Tues, February 9, 1999

Thanks to Greg Crowther for creating this transcript.

Questions have been paraphrased in some cases; all answers are direct quotes.

Q: Amy, how do you feel about your prospects for this weekend in light of your performance at the USTAF 8K road championship in Columbia last weekend?

AR: It gives me a lot of confidence. I'm doing the 4K [this weekend]. I ran a 3K [an 8:59 in Gainesville] the week before and it went really well. I feel very strong and also feel that I have enough speed to do well in the Trials. I'm going to work on that, obviously, for the worlds.

Q: What are your reasons for picking the 4K over the 8K race?

AR: I feel a lot more confident running 8K over road than I do in cross country, especially considering the conditions that are going to be in Tacoma and for the worlds. I just don't feel that I'm that sort of runner over cross country through mud and wet terrain.

Q: What's your racing plan for this year?

AR: If the training goes well, as it's been going over the last three months, I think we'll go into world cross country with a pretty good outlook. And then obviously the goal for the summer is [the 5K at] the world championships in Spain, and then to run some PRs again this year. It's been a few years since I've run a PR.

[DB joined the teleconference at this point.]

Q: How does cross country fit into your yearly plan, especially now that you have a choice of distances?

DB: It's definitely a really neat thing that they're doing. Cross country has changed in the last year or two in the sense that ... we're racing in January and February as opposed to October and November and then getting ready for nationals in December. Now we're kind of moving to that international schedule. I do like the options that they have.... It's neat to be able to choose one over the other, and I think it does help you with your strength and development as you go into the outdoor season.

Q: Why do you pick the 4K over the 12K?

DB: Sort of along the same lines as what Amy was talking about, I feel a little more confident going faster over cross country terrain as opposed to long, drawn-out races. You have to train differently when you're running a 12K as opposed to a 4K. I've been doing indoor races, and so I felt that the 4K cross country would be a nice complement to some of the indoor races that I'm doing and plan on doing in the future.

Q: Dan, how happy were you with your performance at Millrose in the 3000 meters last week?

DB: I was happy with it.... Obviously, there were two guys ahead of me, so there's definitely room to improve. Given the circumstances of that week of training, I think did as well as I probably could have, and I'm looking forward to running faster very soon.

Q: Amy, did you find last year that cross country helped your track season?

AR: I think [cross country] is a good break in that long buildup phase when you go into the summer. I think a good idea is, either focus on trying to do the indoor worlds or the world cross country.... It gives you something to look forward to. If you're just kind of banking your whole year on the summer, you know, things don't always go that way.

Q: Amy, last year you won the 4K title race against Elva, but then at the world cross country meet Elva came in a place in front of you. Can you describe the differences between those two races and how the interaction between the two of you shaped up during the races?

AR: Well, I just barely beat her at our trials -- it was pretty much a lean -- and we finished pretty much together at worlds as well. I think Elva and I are very similar in that we have a range from 15 to 5.... I think our running strategies are very similar, so that's why we finish a lot together.

Q: During both those races, did you run pretty closely in contact with each other throughout the races?

AR: Yeah. We were pretty much head-to-head in the Trials, and then at Worlds, I think I made the move first, and then I started to fade a little bit, and she came around, and when she came on, it kind of woke me up a little bit, so it was great. We really worked together as a team at that race.

Q: Dan, who do you expect to be some of the top contenders this weekend?

DB: The conditions are going to be interesting, and they're going to put an interesting twist into the whole thing of, well, who runs better in bad conditions and everything, because sometimes fitness isn't the only thing to take into concern when you're running cross country.... But there's Adam Goucher and [Alan] Culpepper, and my teammate Jason Stewart -- he's looking really good right now. And I think there's plenty of others that I can't even name right now that I know are getting fit and are going to be tough.

Q: Dan, what is a typical day like for you?

