Posted: July 1, 2004

Athletics: Alan Webb Teleconference excerpts

USA Track & Field on Thursday hosted a media teleconference with Alan Webb. The fastest miler in the world in 2004 (3:50.85), Webb will compete in the 1,500m at the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials July 9-18 in Sacramento, Calif. Below are excerpts of Thursday’s teleconference. For a full biography of Alan Webb, visit the Athlete Bios section of www.usatf.org

Q: How did your early-season preparation help you to get where you are now?

Alan Webb: I think that a lot of the work we did in the fall, winter, and early spring is only now starting to show. All along, I knew I was really strong. Going into the outdoor season, I knew it was only a matter of time before I started running really well. Obviously I’ve sort of been on fire. It’s been a lot of fun.

Q: When did you go back to working with Scott Raczko? What has your mileage been?

A: I went to the University of Michigan for a year. Right after that, I came back and started working with Scott Raczko again. We’ve been slowly building up. I guess I’ve been in the 70s for a lot of the fall months, which is really high for me. In the past it was more like mid-60s. I’m not doing that (70 miles a week) right now.

Q: You had a difficult indoor season.

A: I think it didn’t really click until my race at Home Depot. But at the same time, I feel a lot of my races indoors didn’t give me an opportunity to showcase how fit I was at the time. Running the 3,000 meters U.S. indoors, I was disappointed, but I wasn’t frustrated because I knew that wasn’t a true test of my fitness. Home Depot affirmed my own thoughts that hey, we are doing the right stuff. There was never a point where suddenly I was running great workouts. I was running great workouts the whole year. There are times where you body doesn’t want to cooperate, then everything clicks.

Q: How was winning the 2004 Penn Relays for you?

A: That was a big confidence-booster as well. I still wouldn’t say it was a defining moment, because the whole year we had never made any wholesale changes. It’s just that things didn’t start to show up until right around Penn and Home Depot. Penn was great because we didn’t go in wanting to run super, super fast. We wanted to win, and that’s what I did.

Q: What were your expectations after high school?

A: I definitely had pretty high expectations. I’m the kind of person that sets pretty ambitious goals. It was really hard for me, when I was at Michigan, to not be making progress. It was the first time in my career, in my life, that I had not run a PR in the mile. That was pretty much a big red flag for me. Ever since running the mile in 4th grade in gym class, I improved every year.

Q: How did you get your start in sports?

A: I got started like most people, you run the mile in gym class. I was always better than everybody else. But I played soccer and was a big swimmer. Swimmer became my first love, so to speak, and I really got involved in that. I got into the idea of training and the physical aspect of it. I started doing all these crazy mornings where you wake up at 4 o’clock in the morning to go swimming. There weren’t many opportunities to run competitively until high school. When I was a freshman, and I went out for cross country. And the rest, you could say, is history.

Q: What’s your opinion of the media coverage of you the last 2 years.

A: I’ve been very blessed with the amount of media coverage I’ve had, good or bad. People like to have that familiarity with athletes in any sport. Not that people enjoy watching you do poorly, but it gave people something to talk about, and now that I’m running well, it’s something more to talk about. I think the amount of media coverage, it definitely was a bit much to deal with when I was in high school, just because there was a lot of heavy stuff and it came on pretty suddenly. But I learned to take it with a grain of salt and to live my life without worrying about what you guys write about me.

Q: How prepared are you for the tactical races of the Olympic Trials and the Olympics?

A: I think I’m very prepared. I think that’s one of the purposes of racing at Penn Relays this year. Those were very tactical races. I’ll be ready for it, and I’m not going to take anything for granted, including the first two rounds. Anything can happen in a tactical race. I’ll be ready for anything and everything.

Q: While you were being criticized, did you feel like people jumped the gun on you?

A: Regardless of what those people were saying, those thoughts crossed my mind, myself. Maybe I was a fluke. Just because at a lot of points last year, I thought things were going to start turning around, and I don’t understand what’s going on. What am I doing here? I consider myself a pretty persistent person. I kept running and now that everything’s starting to go my way, in the future it will make things easier. It was a good lesson for me to learn. You just have to be persistent and keep running. That’s all you can do.

Q: Since only you and Grant Robison have the Olympic A standard, how much incentive to run fast at the Olympic Trials?

A: Our philosophy is that if you run to win, you’ll run fast. But there’s no secret that championship races tend to go a little slower and be tactical. But some of those guys are going to at least try to go after it (the Olympic A standard). It’s going to be really interesting.

Q: Talk about first time competing at Olympic Trials, what would making the team mean?

A: Just the meet is a huge, huge step in my career. Making the Olympic Team has been a goal of mine since I started sports when I was 6 years old. That would mean more to me than just about anything else I could accomplish in track. In terms of my preparation, I’m trying to keep my mind off it as much as I possibly can. It’s a little bit draining. It’s a big, big, big thing. It’s a big responsibility to have to go out and perform with such a big title on the line – United States Olympian – that’s something nobody can ever take away with you. You can be a former world record holder but you’re always an Olympian.

Q: Is your peak still ahead of you? Can you keep lowering your times?

A: We definitely have been geared toward running my fastest times in August. But at the same time, we also in the plan wanted to make sure that I make that Olympic Team. You have to be on your game then (at the Olympic Trials) or nothing else matters. Getting the standard early made it easier to extend my peak, so I can run fast at the end of August, if I make the team.

Q: How much as track & field suffered because of BALCO? What are your thoughts?

A: I’ve been asked that quite a few times. I keep thinking to myself that I’m so far removed from that situation. I think it’s just part of sports. Sometimes people screw up, and a lot of times people aren’t honest. The world is not a perfect place, but I think that’s why we have to have USADA. It’s a great lesson. Hopefully it will scare off people who were and are doing performance-enhancing drugs, because it has no place in our sport. We still need organizations like USADA.

Q: Do you feel that BALCO has overshadowed your achievements this year?

A: Not at all. For myself, the media coverage has been awesome.

Q: Do you feel like you’re ready to run with the best in the world?

A: Who knows. I don’t like to get bogged down with (thinking about) people or times. If I’m in a race with anybody else, I feel I can run with a lot of people. One thing I learned this year is good things happen when you just go for it. That’s one thing I learn on my mini-Europe tour. If I keep doing that, I’ll keep succeeding.

Q: How does it feel to put an American back in the international mix in the mile?

A: I’m extremely proud to be able to put an American up there at the top of the list. But at the same time, it’s a neat feeling to know that I’m young. I plan to be at more than one Olympic Games. There’s no time constraint. I can tell you right now, if I make the Olympic final and it comes down to the last 100 meters, I’m going to put everything I can on the line. But it’s nice to know I have time.

Q: Update us on your personal situation – where are you living, do you have a girlfriend, what’s your life like?

A: I just moved back to my hometown of Reston (Virginia). I had been living in Fairfax (Virginia) for a while. I just bought a house in Reston, about a mile away from my parents’ house. I’m very excited to be back in Reston, and being close to my brothers. I’ve got a girlfriend, believe it or not. My life is pretty good right now. I have no complaints. That has definitely been another big reason I’ve been successful this year. I finally feel I’ve gotten my life on track. I couldn’t ask for more. I’m just very thankful.