Pandemic Papers: An interview with Bob Sweeney (Class of 1989)

He was in my wedding party. He’s one of my best friends, although we don’t talk nearly as much as we should. I could write a long intro for this Pandemic Papers interview with Bob Sweeney (Class of 1989) but I will try to show the same economy of words that Bob did here with his answers. He may wince when he reads this, but during his prime he was one of this country’s greatest ultramarathon runners (fun fact, his 100-mile PR averages out to 7:51 per mile!). His times from that era – marathon and ultra – still stand the test of time (pun intended) and would be considered elite or sub-elite today. He was a member of multiple USA ultra teams. Bob doesn’t like to toot his horn, so there, I did it for him. He also readily admits that his running during his college years at Marist was, uh, less than spectacular. The delta between his collegiate running and post-collegiate running is extremely huge. Who knew?

The bond of our friendship was formed on countless runs across the Mid-Hudson Bridge during his freshman year of college (and my senior year), and then post-graduate when he was working at the Marist library and I was just starting my coaching career. During that timeframe (roughly 1991-1993), we ran almost every day, midday. It was hard, it was satisfying, the conversations were deep and shallow at the same time. Like my breathing on all those runs. One really cool thing is how connected Bob has stayed to our program. Current and former athletes reading this … most of you have never met Bob but trust me when I tell you he knows who you are and how fast (or not-so-fast) you have run. I love his dig at middle distance guys at the end of this interview! Yes, he would prefer that I recruit and develop mostly 5km and 10km athletes. But again, trust me when I tell you he is probably reveling out there in Colorado when he reads about the MD guys’ individual and relay successes.

From elite level ultra running to pack burro racing and everything in between, Bob could probably write a book. But it wouldn’t be about himself. He doesn’t like to talk about himself. That’s why it took him so long to get these answers back to me! No worries on that, Bob; there are several other interview questions from several other alums for this series, dangling out there unanswered. Writing’s not easy, especially about yourself. And this is just a quaint little blog. There are no deadlines, no schedules. For those of you who still have emails from me waiting to be answered: Take your time. We’re not going anywhere. There’s still several more months of “pandemic” for the Pandemic Papers. I’m glad Bob did this. For me. For him. For you all to read about a unique journey that intersected with Marist Running and still is part of our Marist Running universe.

When, how and why did you start running? I know you have a swimming background and your early running was guided by a legendary high school coach at CBA Syracuse. Talk about those days and how they formed your running habits.

The questions about my first decade of running have not been easy for me to answer. For a guy who has been running fairly consistently for more than 40 years you would think those early years would be full of positive running memories, but not really. I had six different coaches in six years of running from 7th grade to the end of high school. That legendary coach you mention, had a falling out with the administration and left part way through my freshman year. My high school career ended with a DFL in the 3200 as I struggled to come back from mononucleosis. My four years at Marist were probably the most chaotic period in its running history. We started my junior year without a coach in place.  It made for a calmer environment than the previous two years. I somehow managed to run less than a dozen track races in six seasons. Like many from that time period, I didn't run my senior year, opting to go study in the south of France.

I was never satisfied. In hindsight the running was awful, but I had a great time. Met great people along the way. Developed a taste for adventures great and small. My semester abroad was spent run commuting to and from school. Consistent 70+ mile weeks had me in better shape than if I had stayed and ran cross country. Realized my running was what I made it. Maybe that first decade of running was just an unconventional preparation for post collegiate running.

How and why did you choose Marist? Was running a factor in your decision to attend Marist?

When I should have been applying to colleges, I was mostly sleeping off that previously mentioned bad case of mononucleosis. I wanted to continue running and go to school somewhere with milder weather than Syracuse. Two guys from my high school, Mike Murphy and Paul Kelly, were running for Marist and just about everywhere has milder weather than Syracuse so it made the cut. In a less than formal visit I stayed with Paul for a weekend and liked how everyone seemed to greet me with casual acceptance.

Talk about your time at Marist as a student and an athlete. What did you major in, do you have any classes or professors that remain in your memory, etc.?

I have a History degree in large part the result of one professor. I wasn't the most disciplined student and realized Dr. William Olson's teaching method suited me well. The bulk of the grade was based on reading a handful of books and writing 2 1/2 to 3-page papers. I would wait until everyone fell asleep, read the book, write the paper and hand it in the next day.

