A brief chat with Maggie Vessey - RunnersWorld Interview

By Peter Gambaccini (Photo by Victah Sailer)

6-15-2009

Santa Cruz, CA - Maggie Vessey finished strongly in the 800 at the Reebok Grand Prix Classic on May 30 to place fourth in 2:01.49 and then summoned a scintillating kick to win the 800 at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene on June 7 in 2:00.18, positioning herself as one of the favorites to make the top three at the USA Championships and represent the U.S. at the World Championships in Berlin in August. While Vessey's victory at "Pre" was greeted as perhaps the most stunning surprise in American middle distance running this spring; she was not without credentials. Running for Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, she was an NCAA runner-up in 2005 (and a Big West Conference champion twice in the 800), and she did come back and finish fifth in the 800 at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials. Much of 2006 and 2007, however, were lost to injury. Now 27, Vessey lives in Seacliff, California, in Santa Cruz Country.

Obviously you have a "real" life with friends and family, but in the your running life, these must have been the happiest couple of weeks you've had.

Maggie Vessey: Yeah, it's been probably the most amazing week, after Prefontaine - the most busy, the most exciting.

Well, what are some of the things that have happened? We read that you didn't have a shoe contract, but perhaps that has changed already.

MV: No, it hasn't. I talked to my agent (Ray Flynn). He said that we would have some offers maybe by the end of the week, but I haven't heard from him yet. (Flynn was at the NCAA Championships in Arkansas).

You were second in NCAAs and fifth at the Trials. So it's not like you're completely obscure. You've had a good career.

MV: I guess it's just a huge difference from that to a Grand Prix race (winner, as at the Pre Classic).

In both the Reebok and Pre meets, you came from well back and finished hard. Is that how you customarily run your 800s, or did you just have way more left at the end than you expected?

MV: Whenever I've hard super breakthroughs in my running, it's been a very evenly paced race. And it's not something that I really feel I consciously go into thinking okay, I'm going to run 60 flat, 60 flat (for each 400), and I'm going to run 2:00 flat. I just feel when I go into a race without an expectation in the world of an outcome and just let my body and my training take over, that that's sort of what I'm comfortable with. Whenever I've gone into a race feeling "okay, I'm going to push that pace on that first 400," whenever I try to force it, I don't get the outcomes that I want. I just kind of I leave it up to the situation and go in and feel "okay, I'm going to run my own race regardless of the fact that I know these girls are going to go out in 57, but I'm not comfortable with that, and I'm going to go out in 60."

After Reebok, I learned you need to at least be in the ballpark. I'd lost contact with them (the 800 leaders) and even though I was coming on well, I ran out of room, I ran out of track. With that experience, I said going into Pre "at least be in contact with these ladies. Then you'll have a shot."

Well, with 300 to go at Pre, how close were you to the lead?

MV: I had just caught one person and was moving up the backstretch, and then it wasn't until with about 140 meters to go that I started really moving on them (the leaders). My split for the last 200 was a 29. At the Trials last year, I think I was the only one under 30 for the last 200, but who cares when you take fifth?

The look on your face when you won is one of the most startled and gleeful we've seen on the track. It was an astonishing moment for you and it seems to have captured the imagination of the track and field world.

MV: Yeah. (Pauses shyly). It's been pretty amazing.

When you say you've had really busy week since Pre, what kind of things have been happening?

MV: The story ran in my local newspaper, so people have been recognizing me when I've been out on runs. I work in a sporting goods store (20 to 30 hours a week at Jerry's Sports in Santa Cruz). People have been coming into the store wanting to talk to me, wanting my autograph, wanting me to train with kids (laughs). People have told me that they've watched the race over and over on Google. I think since I've been doing this for such a long time but have never had a sort of national impact like this (Pre) race was, people didn't really know what this is, and now they have "in your face" evidence that "okay, this is what person is training for" as opposed to "I see this person training all of the time and I don't really know why."

One of the problems you've faced in gaining recognition is that after your second place at NCAAs in 2005, you were hurt for a couple of years, weren't you?

MV: Um-hmm. I just had a couple of overuse injuries, most specifically a femoral neck stress fracture in my right hip. That sidelined me.

You were obviously hoping for a different kind of career when you got right out of college.

MV: Oh yeah. What I think was the thing that I was messed up with was that I was expecting it to be something, and I was doing a lot of work and I changed a lot. I went from doing low mileage to a lot of high mileage in a short period of time, and not doing strength training, not stretching, not changing my lifestyle in other ways to accommodate for the extra miles. And it just showed in my body, quickly. I went through six or eight weeks of training and ran 17:20 something (in Venice Beach in 2005) for my first 5K, which was good, but my body couldn't keep it up.

