Schumacher cautious about Bairu’s chances

Jerry Schumacher has been coaching Canadian runner Simon Bairu since 2002, a relationship that started with the Wisconsin Badgers. Now, they train out of a sleek operation near the Nike headquarters in Oregon.

Widely regarded as one of the brightest minds on the North American distance running scene, Schumacher is still relatively new to the marathon. Having coached Shalane Flanagan to a successful marathon debut in 2010, he’s starting to silence his critics. Recently, Kara Goucher also crossed the road from Alberto Salazaar’s group to join Schumacher’s team.

In a rare interview, Schumacher sat down with Canadian Running to talk about Simon Bairu, who is chasing the Canadian Olympic standard of 2:11:29 at Sunday’s Houston Marathon.

CR: What’s it like to coach to Simon Bairu?
For someone that you’ve worked with so long, you can kind of answer it from a human perspective. Simon is a great guy. He’s a hard working, determined athlete. He’s committed to what he’s doing. He’s laid back. When you have to work with somebody, he’s the kind of guy you want to work with.

CR: When he ran the 10,000m Canadian record (27:23.63), almost entirely off of cross-country training, were you surprised at all?
I don’t even worry about whether it’s cross-country training or track training. He had great fitness. Obviously, he was 12th at the world cross-country championships, that’s a pretty high level of running. He was in great shape. It didn’t really surprise me. Track has never been his strongest competitive environment. But obviously he’s very good at the track. When he’s fit, he can be very good at it.

CR: What qualities does Bairu have that makes you think he’s going to be a great marathoner?
Aside from the fact that he’s a natural distance runner, he’s a distance runner. I think once he puts the training behind that natural talent, that’s how you eventually get to the marathon. I don’t think anyone is born to be a marathoner. It takes training to become a marathoner. You have natural running talent, but you don’t have natural marathon running talent. You have to train that. I think as Simon is developing and growing, he’s training that natural talent now. It’s definitely a process. The marathon is not an easy game. He’s patient. He’s hard working. He’s competitive. He’s someone you want to work with. He has all those qualities. His special quality, which comes at the end of races, is his competitiveness. He wants to be good and he works very hard at getting there.

CR: Last year was tough for Bairu with disappointing results. How did you overcome those obstacles?
It was a bit of a flat period in there for him, coming off of New York. It was tough. He put a lot of time, energy and emotion into his first marathon. And, it didn’t come together the way he wanted to. That can have a toll. It took a while to bounce back and get into the swing of things. Not everything goes perfect when you’re marathon training. It’s been a long time coming, getting him back in the groove and ready to perform again. But he is fit. We’ll find out how close to marathon fit he is on Sunday.

CR: Did it take a while to recover mentally from pulling out of the Toronto race in the fall?
Not so much. He just wasn’t ready to go yet.

CR: What differences do you notice in him now, compared to the days leading up to his New York race?
I don’t know if I notice a lot of differences. He at least has the experience of having been to the line and been in a marathon. He might not have finished that marathon. He might have the emotions tempered back this time around, and he won’t be as excitable early.

CR: It what ways is he better prepared now?
I think he’s stronger. He’s a year of running older and wiser. Those two things are important in the marathon.

CR: Before New York he ran a fast half-marathon in Philadelphia in 1:02:08. This time, you had him run two half-marathons around 65 minutes in the lead-up to Houston. What was the reasoning behind that different approach?
I just didn’t think he needed to go out there and run a really hard half this time. I thought it was better to constantly put him in that situation of running his (marathon) goal 5-minute (per mile) pace. And keep getting that comfortable feeling that ‘I can run 5-minute pace for a long time.’ If anything, he should be able to take confidence in his training that we’ve done a lot of work at race pace. Certainly those two half-marathons were at race pace and he left both of those feeling comfortable.

CR: How important has Nike been to this group?
Extremely important. They love distance running. Their support and assistance with everything and anything that we do and need has been very important.

CR: What do you think of the Canadian marathon scene right now?
I think [Reid Coolsaet] and [Eric Gillis] are running well. It’s good to see. I think we’re seeing the same thing in America. These could perhaps be the best Trials in history. It looks like Canada is going to have three guys in London too. It’s just good to see for North American distance running.

CR: What’s it like to have a Canadian in your group?
Simon is a team favourite by far. The guys will be pulling for Simon (on Sunday) big time. It would be great if he could race with them because he trains with them all the time, but that’s not how it works out. He’ll have plenty of support from his teammates. I’m sure it’ll work out fine.

It’s going to be nice (to focus on one athlete on Sunday)… All those who are running the Trials the day before, they are already planning to be out on the course for Simon. Our coaching staff will be out there. It’ll be nice for Simon, I think.

CR: You seem cautiously optimistic. How confident are you?
I think that would be a word that everyone would use with me. I think all of the athletes that are here and racing, they wouldn’t be here if they weren’t fit and ready to run. What that translates to — it’s a marathon, so it’s really hard to say. I think we will leave here better marathoners for sure, regardless of outcome. We all hope for the big positive result. But if we don’t get that, we’re going to leave here a better marathoner. And it’ll help us down the road become better at what we’re trying to do. Experience is a big thing in this sport. Like I said, I think we’re fit and we’re ready to run. What that means on race day, I’m not sure yet.