Bill Aris Track Talk: Page 3: No Magic Workouts, Strength Training and Doubles, Collegiate Success, and Running as a Part of Life

By LetsRun.com
April 14, 2010

Editor's note: LetsRun.com did a lengthy one hour and 30 minute podcast with Fayetteville-Manlius cross-country and track and field coach Bill Aris (Fayetteville, NY is just outside Syracuse, NY). Aris is the coach of 4-time Nike National champions girls Manlius XC team and the coach of the original Stotans of '04, the boys team that finished 2nd at the inaugural Nike Team Nationals (NXN). Aris talks about magically motivating his HS runners to do magical things, his new pro Stotan Racing team and whether or not his prodigy Alex Hatz will go sub-4 this spring. You can download the podcast here or listen in this embedded player.

We have transcribed the podcast and it spans 4 pages.
*Page 1: Introduction, What is the Stotan Lifestyle, Percy Cerutty, The Process is the Goal, and There is No #1 Runner
*Page 2: Getting Kids to Buy Into the Program, Logistics of Running a High School Program, What to Do With People New to Running, Weekly Mileage
*Page 3: (No Magic) Workouts, Strength Training and Doubles, Collegiate Success, and Running as a Part of Life
*Page 4: Stotan Racing Team, Lopez Lomong vs. Dominic Luca, Alex Hatz And the Sub-4 Quest

Back to Page 2

Page 3 of 4

No Magic Workouts

Rojo: Right. In terms of workouts, obviously I don't expect you to give me all the specifics and it seems like everybody wants to get specifics and I know as a coach, I wouldn't want to do that, but I guess what type of workouts are your favorite workouts? Or what do you think are the keys to a team's success? And then, as one person emailed me said, so what do you think are the key workouts and what are your favorite workouts? And then how would you describe as what are the runners' favorite workouts and are those two necessarily the same?

BA: OK, good. I'll answer the questions, I won't sandbag. I'll start off with this, though. I could tell you probably every workout's my favorite workout. Because every one of them has a specific purpose. Every single one of them. Whether it be a recovery day, a long run, a hill workout, fartlek, structured fartlek, a swept line, I'll touch on that in a minute. Anything, everything is important. And again that leads back to the process as the goal - what we do every day has importance and value. And we tell our kids this. We don't measure mileage for its own sake, but what we do is we make sure that every step they take matters. Whether it's a recovery day, a quality day, a steady day, you name it. We want them to run what they need to run and no more. So just piling on a lot of junk miles serves no purpose in our opinion. On the other hand, we don't have them going out killing themselves every day either. So it's a mixture and a balance.

OK, what are our workouts? You know, I get that question all the time, and because people want, often want, and I haven't cornered the market by any means. Joe Newton gets asked this stuff all the time and he's written books disclosing all his track work and they have more track work in that program than we ever do, and many other fine coaches from fine, storied programs that've been around a lot longer than ours have done.

I really could tell you that to focus on specific magic bullet workouts is to do a disservice to any aspiring coach or program. There are no magic workouts. There really are no magic workouts, everything's a magic workout. Everything together, how you arrange it, how you put it together as a coach, the format. You know that the tapestry of a training developmental plan is the magic. It's not any specific workout. Now I'll give you some overviews. The summertime, were we ever on the track? Only by accident. Never. I mean, we have a voluntary summer program. The kids run like most high schools do, and we'll get together a few times a week; we've done that for years. And it's open, totally voluntary. Of course, the good ones will always show up all the time and want to run more and more and more. But, we...

Rojo: How many days a week is that?

BA: Well, that's driven by the kids. Several years ago, we only met a few times a week in the 90s, OK? Maybe even once a week, at one point. And just as a means of holding things together, to have a connective day for the team. And then as things evolved into the 2000s and beyond, and especially from '04 on, the kids craved each other's company. They really liked being with each other. And one thing led to another, and instead of being a couple of times a week, it was three, then four, then five, then six. And I said to them, "Look, we'll support you. John and I will be here to the extent that you're here. But don't say you want to do this much and have three of you show up, because then we will not do that." So I would say to you the kids probably, over the summer, show up on average five times, four times a week. On occasion, you'll see some of them be there six times a week. But we'll avail ourselves to them, but it's not like you've got to be here or else; it's never like that. We lay out a general schedule of availability on which we'll be present if they want to do it, and we basically leave it up to them.