How did you come to favor the 800? Since your early days in high school, was that the race you did best in?

MV: No. (Laughs). I was a 200/400 runner. I actually have the Santa Cruz County (high school) records in the 200 and 400. I ran 54.60 in the 400 at the Golden West Invitational my senior year and got first place.

When did the move to the 800 happen?

MV: My second year of college. I won Big West Conference in the 400 my freshman year, but I didn't make it to nationals (NCAAs). I was upset, and it just became clear that my leg speed is good, but it's not going to be anything that's going to make an impact on the national level. That's when I started entertaining the idea of the 800, just because I achieved some success and I just wanted some more of it.

Has the 800 been a hard event to learn tactically?

MV: Yes. Very hard. You go from the 400 where you get your own lane and you're coming out of blocks, and then in the 800, you're in the mix with a lot of different people. There's a lot to learn, and I think I've kind of struggled with that a little bit.

We read that at times you were quite discouraged, and that Greg Brock was one of the people who helped turn things around for you. Can you talk about his role in your life?

MV: It came when I was a freshman in high school and he was sort of mentoring me from afar without my really recognizing it - I would say sort of planting signs of directions to go that didn't start growing until I matured a little bit more. I went through the phase in high school where I thought I knew what was best for myself and wasn't really going to listen.

But I got over that, and I think that's when my relationship with Greg really took off, because this is a man with a depth of knowledge like no one I've ever spoke with. And I love his style. His style is slow, it's methodical, it's thoughtful. You can tell when you're talking to him that you're given something that he's mulled over, and what he says to you is not a knee-jerk reaction. He'll get back to me; if I ask him something and he doesn't know, I love the fact that he doesn't just tell me something. He says "I'm going to give you the best information that's possible." And he is creative with my workouts like no one that I've ever worked out. The workouts that he and I do, I've never done. And they're challenging, but they don't kill you. It's like a sharpness that I've never felt before.

Can you give an example of a workout you would consider creative?

MV: We'll do workouts where I'll just begin by doing 150s in maybe 22.5, and then jog a 50 in 15 seconds recovery, and do four of those. So you're covering 800 meters of distance but you're breaking it up. His bread and butter workout for me is doing 200s, but in the most horrible way, where I run a 40-second 200, then a 30-second 200, a 40-second 200, then a 30 second 200, for 800 meters, and do upwards of four sets of that. That's probably the nastiest workout; when he tells me we're doing that, we are not friends on that day (laughs).

Is Greg Brock the President of the Santa Cruz Track Club?

MV: He is, and he coaches cross (country) and track at Santa Cruz High. I went to Soquel High, He would talk to me. He took an interest in me when I was high school age. We're all trying to accomplish the same thing.

Are you living rent-free with your sister?

MV: Yes, I live rent-free with my sister and my sister's boyfriend. They have a situation where they can do that. They've given me the opportunity. When I moved in with them, I didn't move in with the idea that I was going to pursue track. I had no idea if I was going to get a job, or I was going to join the Peace Corps, or go back to school maybe. But for some reason I kept on running, and I hooked up with Greg one day when I was on the track doing a random workout. It was the year of the Olympic Trials, and I'd always wanted to compete at the Olympic Trials. I'd been in the stands in 2000, watching them in Sacramento. That was just a dream, and it was a long shot (in 2008), but I was healthy at the time, so I give it a shot, and finished better than I ever thought was possible (fifth).

You want to finish in the top three and go under 2:00 in the 800 at the USATF Championships (which begin in Eugene on June 25). Do you think you can use the same kind of tactics you've been using, or do you think you'll have to run a somewhat quicker first lap?

MV: I want to go into it with a flexibility. When you're running rounds, it's a lot different, I would think, than when you're running one single race. You have to be in a position where you're going to react because your main goal at first is just to get through the rounds. And then once you make the final, it's every woman for herself. It depends on the situation - who's running well, who's running at this certain time. For myself, I have a hard time saying what exactly my strategy is going to be, because I feel like when I go in there feeling loose, feeling ready to react, then that's when I have my best performances.

I have a hard time really focusing on what other people are doing (in the 800). If I start thinking about the other people's names and what they've done, it's discouraging - thinking about people who have run seconds faster than I have and have competed in Olympic Games. So I try not to focus so much on them and just have faith in my training, have faith in my coach, and have respect for my competitors and what they've done and just try and be in the mix with them. Because they're where I want to be.

For more information or to contribute to the USA Track & Field Foundation, visit www.usatffoundation.org.

Maggie Vessey winning the 800 Meters at the Prefontaine Classic

Watch the race video HERE.