Kara Goucher: “The Main Goal Is To Get My Speed Back”
Published by Running Times on December 12, 2013
Kara Goucher is moving back to Boulder, Colo., after a nine-year stint in Oregon, during which she became a 10,000m world championship bronze medalist, two-time Olympian, and one of the country’s fastest marathoners. Goucher, 35, will finish out her professional running career with her University of Colorado coach, Mark Wetmore, and assistant Heather Burroughs, following a rise to the top of U.S. distance running, first under Alberto Salazar and then under Jerry Schumacher.
Running Times: Where are you with your injury and your training?
Kara Goucher: I’m totally healthy. It took a lot longer to heal than I hoped or would have liked, but I’ve been 100 percent healthy and haven’t felt my foot for about 2 months now. I’m in a good place physically. I’m keeping my mileage at 80. That’s what I worked up to before I decided to leave and the last couple of weeks I’ve been coached by Mark and Heather and they’re keeping me at 80 right now. Just trying to get back into doing workouts.
RT: So are you doing workouts right now?
KG: I just started doing workouts last week. Nothing crazy. I did a tempo run yesterday, actually. I’m just kind of getting my feet wet and getting back to a new program, which is a familiar program. I just haven’t done it for nine years. This is only my second week, so it’s still pretty new.
RT: What’s your timeframe for physically moving?
KG: The house went on the market last week. We’re not going to buy a home in Boulder for a year. We’re going to rent for a year and just kind of get our bearings. It has been so long since we lived there and our lives have changed so much. I run a lot more now than I did when I lived there before so it’s really important to me to be by a trail system. So as soon as the house sells, we’ll move all our stuff out. But for now, we’re going to leave a lot of stuff here and wait for the house to sell.
RT: Have you figured out a competitive focus for 2014?
KG: Yeah, Mark and Heather and I have had a lot of conversations in the last few weeks and the main goal is really to get my speed back and get back on the track. And kind of regain some youthfulness in my legs. The focus definitely throughout the spring and early summer will be on speed. And of course, I’m a marathoner so speed for me is like a 10K. But the focus will definitely be speed and potentially roll that into a fall marathon.
RT: So U.S. nationals for track, do you see that as a possibility?
KG: Yeah, definitely.
RT: Any other track or more road races?
KG: I have to play it by ear, but track definitely.
RT: How long have you been thinking this way, or was it the injury that put you over?
KG: I started talking with Mark and Heather on occasion this last year, but never asking them about my training or anything. Honestly, it’s been a pretty quick decision. I was out there for the Pac-12s [at the beginning of November] and talked to them there and continued a conversation on after that. I just really felt like my heart was telling me I was going to regret not going back. And that I know I have everything in the world at my disposal here in Portland, but there was something telling me that I will have a better chance of being successful and achieving the goals I want back there in Boulder.