DB: My typical day is one where I'll wake up sometime between 7:30 and maybe 8 in the morning and usually grab something to eat. And then I'll go out with guys and we'll do our run at about 9 in the morning. And usually the morning workout is our longer one -- we'll do 10 to 12 miles -- and I'll get back around 11 or so and stretch for a while and then grab something for lunch.... I have an afternoon run of three or four miles at about 5 or 6 in the evening. I do help out as much as I can, given my time and the travel that I do, with the ROTC program in Boulder, Colorado. It's not my primary duty. My primary duty is to make the Olympic team in 2000, and I take that very seriously. So that's my mission, and I'm out here to accomplish it.

Q. So that's the duty that's been assigned to you by the Army -- to strive to make the team?

DB: Yes, absolutely -- to _make_ the team.

Q: Amy, how will the course affect your race?

AR: The hills take a lot out of you; if it's flat, that's great for me. I'm sort of a rhythm runner, so when you're going up hills, it breaks your rhythm a little bit.... We can't do anything about the elements. The course is there; it's put in front of you; you don't have a choice. So you really just have to go out there and be ready beforehand and just go for it.

Q: How important is the team competition for the Army?

DB: We were just speaking about it this morning, because we really had a fantastic workout, and we were just saying to ourselves how much we're looking forward to competing as a team in the 4K and also the 12K races. We're actually developing a fairly deep team out here, and everyone, to my surprise and happiness, is coming along amazingly, and I think people are going to be surprised. It's going to be a different team than what you saw over in Florida [at the association championships], for sure. The team is totally different. They were ahead of me this morning, so ... it's pretty cool.

Q: What's your race strategy for this weekend? Will you be looking over your shoulder for Goucher, who was close to you at Millrose?

DB: Cross country is so different from track. I feel more comfortable, sort of like Amy, running on the track than I do on cross country terrain. I am, in the same way, a rhythm runner. And I know Adam has a very good reputation of running well in cross country. It's going to come down to a matter of will and who wants it more. I think for all intents and purposes we're about in the same fitness category right now. It's a short race, and it'll be decided pretty quickly.... You go out hard, you run hard the second mile, and then you kick.

Q: Could you do both world indoors and world cross?

DB: If things keep going the way I want them to go, I think they can be sort of complementary. Basically, when I was in California training, I would do one track workout a week and I would do one cross country workout a week. And seeing as how there's only a K difference between both races, you can pretty much train for the same thing.

Q: What is the current condition of the course?

Mike Scott: It's been raining in the Puget Sound area for months now.... We had two weeks of heavy rain going into the regional competition there on November 21st; the course held up surprisingly well.... I would predict that the Saturday morning championships will be on fairly good footing. However, I think things will degenerate by the 4K on Sunday ... sorry Amy!...and by the time the 12K gets done doing five laps over it, I'm sure it will be fairly mucky out there.

Q: What are your recollections of last year's foul-weather race in Portland? How does the weather affect you?

AR: I wasn't there last year, but I heard about it and was really glad that I didn't go. [Laughs.]

DB: I was standing at the starting line of that race and I remember praying, I hope this race gets done with _very_ quickly.... I couldn't even hold a pen after the race.... Everyone has to deal with [the conditions]. Everyone says that, but the more you believe that, and the more you just relax in the settting that you're in and focus internally, the better you're going to do.

Q: Do you think the 4K championships are as prestigious as the longer races?

DB: I think you can see with the caliber of field we have in the 4K, I think you could probably say that the 4K, in my mind at least, is going to be more competitive than the 12K.... The fields are great in both races, and the 4K is going to be a tough team to make.

AR: The 4K, going into the situation in Morocco last year, probably was not as prominent, but I think at the end of the weekend -- at the end of the races -- it definitely was right up there with the 8K and the 12K.

DB: I've gotten the impression in talking to a few international competitors over the last month or so that, around the world, the 4K race is going to be more hotly contested than it was last year and that more international-caliber runners are focusing on that shorter distance. I guess they figure if they can make 50 grand running 4K instead of 12K, why not do that, you know? I mean, it makes sense to me. That's why I'm doing it. [Laughs.]

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