In terms of running, your college career had its ups and downs. We were only teammates for one year (I think?) and did some decent training together at times if I recall. What made your running at Marist up and down and what were your takeaways from it?

Mostly answered this above, but as Pete Pazik was happy to remind me at a pre-pandemic gathering, I sucked in college. The team wasn't very good yet I floated on and off scoring for the team in cross country. I only ran a handful of track races and they were amusingly bad more often than not. Being a member of the running team was more a social distinction, who was actually training and racing was constantly influx. There were guys I thought of as runners who never raced or practiced. We were unlikely training partners my first year at Marist. You were a senior and I already knew several members of the team. Yet early on whenever I wanted to run long you seemed the most likely candidate to agree. Then, as I remember it, when the cross country season ended, you and I were the only two who kept showing up.

Talk a little about your post-collegiate career path and how you wound up back at Marist in the library.

As a student, I worked a lot of hours at the library. I was getting a degree in history and had no intention of teaching so there wasn't much career planning going on. I was broke by graduation and had no job prospects so I arranged to paint the library director's house in Rhinebeck. I put in long hours on the ladder, not least because I had nowhere else to go. When a backroom job at the library opened up a year later, the director wasn't a bad guy to have as a reference.

When and how did your running take off post-collegiately? Obviously, I remember our hard training days in the early 1990s with great fondness, was that timeframe the start of your ascent into marathon and ultras?

The only time I really experienced rapid improvement was 1991-92 training with you. We were doing a few interval workouts but mainly lots of hour plus runs with fast miles thrown in to the second half. I ran a sub3 marathon for the first time in September and ran 2:37 the following April at Boston. The easy improvements ended there. 

A couple years later I was coming off a rough winter and knew I couldn't PR. Neither of us had run an ultramarathon but you had a subscription to Ultrarunning magazine. I was fascinated by this 'secret world' of running and made the illogical choice to try my first ultramarathon instead of running a spring marathon. Ran and won the Sybil Ludington 50km in Carmel, NY. From there my focus gradually shifted from marathons to ultramarathons.

Let's dive into your marathon and ultra career -- some really good stuff there! 1. Talk about your marathons -- how many, your PR, and your fun "game" of hitting times between 2:30 and 3:00. 2. How and when did you get into ultras (Sybil 1995?)? 3. You made several 100km national teams (still proudly have some of that swag), talk about that experience. 4. Talk about your pretty strong ultra PRs -- 100km and 100 miles are the biggest highlights to me, but go ahead and expand on that one?

For a while, it looked like I might be able to run a marathon at every minute between 2:30 and 3 hours. The tristate area had lots of small marathons I would use as training. I would routinely run between 2:40 and 3 hours. I once eased up at the Philadelphia marathon to run 2:32:00 because I had already run 2:31. There are three or four minutes I haven't run. Once it seemed obvious I was never going to run 2:33, I stopped keeping track.

Seems crazy now that I've run over 100 marathons and ultramarathons but many of them were supposed to be training runs. It is amazing what one can justify as training when preparing for races of 100 km or more. I spent most of the late 1990s and early 2000s with a focus on the 100km distance. I'm pretty good at setting long range goals. Before running my first 100 km, my goal was sub-7 hours and run on the U.S. 100km national team. It took me three years to make the team and four to break 7. I ran for the U.S. 100k team six times and added one stint on the 24-hour team. I was good enough to make teams but usually struggled at the international level.

In 2004, I had been running ultras for a decade but had not tried 100 miles. I spent the spring training for Mount Washington and even ran a 5 km PR. I was running for the powerhouse Westchester Track Club and asked Coach Mike Barnow if he thought I could be ready for a 100-miler in nine weeks. He has some amazing powers of prediction, stared off into space for a while and agreed I could. Nine weeks later, I won the 100-mile national championships in 13:05. A relatively common time now, but nobody had run that fast in over five years at that point. It was one of the rare times I get a new distance right on the first try.

You and Sue have traveled a lot and veered from your New York roots quite a bit. Talk about your time in Paris, and how/when you moved to Colorado.