They also understand this: If they want to be successful, it's obvious that you should be there more often than you're not, right? And if you're not there, we have kids who are away all summer, just like other programs, or significant portions, or college visits, or family vacations, et cetera, and they know that if they want to be successful in the fall, and provide themselves with a base to take them through the whole year, they've got to run on their own. And we're more than happy to give them an outline to follow on their own. So we do that. And again, no specific workouts of any kind, just a lot of good trail running with hills, and that sort of stuff. In the fall ... we are on the track in the fall, I think, twice the entire fall. And why do I say twice with such surety? It's because those are the two dates of the Jewish holidays that our school abides by, on which school is closed, and that we are not allowed to practice during the day, and no sport is until sundown. When the sun goes down, and we can turn on the lights on the football field, the only place we can practice with any safety is on the track. So we'll go out under the lights, while the football team is also out there, and we'll have almost a surreal evening of training, while the football field and the infield are marveling at what we're doing, and they're screaming and yelling and doing what they're doing, and we have quite an exciting evening; the kids kind of look forward to it.

So really, only a couple of times the whole fall are we on the track. The rest of the time is spent on the grass, as little time, though some is necessary on the road, mostly on the grass, at our school property. At Green Lakes, of course, which you've heard me talk about, an oasis for distance training, in my opinion, and most people's opinion in this area, and that basically carries us through the fall. We get to the winter, of course, the lovely tropical winters that we have, and the weather turns. We're on the road much of the time, almost all the time, in fact. And that's where we build in things like treadmill runs when the weather's really bad. But really, having said all that, I'm a firm believer in just if you have enough layers on, you can run in anything. I mean, I did that when I was an aspiring marathoner and I remember many days following snow plows and running twenty-mile runs, the Mountain Goat course twice, in the middle of a blizzard, following a plow. I mean, you do those things, you know? And certainly we don't make the kids do that, in the middle of a blizzard if school's closed, but you know what? We have an excellent YMCA here. The kids go run on their own at the Y or they'll run outside, because some of them prefer to rather than rather than portray that they're "weak," and run on a treadmill. They'd rather run outside, many of them, as soon as the roads are plowed. But some of them will run on treadmills and do other things: you know, water running, spinning, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You know, we lay out a plan for them to follow.

Now, that's the winter. And you say, "Well, it's indoor track. Where do you practice? Do you go to Manley (Field House at Syracuse) for workouts?" No, we never go to Manley for workouts. The only time we've been at Manley all winter is with the Stotan Racing people, doing specific workouts to meet a few people that were aiming for certain races. Think about Laurel Burdick, who is running Boston a week from Monday. I had to do some work with her in Manley a few select times this winter. And at one time we had Alex Hatz in there before the Reebok Boston Indoor Games, which he won the mile, just doing a couple of refresher tune-up workouts because he hadn't been on a track in a whole year, that is, with his kidney issues and everything in the fall. But by-and-large, we have neighborhoods around where our school is, and that's basically our winter track. We've laid out routes and distances and certain roads with varying degrees of hills and what not that we'll do work on that really serve as the strength of whatever success we have during indoor.

And if you were to look at Lydiard-type building, pyramid building, that would have been the next layer of the pyramid, if you will, leading to spring. And then we get to the spring, with this year a slightly different - a slight departure from what I've done in the past. We normally still are not on the track all that much other than to race. This year, with so many seasoned veterans, I decided with the better weather, relatively speaking, to get on the track a little sooner this year. So we're on the track once or twice a week. Nothing monumental, just getting our feet wet, and as we continue to build our base for aiming for late-season racing success. So that's basically our plan. We periodize. We ... I should say overall we break the year up into two halves. Our summer season is the base for cross-country. We take a meaningful break, which fortunately for us is coming around in December these days, and then we restart it right at the end of the Christmas holidays and rebuild the base through winter track to apply to the spring. And then they take another meaningful break around exams and what not and start it over again.

Rojo: What about - I always get these questions, and I could care less what the answer is, but I'll ask them since this show is for the viewers and not for me. But people want to know what kind of flexibility, core or weight training do you have your team do.

BA: Sure.

Strength Training And Doubles?

Rojo: And also people want to know sort of how many days a week do they run, and do some of the kids double?

