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Dathan Ritzenhein is Ready to Open 2010 Season at USA Cross Country Championships
By David Monti
(c) 2010 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved. Used with permission..
February 11, 2010
The USA Cross Country Championships will be broadcast live online at Flotrack.org. Coverage will begin with the masters women's 8K at 12:45 pm EST (9:45 a.m. PST). The final race of the day, the men's open 12K, will set off at 5:00 pm EST (2:00 p.m. PST). The live feed will be at www.flotrack.org
Dathan Ritzenhein is a runner transformed.
The 27-year-old American began his 2009 campaign with solid credentials: track personal bests of 13:16.06 and 27:35.65, for the 5000m and 10,000m, respectively, and a half-marathon best of 61:25. He was well-respected, had already made two Olympic teams, and won three national titles in cross country and road running.
Photo by www.photorun.net: Dathan Ritzenhein racing the 2009 World Championships 10,000m in Berlin.
But after he closed down his competitive season last October, he was simply a different athlete. He had bettered Bob Kennedy's American record for 5000m, running 12:56.27 in Zürich [Weltklasse Golden League meet on August 28, 2009]; notched the highest finish ever by an American at an IAAF World Championships 10,000m, placing sixth in a personal best 27:22.28; and became the first American ever to medal at an IAAF World Half-Marathon Championship, taking the bronze in a personal best 60:00 minutes.
"For me, last year was a huge turning point, physically but mentally, too," Ritzenhein told reporters on a teleconference on Wednesday, February 10 in advance of Saturday's USA Cross Country Championships in Spokane, WA, where he is the favorite to win his third title.
That turning point came last June when Ritzenhein made the toughest decision of his professional career. He and his wife, Kalin, decided to take daughter Addison and leave their comfortable home on a wooded cul-de-sac in Eugene, OR, and move 125 miles north to Portland where he would be coached by three-time New York City Marathon champion Alberto Salazar. In Eugene, Ritzenhein had worked with coach Brad Hudson.
"I was very excited about it," Ritzenhein said about his coaching change. His relationship with Alberto Salazar had begun after graduation from the University of Colorado-Boulder. "I always knew that was the direction I would take [working with Salazar] if I split with Brad. That [possibility] was always there. There was a fear of breaking out of that shell. Alberto has taken me under his wing."
As a coach, Alberto Salazar is well known for his all-encompassing approach: running, weight training, altitude training, nutrition, anti-gravity treadmill, drills, core work, etc. Some athletes find his style too intrusive and controlling, but Ritzenhein said he needed somebody who could give him strong guidance, and sometimes make decisions for him.
"I think I've really found the right spot and have a relationship which works really well," Dathan said. "One of the big problems I had is that I needed someone to tell me [what to do in workouts]. I trust [Alberto] now. That trust is what makes this relationship work so well."
Under coach Alberto Salazar, Dathan Ritzenhein has a new training partner, a young and talented Galen Rupp, and uses a more periodized training program. His entry into Saturday's USA Cross Country Championships meet, his first competition in four months--since winning the bronze medal in the World Half-Marathon last October in Birmingham, England--is part of a strength building phase. Both athlete and coach hope [the gradual build-up] will lift Ritzenhein to a faster 10,000m time, and a stronger marathon performance in the fall. Dathan ran 2:10:00 and finished ninth in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but feels he has a lot of untapped potential in that event.
"He really wants me to periodize my training," Dathan Ritzenhein explained. "The body needs to recover. [During previous years, the continuous intensity in workouts meant that] I was constantly overtrained."
A top-6 finish for Ritzenhein in Spokane, WA will qualify him for the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland, on Sunday, March 28. Ritzenhein has already won a World Cross medal (he won the bronze in the 2001 junior race), and is anxious to get back to the world cross country championship. He hasn't raced World Cross since 2005, when he finished a miserable 62nd, plagued by blisters.
"I think at this point, we really want to race against the best guys there are [in distance running]," he said. "For me, after the [World Championships 10,000m] race in Berlin [last August], we had some other plans. But we took a look back and decided [Dathan has] to race these guys on [any, ie track, road, or grass] stage. We want to get in and duke it out with [the world's best distance talent] as much as possible."
One of the keys to Dathan Ritzenhein's success has been his marriage to Kalin, with whom he is expecting their second child. A former teammate at the University of Colorado, she has moved with him from Boulder, CO to Eugene, OR to Portland, OR, and supports all of his travel for training and competition. Ritzenhein said that his family, including 3 year-old Addison, is used to it.
"We're family people," Dathan said. "Sometimes it's a hard balance. Last year, we brought Addy to Europe for a month and we lived out of suitcases. [The Ritzenhein family] goes with the flow. [The toddler] loves airplanes, she knows how to order room service." He added: "It gets difficult at times for my wife, who is a saint."