Sue was working for Perrier at the North American office in Greenwich, Connecticut and was offered the opportunity to transfer to the Corporate headquarters in Paris. The catch was I didn't have the legal status to work in France. I learned to speak French and cook ... and started training like a madman. Paris in the late 90s turned out to be a great place to train. I ran most days in the Bois de Boulogne with its wooded dirt paths. It was a great lifestyle. My daughter is still mildly annoyed we returned soon after her birth in 2000.

You've been in Colorado now, what, about 15 years? Talk about your life out there -- especially Leadville -- and how your running evolved in what is one of the 'meccas' of endurance athletics in the US.

I thought we would probably move back to France at some point but the mortgage crisis of 2008 presented a chance to try someplace entirely new. We settled on the Boulder area without really considering the running scene. It was more based on weather, local economy and lifestyle. It is a great place to spend time outside with the default weather being clear blue skies and low humidity. I have dirt and cinder paths starting across the street that I can take all the way into the mountains.

As an ultrarunner, Leadville was a near mythical testing ground, America's highest city at nearly 10,200 feet. The Leadville 100 was the high mountain challenge that seemed to eat up and spit out sea level runners. A training partner from the east coast had moved to the next town over from me about the same time we arrived. He asked me to pace him in the second half of the Leadville 100. Pacing him that day, I thought the many smooth forest roads and flatter sections seemed to make it doable for an old road runner. I proceeded to DNF the next two years.  Despite the DNFs, I loved the area and started following the real estate market and eventually bought a house outside of town. I would stand on my deck and look out at the two highest peaks in Colorado but gradually my eyes would wander down to the spots where I had DNFed. The following summer, I finished for the first time. At 50, on my fourth attempt in five years, I finally broke 20 hours, my initial goal nearly a decade earlier.

Gotta talk about Yukon and burro racing! How did you get into THAT and what are the challenges and differences between racing with a donkey and not?

One of my first training partners in Colorado is a world champion and triple crown winning pack burro racer. So, I knew about the sport almost upon arrival in Colorado. Pack burro racing involves running with your donkey connected via lead rope with race distances of 5 to 30-plus miles. My house near Leadville sits right between the towns that host the three triple crown races. While training for the Leadville 100, I watched my friend win the triple crown with his partner Jack. A couple months later, I started training with a great looking donkey named Boog. In our first race, as we caught up to the leading team, the other donkey turned and bit Boog on the neck. Boog never saw the front of a race again. The other donkey was Yukon. For the past three seasons, I've been racing Yukon.

In some regards, Yukon and I are horrible racing partners. I was always strong on uphills and a relatively slow downhill runner. Yukon likes to walk uphill and crush downhills. I am best at locking into a pace and keeping it for miles. Yukon likes to let gaps open in front of him, then sprint to catch up. I've usually won races by getting away from the competition and not depending on my kick. If Yukon realizes we have left the other teams behind, he waits. We've been working on finding more common ground, but most of the time the donkey decides.

You still follow the Marist XC teams closely and we appreciate that. What are your thoughts on the current team's progress and what can/would you say to past and current athletes dealing with the shutdown of their sport and their seasons?

I've been one of the guys in Pete's ear over the years telling him to aim higher when recruiting. I have to admit it seems the program has done all right taking its chances with hungry guys with potential. I hope most of you have maintained that hunger to improve and come out of this period ready to show hard work pays off. I know for many, myself included, staying motivated has not been easy. On the positive side, learning to self-motivate and train on your own will be a valuable life tool.

What message would you impart to the class of 2020 (and maybe even the class of 2021)?

You don't get to choose what moment in history you get to live. All you can do is try to make the most of it.

Here's a new question for this series: If you could, what would you tell the 20-year-old version of Bob Sweeney now?

Bob, having a plan isn't a bad thing; 20-year-old Bob probably wouldn't have listened to much more than that.

Anything else you want to add ...

I should apologize to the many middle-distance types over the years I've told Pete not to waste his time and money on. You always bothered me, complaining about how long cross-country races are in college. Yet, I never let my bias against middle distance prevent me from enjoying those great relays and individual performances over the years. Keep proving me wrong ... or learn to use that kick in the 5 and 10km.