BA: OK. Good questions, all of them. I'll deal with the last one first, so I don't forget it. Believe it or not, very few - no, our kids do not double. And you could start right with Alex Hatz. He's a typical one-a-day runner. He may do some supplemental ... I mean, if you mean running - no, no. I would say maybe during - if you want to call a shake-out run the morning of a major invitational, like a 20-minute shake-out run in the morning before you get on a bus as a double - I suppose you could call that a double if you want, but that's really not a double, that's just loosening up. Or if we're sitting around at the hotel and he's racing in the evening and the Nike Indoor Nationals, where the girls are doing the same, when they ran the 9:02 in a 4-by-8 and won the national championship, they would go out in the morning for a short shake-out run, 15 minutes, loosen up the legs. But I don't think that's the truest definition of doubling. Any kind of doubling we've ever done has been supplemental cross-training type work. And that's really to not pound their legs out, but just if there is going to be any augmenting of their conditioning, we try to do it in a non-running way. Again, I stick to the old ... the adage of making our running count, making the most of it. And that, again, doesn't mean it's 90% speed work. It's not. It's 90% aerobic. But we find other ways for their growing bodies to become fit in a comprehensive way. You asked me about strength training. Yeah, we are advocates of it, and that's where I drew the distinction between Lydiard and Cerutty. Lydiard was anathema to it. He did not believe in it. It often used - if you read it - I'm sure you've read his books as we all have, many of us have - and you know, he's referred - used Lasse Viren, one of my all-time heroes, as an example. Lasse Viren looked like a wet noodle after he won his double golds in '72 and '76. The guy had the skin-and-bones upper body. I don't care; I still loved him.

The fact is that I have firmly believed my whole life that how can a runner not become improved and more resiliant and more powerful, and more injury resistant, by not having ... how can they not become better by weight training? How can those words come out right? And that's where another aspect of Cerutty to distinguish himself from Lydiard and his philosophy really was near and dear to our heart. Cerutty was a firm believer in strength training. Not body building, not increasing muscle mass, specific strength training, what we call invisible strength. OK, the kind of strength you don't see but you feel. Our strength training that we do is specific and periodized and total body. And it works to develop each athlete as runners, not to turn them into something that they're not, but to make them strong for what they are. Ironically, many athletes out there, especially distance runners, get concerned about weight gain - boys and men, girls and women - by strength training. The funny thing is if you do it right, you can lose nonessential weight, to a degree, by strength training. You just have to know how to do it right. And that's what we believe we know how to do. And we do that and we've done it with great success. Now is strength training the be-all and end-all of life? You're not going to run a great 2-mile just by strength training and jogging. You're not gonna run 20 miles a week, do lots of stretching and strength training and be a great two-miler unless your name is Kenenisa Bekele. The fact is that, you know, we do everything else as a higher priority and strength training is just one component of a multifaceted plan.

Rojo: Sure, definitely. I have to give you credit for that ... the chiseled runners I'll never forget. I think it was back in 2005, my buddy Chris Lear, who was the author of Running with the Buffaloes - He called me from the Nike Track Nationals. And I guess that was kind of right when you guys were ... I guess you you ran a DMR or a 4-by-mile down there, I'm not quite sure.

BA: Yeah, yeah. That was spring 2006, when Owen was a senior.

Rojo: ... and he was just like, "This high school team ... they look like - they don't look like high schoolers. I've never seen a high school team that chiseled. Their bodies are different from everybody else." So he definitely picked up on it. He thought it was 'cause a) they ran a lot and b) they were doing, you know, the weights and everything. 'Cause I definitely think if you use Mr. Kimple as an example, he should be on the cover of Runners World, you know. Six pack abs ...

BA: Owen definitely has invisible strength. And he's just one more depiction, one example, of many of the kids who have followed our program, and what they've gotten out of it. And it's funny, the ones that continue it, when they go on to college and beyond ... they don't get injured and they stay pretty powerful and they're usually pretty happy with their result. The ones that continue it, I should say. The ones that don't continue it often wind up having injuries, wind up not understanding why they don't have any zip, and this and that. And so, you know, lo and behold ... like I say, needless to say, we're ... running is obviously the bread-and-butter, the guts of the whole thing, but strength training, eating right, sleeping right, all of these fit right in.

Collegiate Success?

Rojo: Yeah. I guess we'll move on and ask sort of a more difficult question and actually maybe a difficult one for me too, because it may not make me look good, but I think a lot of people ... a couple of the posts on the message boards were sort of ... you know, and I think Joe Newton gets this a lot, as well ...

