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Apr-7-2007
Now Respected, Marathoner Gilmore Looks to Move Up To The Next Level
by David Monti
(c) Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved
About one month before his 30th birthday, Peter Gilmore is in the midst of a
115 mile training week. That's way down from his peak weeks of 160 miles, necessary to build the endurance and toughness to conquer the hills of the Boston Marathon, the race which has so far defined Gilmore's rising career as a marathoner.
He first tried Boston, which will be held for the 111th time one week from Monday, in 2003. He dropped out. Boston was not in his competition plans for 2004 because he raced the U.S. Olympic Trials - Men's Marathon instead, setting a then personal best of 2:15:44 and finishing a respectable 9th.
But after setting another personal best of 2:14:02 at the California International Marathon in Sacramento, Calif., in December of 2004, Gilmore again went back to Boston in 2005. Running a patient race on a warm day, he ran a modest time of 2:17:32, but he finished tenth, and people noticed.
"Something about grabbing that tenth place at a race like Boston, one of the Major marathons, was huge," said Gilmore yesterday in a telephone interview from his home in San Mateo, Calif. "Not so much in my eyes, but how people looked at me. Sometimes you make progress that's personal and sometimes you make progress that other people notice."
After two disappointing marathons at the World Championships in Helsinki (51st, 2:25:17) and New York (17th, 2:16:39), Gilmore regathered himself for another shot at Boston in 2006. His training went well, and he had the experience of being on the course twice before. A runner who prides himself on mastering all the small the details of the event, he had to confront a gremlin which popped up in just the first mile of the race.
"Last year at Boston, I was running next to Brian Sell at the one mile mark," Gilmore recalled. "I hit the button on my watch and the battery died on my watch. So I didn't get any splits at all the rest of the race."
Running with Sell, who along with his Hansons teammates had nicknamed Gilmore "Meat," Gilmore got a few more splits from his rival, but mostly was running on feel. He admitted that late in the race he was unable to do the math from the mile clocks as the pain set it, but it mattered little. Under coach Jack Daniels, Gilmore had done the kind of hill workouts which made it possible for him to conquer Heartbreak Hill in the 21st mile, pass a few more runners in the final miles, and sail to the finish line in a mind-blowing seventh place, clocking a personal best 2:12:45. Trying to squeeze very second out of the race, he held his celebration to the final meters, when a sensation of pure joy rushed through his body.
"At that race you can see the finish line for a long time," he said, clearly enjoying the memory. "I knew I was running a big PR. I kind of kept a stiff upper lip and sprinted to the finish line, except the last ten yards.
All of the celebrating which would have come out in the last 100 yards just flew out of me the last ten yards."
Gilmore's glee was captured in an Associated Press photo which found it's way into millions of copies of American newspapers. "That picture just captured it," said Gilmore. He added: "That was a big break through. It was a big breakthrough on every level."
By that point, Gilmore had been able to quit his job --or more accurately,
jobs-- to focus on training. By his own accounting he's held 12 different part-time jobs since graduating from the University of California at Berkeley in 2000: substitute teacher, special education aide, financial analyst at a hedge fund, running store salesman, and track coach, amongst others. He now receives financial support from MarathonGuide.com and Enlyten Sports Strips, a company which makes a dry electrolyte delivery system in the form of a dissolving strip. Before that, he relied mostly on race organizers for his income.
"The people who have made the biggest difference to me in the lean years have been the race directors," said Gilmore "That's been BAA (Boston Athletic Association, the organizer of the Boston Marathon) and the New York Road Runners (organizer of the ING New York City Marathon). "I could say one hundred percent that I would not be where I am if it were not for New York Road Runners and the BAA. I'd probably be out of the sport."
Gilmore followed-up on his Boston success last year with another top-10 finish in a Major, this time at New York. Again running patiently, he found himself in 11th place in the final miles of the ING New York City Marathon last November. He was in a lot of pain and just trying to finish well when he spotted Dathan Ritzenhein ahead of him. He recalls the moment "vividly,"
he said.
"I had kind of gone to that lockdown mode with three miles to go," said Gilmore. "I could see him up ahead; it's a long straightaway on Fifth (Avenue). I didn't think he was coming back to me at all. There was at some point that I realized that I had a shot. I realized that he was coming back really slow. I made a concerted decision to reach real deep and make it hurt. It was awful. It was ugly and horrible, everything it should be at the end of a marathon if you made a full effort. When I went by him it was in the stretch just about when you leave the Park. I went by him and I went by him fast. I really put the pedal to the metal there for about 100 yards. I never looked back. I just looked down and went for it."
Gilmore finished tenth in 2:13:13, not far off of his personal best, and nearly a minute ahead of Ritzenhein who was making his debut. He somewhat regrets having put his head down because Hendrick Ramaala, the 2005 New York champion, would only finish nine seconds in front of him.
"I'm not saying I would have caught him," said Gilmore. "But I should have looked."
For Boston this year, Gilmore will use his experience to try to avoid what he sees as past mistakes.
"The last two hills, Heartbreak and the one before it, I started them too fast, attacked them too fast," he said of last year's race. "Heartbreak was just awful. I was in a world of pain. It took a good half mile or so to know I was going to get the pace back down again."
The plain-spoken Gilmore has clearly defined his goal for Boston this year:
"My goal is to place higher than I did last year. Pretty simple.
Time-wise, it's pretty hard to say at Boston."
He's also looking forward to the U.S. Olympic Trials - Men's Marathon set for Nov. 3, in New York City. The criterium course in Central Park will be challenging, and Gilmore's dream of running a fast time on a flat course will have to wait at least until the spring of 2008.
"I'm dying to see what I can run on something quick," he said. "At the same time, the goal is to be an Olympian. The route to the Olympics goes through the horribly difficult course like that. We'll get to see how fast in the future. Right now, the goal is pretty focused and narrow."
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