly mileage. Although she does admit to getting a little softer now that she’s only running a quarter of what she’s used to, Kara’s relationship with food hasn’t changed, since she has always been “a healthy eater.” Body fat is an issue for runners, but her attitude is pretty simple: “It is just weight and it will come off.” Which is great since this runner, a proclaimed “queen of the 30-minute meal,” is spending her newly found free time cooking, mostly Italian, and making sauces from scratch.

To see how Kara answered when I asked her if she could be an elite athlete in another sport, what would it be, just read more.

She admitted that this was a tough question, but that she has always leaned toward tennis. Kara finds the combination of individual strength and one-on-one competition quite compelling. Then there’s the fashion side of things: “They wear cool outfits.”

Kara’s long-term goal: racing in the London Olympics in 2012 and bringing home the gold. Go Kara!

Kara Goucher
Now on the Phiten Pro Staff!

Already widely recognized by avid runners, Kara Goucher is the newest athlete to join our Phiten Pro Staff. The American track star is a 2008 Olympian, 2007 World Outdoor bronze medalist, and 2000 NCAA Champion. She is coached by American running legend Alberto Salazar, and lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, Adam Goucher, who is also a professional runner.

We asked Kara a few questions about why she uses Phiten. Here she is in her own words:

Have you used the Phiten Liquid Titanium Massage Lotion?
Yes – I have had my massage therapist use it as massage lotion after really hard workouts. I feel like it aids in my recovery. And I have also used it on sore muscles. I’ll just rub some lotion on my quad or whatever is sore right before I go to bed. I really believe that it makes my recovery faster and stronger. Some massage lotions are pretty thick and heavy, but it’s light and comfortable on my skin.

When did you start using Phiten?
I started using Phiten in the fall of 2007. I saw it on Paula Radcliffe, my personal inspiration, and researched it online. I ordered some necklaces and my husband and I gave them a try. We haven’t run a single step without them since we got those first necklaces.

Do you feel like Phiten makes a difference in your running or recovery?
I do feel like it has made a difference in my running and my recovery. I never run without it because my performances and training have become more consistent since I started wearing Phiten. But I really feel the biggest benefit I get out of it is the recovery aspect.  I always make sure that I have some Phiten on, all of the time. And when I sleep I double up. I’ll wear a necklace and socks or a necklace and some lotion. I feel like it has allowed me to recover at a much quicker rate and I just don’t feel as beat up after hard workouts when I have slept in Phiten afterwards.

What are some of your favorite products?
One of my favorite products is the Titanium Necklace X30 Tribal. I like that it doesn’t have a big clasp. It stays in place and doesn’t bounce around when I run.

I also love the Titanium Bracelet Star. I like to be wearing Phiten all of the time but sometimes when I’m not running I don’t want to be wearing a necklace. So, I love these bracelets – they are causal and look good with my sports watch. But when I’m running, I prefer the Titanium Bracelet S-Type because it doesn’t bounce around.

My final favorite product is the lotion. My massage therapist will use it instead of regular massage lotion after my long runs and really tough workouts. Through the massage it gets deep into all of my beat up muscles and I feel like it helps me to recover better and stronger. I really love this lotion. I also massage into sore areas on my legs before I go to bed. It has a good consistency – it’s not too heavy and not too greasy.