BA: I know what you're gonna ask.

Rojo: Your runners, you know, they have such great success in high school. And then I think a lot of ... you know, one of the questions on the message board is, "What is your rate in improvement for runners once they get to the collegiate level?" Are you just like Saratoga when it comes to females? And then sort of, can you point to runners that have succeeded past Fayetteville-Manlius? I'll let you take a crack at that and then I can obviously add my two cents, 'cause I coach one of your runners in college.

BA: Yes, that's right. Actually, you've got two of our people there - Kathryn Buchan on the girls' side and Owen on the boys', a senior. OK. I've seen, heard, considered all angles of that discussion. And I'll start off with this. And that is, by the way, a fair question, and I welcome it. I would pose this response in support of every coach out there and every athlete out there, everywhere, OK? I think it's really inappropriate for a kid, an athlete, to be held accountable for whatever they did in high school and the reproduction of it in college or beyond. I think it's also unfair to hold a coach, a future coach, accountable for that. And I think it's also unfair to hold a high school coach accountable for that - whatever happens afterwards, whether it's good or bad or in between. But one thing that's forgotten here, alright - people look through an objective lens and.they think in a very clinical way that they're all robots. They did this now, they're just going to continue to develop, and da da da da da da da, and it's going to go on. And if it doesn't, "Ah, something was wrong. Aris burned them out, ran them into the ground when they were in high school. Nothing left. Joe Newton, same thing. Saratoga ... the Kranicks? Oh, God awful, terrible. Yep, nothing left." That's not true. It's not fair, it's just not fair to say that. And most of all, you know who it's not fair to the most? It's not fair to the kids.

I've read one of the things on there, written about someone that's near and dear to my heart, Jared Burdick, I'm going to say his name right out now. The supreme Stotan - leader of our team in 2004. Someone got on there and said some commentary, negative comment about Jared not being ... producing at RIT, or whatever. Well, you know what? What they don't know, or what they should know, is people like Jared and many others ... think about what happens, think of the formative years of high school. Think about how things are relatively structured, how things are simple in high school. How it's easy, when a kid comes to practice, they practice, they do their work, they go home, and that's it, alright? All of a sudden, boom, you're free. You're in college. They have to make decisions. No one is telling them they can't. Yeah, the college programs in running, and in any sport, are far less structured than in high school. That kid's seeing it's a lot more choices, a lot more opportunity to do stuff. And as such, you, as coaches in college, have a lot more of an approach of treating them like adults, which they are, technically or really, whatever the case may be. So your practices are certainly not going to be as structured as a high school practice. Now some kids adapt to that very well. I've found that in that past, and what I've witnessed is people, kids who are individuals, say on a team that was not a great team, but had an individual star ... that, ironically, that kind of kid may be more apt to be successful in a collegiate program than a kid that was on a great team. I'm not saying that to defend myself; I'm saying that for anybody out there, because that kid had to learn earlier how to handle himself individually all the time.

And when they get to college, it's no different, because things are more individualistic. That's just the nature of the beast, just like it is later on, when they go post-collegiate, if they continue to run. This, in my opinion, is why so many kids either a) don't fulfill their potential to continue on, on that curve of success or b) give up running. That's one of the reasons. Another reason - by the way, Jared Burdick is continuing to run, and we just spoke with him today; in fact, he's doing quite well. We're very happy in every way with Jared. The fact is that ... uh, where am I going with this? This is a pretty passionate topic, not just for myself, but for all coaches out there, and kids. When a kid goes to college, priorities change. It's inevitable. Unless they're a full-ride athlete. I mean, your bona fide D1 full-ride athlete where it's a quasi-job, OK? And perhaps an avocation as well as a job, OK? Unless you're in that situation, a majority of the kids, when they go to college, they're going to get an education way beyond everything else. Yeah, they want to run. Yeah, they want to do well. But the education's the primary thing. That's what it should be. Now isn't it logical that running in a more individualized setting, where far more expectations academically are placed on the kids, and their transition to all of a sudden being accountable to themselves alone? Not in a structured setting in the high school? Wouldn't it be logical that that is going to create a drop-off? Of course it is. Is anyone to blame for that? No, not at all. That's life; that's the way it goes. So, you know, for people that want to go out there and point fingers at college coaches or high school coaches, you can point the fingers, but I don't know what you're pointing at. We're not burning people out at F-M and I would also say that the college coaches that have kids that, like yourself and others who may not ... and by the way, where you coach, Cornell, not quite a low academic standing school, not quite a school with not much academic pressure (laughs), quite the contrary. Life changes, OK? And the kids do what they can. Some of them aspire, some of them manage to succeed and continue to grow, and some of them don't. But there's no crime in that.

