Rabbit, Run

Matt Scherer delivers opening laps to the tenth of a second.

March 29, 2013

Last June, when David Rudisha of Kenya ran 1:41.78 for 800m, the fastest 800 ever on American soil, he did so with Matt Scherer setting the pace. Rudisha requested an opening lap of between 49 and 49.5 seconds. Scherer brought him through in 49.06. Now that's customer service.

Scherer, 29, got into the pacesetting business in 2010. Although he ran an 800m PR of 1:46.11 and made it to the semifinal of the Olympic trials in 2008, his improvement stopped there. "I was always around 10th in the U.S.," he says. With an uncanny sense of pace and a large frame to block the wind for the runners behind him (Scherer is 6-foot-2 and 195 pounds), he turned that speed into a second life as a professional pacesetter, rabbiting indoor and outdoor races all around the world. Scherer currently lives in Tacoma, Wash., and is training with the newly formed Brooks middle-distance group in Seattle. He talked to Running Times about his work.

RUNNING TIMES: You have a finely tuned internal clock. How do you develop that skill?

MATT SCHERER: A little bit of it comes naturally, but a lot of my workouts that I do, I'll practice actually trying to hit certain paces. So when I'm doing 200 repeats I might try to hit a 25.5 or a 26.5, and then I'll just keep doing that over and over and over again.

RT: Do you check your watch and monitor how you're doing partway through?

MS: I won't look at my watch for the entire interval, until the end. That is different than other athletes who are training. I am completely focused on what I am doing the entire time, whereas a lot of other runners will zone out and try to get through the workout that way, without thinking too much. I am thinking the whole time and trying to figure out if the wind is affecting me, or feel the pace, whether I need to pick it up or slow it down. So when I check the time at the end, I can analyze all that in my head.

RT: When you're at a meet, do you have time to feel the wind in advance of the race?

MS: Most of the time it is on the fly. Sometimes I'll be out on the track the day before, so I can get a feel for everything then.

RT: How do you train for it?

MS: My training is pretty similar to what I did when I was competing. That's what I try to do. Just because I'm not running as hard, I don't want to get in the habit of not training as hard. It worked well for me then. I'll do three workouts a week on the track or the trails. My mileage is still similar to what it was when I was competing, probably in the low 30s, which is low for an 800m runner.

RT: And you can make a living at this?

MS: I'm actually doing better than I did when I was competing.

RT: Do you have relationships with the top 800m and 1500m guys?

MS: I've gotten to know a lot of them quite well, and a lot of Europeans and Africans, too. It definitely helps, depending on who's in the race. Rudisha usually requests; he has his own rabbit he'll bring in. I've paced for Abubaker Kaki from Sudan, because he requested me. That's how I started getting some of the bigger races early on.

RT: Have you ever blown it?

MS: I've never had any of them that I'd consider bad. I've been off by as much as half a second before, but I've been pretty fortunate to always show up on race day and do my job.

RT: Is it lonely? When you were watching the Olympics, were you bummed out that you weren't competing?

MS: No, not really. I was pretty happy to get the break during the Olympics. During the season, I had a four-week span where I had eight different meets on three continents. Right after that I got a break for the Olympic trials and got some training in. Then I had a stint in Europe before the games. I was satisfied with what I had done. I don't mind not finishing races anymore.

Essential Workouts

Who: Matt Scherer, 29

What: Repeat 200s

Why: To keep sharp for his job as a professional pacesetter

When: Twice a month

The Details: Scherer starts off with a 2.5- to 3-mile warm-up, then stretches, does drills and strides. A standard workout is 12 × 200m in 25 to 26 seconds each, with 60 to 90 seconds of walking and jogging between them, depending on how he's feeling. Although he jogs into most of the intervals, he'll also do some of them from a standing start, to mimic a race situation.

"I want to be able to feel any pace, in any situation. If you want to improve your pacing, my advice would be to try not to zone out. Be aware of how your body feels at different speeds." - Matt Sherer