Garrett Heath Describes A "Stanford Sandwich"

Garrett Heath was the middle of a Stanford sandwich finish in the mile at the Husky Invitational last Saturday. A red-shirt junior at Stanford, Heath was outleaned by Stanford grad, Russell Brown, and a fraction of a second ahead of another Stanford grad, Olympian Gabe Jennings. Right behind the trio was Oregon freshman, Matt Centrowitz. It was an exciting race. After getting through his accounting midterm, Heath answered a few questions for DtB.

DtB: The Husky Invitational seems to be your lucky meet. You ran your first sub-four minute mile there last year. This year you went faster. Any reason things seem to come together for you in Seattle or is it just where the event falls in the indoor season?

GH: I think that it's mostly just where the meet falls in the indoor schedule and the number of fast guys that always show up for this race. There are only a couple of meets that we go to indoors, other than our conference, so it's really one of the only chances at running well to make nationals. Washington also does a great job at having a rabbit that will take out the pace for at least the first 800 or so, which really helps keep things honest. Other than that, I guess its just coincidence.

DtB: You joked last year that you had said that if you ever broke four for the mile, you'd stop running. Why was sub-four such a lofty goal?

GH: Sub four is just one of those barriers that I always dreamed of breaking when I was younger, but never really imagined I would ever do. I was always more of a long distance guy and liked cross country much better than track when I was in high school. I remember always getting out-kicked by Tom Schmidt almost every race my 10th grade year, and never really had the speed that I thought was necessary to run fast in the shorter races. It wasn't really until two years ago that I thought breaking four minutes was a possibility.

DtB: How did the race unfold this year? Looks like you had at least three Stanford guys leaning for the line at the end.

GH: The race itself started out pretty similar to last year, in that we had a rabbit that took us through the quarter mile in 57 and then slowed down and brought us through the half in about 2:00-2:01. I got off the line well and settled into about fifth through the first two or three laps. Once the pace started to slow down though, everyone started moving up, and I ended up getting pushed to the back. At the time I thought I was in last, but I think Matt Centrowitz was also back there with me. We ended up coming through the three-quarter mark in about 3:01. I didn't really have room to start kicking until the last 250 meters of the race, but I got lucky down the backstretch and found a place to move up. From there, the three of us from Stanford were pretty much stride for stride for the last 100 meters or so with Matt right behind us.

DtB: What's the plan for the rest of the indoor season? Outdoors? You said last year that you now consider yourself a miler. Is that still your view or do you think 5K will be better for you?

GH: I'm planning on running the DMR at our next meet to try and help qualify our team for nationals. We have a good squad of guys for it again, so it would be nice to get the qualifier out of the way and avoid going to a last chance meet. Other than that, I'm going to focus on getting ready for the indoor mile and maybe take another shot at the 3K after the DMR at our next meet. In terms of outdoors, I still do consider myself a miler rather than a 5K runner, but will probably do a little of both as the season goes on.

Photo courtesy of Stanford University.