Rojo:  Right.

BA:  You know, that's in defense and support of all kids and all coaches. That's why I'm saying it. Now, back to our program, specifically, and this question ... this is the crux, I think, of what was asked, and I'm going to refute something, as it pertains to our program. We start - and I started doing this for kicks years ago, in my mind, and I know it's only a game of mental gymnastics, nine times out ten, until recently, in fact, that I put together a dream plan of what I would do with a kid from right through high school and right on beyond post-school, right through college and post-collegiately with the theory that I would be coaching them right through, how would I develop that person? Right through, you know. Seb Coe and his father, right from the beginning the only coach he ever had. That sort of scenario. I'd just play with it. Well, I put a scenario together in my mind and certainly hope and in fact try to help so that maybe we can find situations like that for kids so that they can continue to grow and succeed, at least worked for them in high school or find coaches that are agreeable and willing to listen and may consider what the high school coach did that created the success that the college coach wants, OK? Try to put together a plan that has them developing so that their best running comes in college and post-collegiately, not in high school. I can tell you this right now, all of our kids are undertrained anaerobically - every single one of 'em. Alex Hatz and everybody before - undertrained anaerobically. They are trained thoroughly and completely and appropriately aerobically. OK? Any kind of quality work we do is very selective; hence, the limited time on the track. So we're carefully developing their aerobic base with appropriate - not mega-, but appropriate - mileage with the idea that the anaerobic work, if any, that is going to follow is gonna come later, OK? Alex Hatz is probably the least anaerobically-trained athlete that he races against in the nation. OK, and that's just fact. And so is every one of our kids. And so what we do, we put a plan together that transition them in gradually increasing volume and to some degree quality and moves up the line and then goes towards the college and beyond. So that's my answer to all of those statements and those insinuations.

Rojo  Sure. I mean, I definitely have to agree with you. I mean, I coach Owen Kimple, who ran a 4:07 1,600  for you. I guess that's a 4:09 mile. And without a doubt he wasn't burned out. I think that the hard thing for me has been just sort of to replicate the same ... I mean, when he's in high school, he's competing for a national championship, he's got a brotherhood that's, you know, unbelievable. And its not nearly as structured, you know. But if I could change anything, the only thing that I would have done ... I thought honestly, I mean I didn't really consider it seriously, but I told a friend of mine that I should make this kid the captain of the team his freshmen year because he was so focused on running. But then you know after that, well, I will let him relax a little bit ... this is college. But one other thing you said at the beginning of the show is that, it's almost considered abusive to ask these kids not to go out get hammered like every other college kid and stuff like that. Whereas in reality, I think if I had challenged him, perhaps he would have done it (captained the team). I mean it would be very hard when you've got nineteen thousand other students going out and doing it (drinking).

But I think a lot of coaches are afraid, you know, to ask for that. I do think that he was really focused going into his senior year of cross-country in high school. He did have a bunch of hundred mile weeks. But I didn't think that he was burned out. I think talent-wise he may have been the same as ... I had another kid, Charlie Hatch, come in that year, a state champion from Illinois who on his own on thirty or forty miles a week ran 4:14. I thought the two of them, despite the six second gap in their (mile) times, were basically the same because Owen was training twice as much. They both have gotten faster.

BA: Yes, they have.

Rojo: I think if Owen was as focused as he was in high school he would still be even faster. And ... if you go through the names - you know, I'm just looking at that 2004 list of the New York State - no one asks ... Jason Vigilante is a good friend of mine, he's a great coach at University of Texas (now University of Virginia). But no one asks ... everyone talks about (Leo) Manzano (an NCAA champion as a freshman) and the guys he's got now, but no one asked what happened to Brian Rhodes-Devey or, you know, those other guys (on the 2004 state list) I've heard of. Ken Little, Mark Russell, Josh Arthur, Geary Gubbins, Kevin McDermott of Duke - I mean, none of these guys were superstars in college. But I think that no one expects ... I don't even know where these guys went to school ... South Lewis, Lockport, Burnt Hills ... no one focuses on their (high school) programs, so no one asks about it. They only see your guys. And they expect them to all be ... (great in college).

