Shannon Rowbury Featured in Race Results Weekly

Submitted by Mark Winitz and reprinted courtesy of David Monti

raceresultsweekly.com

2010 Reebok Bosotn Indoor Games Results

From PA Web Content Mananger, Cynci Calvin:
Shannon Rowbury finished a strong third at the 2010 Reebok Boston Indoor Games.
held Saturday, Feb. 6. With a pr of 8:47.18. Also of note was Sara Hall's (nee Bei)
fifth place finish (8:55.17). Prior to the race, Race Results Weekly published this
article highlighting Shannon's accomplishments.


From: Race Results Weekly, [email protected]

NOW A MEDALLIST, CONFIDENT ROWBURY IS READY TO RACE
By David Monti
(c) 2010 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved

BOSTON (05-Feb) -- Two years ago when Shannon Rowbury last raced at the
Reggie Lewis Track & Field Center here, she was recently out of college
and just getting over an injury. Competing at the USA Indoor
Championships for the first time, she was the surprise winner of the
3000m, sweeping to victory with a powerful 29.4 second final 200m.

"My coach always says once you go you don't look back," Rowbury told Race
Results Weekly at the time.

Since that cold February day, Rowbury has had no reason to look any
direction but forward. Running in her specialty, the 1500m, the former
Duke University star has won two consecutive national titles, finished
seventh at the Beijing Olympics, and earned the bronze medal at last
summer's IAAF World Championships.

"I think I have a higher level of confidence, just because it's my third
year running professionally," Rowbury said in an interview here today.
"I've gotten used to competing with the best in the world." She
continued: "I feel like that this year I've come into it with a higher
level of focus, that higher level of confidence. With that, there's a lot
more responsibility to set higher goals and expectations for myself. I
like that. I like that challenge."

Rowbury will be running the 3000m at tomorrow night's Reebok Boston
Indoor Games at "The Reggie," as the arena is commonly known. She'll be
running in a solid field with Ethiopia's Genzebe Dibaba, Canada's Megan
(Metcalfe) Wright, Britain's Hannah England, and her USA Olympic teammate
Christin Wurth-Thomas. Rowbury said she is ready to race, and that a
fast time is definitely possible.

"So, there's a rabbit, I believe, to 12 or 1600," she explained. "The
first half of the race is just to kind of see how the race unfolds. I'm
hoping that it's a fast pace, and that there's a lot of girls going after
it, and that when the rabbit drops out I have some girls to compete
against to go for a fast time. My PR is 8:54 from the same track two
years ago. I'm certainly capable of that. If things play out well,
maybe even something better. We'll just see."

Rowbury hopes tomorrow's race will not just be a stepping stone to the
IAAF World Indoor Championships in Doha next month, but also lay the
groundwork for a different kind of track season than she's had the last
two years. Without a summer championship, Rowbury is hoping to be able
to peak for some fast races and focus more on running for time.

"In talking to Coach (John) Cook we want to continue to practice the
schedule for Worlds and Olympic years, to always be refining that," she
said. "We can really taper my peaking for a couple of fast races,
whereas last year I had to focus on U.S. Champs and Worlds, and let go of
some of the other races I would have liked to have performed well, but
they weren't the two big ones. So this year, we can focus my training on
being my best at those races where there would be a good field and a good
rabbit, and really let all the training from this year and last year
shine through, because I didn't feel I had a chance to do that last year
from a time perspective."

Rowbury is the only one of the Big Four USA middle distance women (Anna
Pierce, Christin Wurth-Thomas and Jenny Barringer being the other three)
who has not broken four-minutes for 1500m. Last year, Pierce, the former
Anna Willard, ran 3:59.38 in Zürich; Wurth-Thomas ran 3:59.98 in Rome;
and Barringer ran 3:59.90 in Eugene. Rowbury's best time last season was
4:00.81 in Zürich, just slightly slower than her personal best 4:00.33
set in Paris in 2008. Rowbury, the only world championships medallist of
the Big Four, savors being part of such a strong group.

"It's so cool to be part of a dominant group like that," she said. "I've
always been impressed by the sprinters, that the top sprinters in the
U.S. are the top sprinters in the world. I didn't see a reason why
women's middle distance, why we couldn't be like that. We have loads of
talent, we have so many resources. We have everything at our fingertips.
I think it was just a matter of putting it all together and believing
that we could do it. I'm definitely proud to step out on the track to
have U.S. middle distance be recognized and to be pulling our own weight.
It's an exciting environment to be in."

Part of Rowbury's success is her balanced, and fun-loving approach to
training and racing. She now shares a home with Bay Area Track Club
teammates Bolota Asmerom and David Torrence in San Francisco, and she
trains regularly with both of them at three area tracks. She also lives
close to her parents, and the offices of her management group, Peter
Stubbs Management. She said that the whole set-up is empowering.

"We have a great group of athletes now to workout with," she said. "So,
for me, from a training perspective, it's been great. I feel like I've
gotten the best chunk of training so far, and just had a lot of fun doing
it."

Things are a lot more complicated for Rowbury now than when she was last
here in Boston racing --she now has her own website, a business manager
and a much bigger endorsement deal from Nike-- but she seems to have no
trouble retaining her passion for just running and racing.

"I hope to keep that joy of my profession through my entire career," she
said. "Because if you're not having fun, what's the point? I try to do
that."

ENDS


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