Running Is A Part Of Life

BA: Rojo, I'll tell you what I'm proud of when I look at that 2004 year, since it seems they've gotten so much focus. That great (F-M) team, that the great team from York beat (at Nike Nationals) and should have beaten because we didn't have a great day and York ran pretty damn good and they deserved it (the national title). Lets look at this (the F-M team from that year) and consider it. Is this not successful or is it? Andrew McCann graduating from UMass this May, coming back and running with us at Stotan Racing right after he graduates, alright. Jared Burdick, finishing an engineering degree at a very tough school, RIT, and running a lot and running on his own and loving it and keeping in contact with us. OK, Tommy Gruenewald, after shifting gears. Of course, no one leaves Stanford, but Tommy, for religious reasons and other reasons, chose to transfer to Brigham Young. Tommy's in a two-year mission right now. He gave it all he had last summer and fall, helped his team as well as he could in their bid towards NCAAs, and went out knowing he gave it his all. And he's doing a two-year mission, he's very connected and close in his faith with God and doing everything he wants, and he keeps in touch with us every week, every couple of weeks as he's allowed to through the Internet. OK? Owen Kimple graduating from lofty Cornell University, academic renown, going on to a career and a life of success and running and still liking running. Who cares if he's world class or not? God bless him. And I still think he could be a great runner if he wants to be. OK? Look at all of those guys. Look at Geoff King at NC State - graduated with Tommy. He's the indoor state champion in your Barton Hall. OK? Geoff King - has had his ups and downs. Getting an education, still got a good spirit, still has all the talent in the world, and I know Rollie (Geiger, NC State coach) has talked with him extensively, OK? And on and on and on. And who am I leaving out? John Heron. John Heron - section three record holder in the steeplechase, great kid. He's had some ups and downs academically, but the fact is he's gonna get through college and he's going to be just fine and he's a great, passionate, wonderful kid. I wouldn't trade these kids for anything. They're like children to me, my own children to me. And you know what? My son feels like they're his younger brothers. Those guys are great, and every kid after that has been modeled - they modeled themselves after those guys. OK? My point is, running is one part of life. It's not all of life. And just because a kid may have a few down years in college doesn't mean their running's over. If they want it to continue, it can continue post-collegiately if they choose to, OK?

Rojo: Right. I think one of the things that - I was thinking about this when I got home from practice today - was ... I think my brother (Weldon Johnson) is a good example, and I think there are a lot of college runners who run 30-flat for 10,000 who, if they made running their number one passion in life and were willing to go move to Flagstaff, sleep at the top of a mountain, drive down two hours for a workout every day, that they could improve a lot. Not all of them would, obviously, improve and make 28:06 and almost make the Olympics (like Weldon), but a lot of them could get a lot faster than they are. I think there's a lot of kids in high school who are 9:35 two-milers who, if they really focused and were really committed, they could run 9:10 like your guys.

BA: Yeah.

Rojo: And it's just - people are focused at different points in their life and ...

BA: That's right.

Rojo: Yeah. I think that one of the things ... I thought that in one of your interviews somewhere, you were talking about how you guys focused on two-seasons - cross-country and outdoors, and how it's just hard ... you know, you can't do it three seasons a year. You can do it physically, maybe, for a few years, but you can't do it mentally.

BA: Right.

Rojo: And I think that concept applies to running in America. I think that some of these guys - the professionals, obviously - when you're at the very top and you're winning, it's easy to keep going. When you're Dathan Ritzenhein and you're always at the top five in the country no matter what level you're doing, it's a little bit easier. But when you're someone who goes to college and now you're starting all over again, it's a lot harder to keep up that commitment.

BA: Of course it is.

Rojo: I'm glad that you realize that, because I don't know what it's like with other programs, but from a physiological and training standpoint, your guys definitely are not burned out. And one of the things I actually thought was when a bunch of these kids this winter went home to Syracuse, they all started running together and, at least for Owen, he trained with his high school brothers. He came back in great shape and ran 8:14 (ed.: actually 8:12). So when they're committed and mentally on, they're ready to go. But I was going to try to keep it to an hour. We're already at an hour-ten.

BA: Right.

Click here for Page 4: Stotan Racing Team, Lopez Lomong vs. Dominic Luca, Alex Hatz and the Sub-4 Quest

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