Running Online

Anderson, Scott (12/99) - sub 4-minute miler

Name: Scott Anderson

Event(s): 1500m

Brief Bio:  Compete for the Reebok Enclave in Washington, DC.  Graduated from Princeton University ('96) where I was an NCAA All-American.  Pr's are 3:40.28 for 1500 meters, 3:59.80 for the mile, 7:59.68 for the 3000 meters.

Questions:

1. What are some of your goals for the upcoming year?

I want to run 3:36 in the 1500m and place in the top 3 at the USATF championships.

2. What are some of your plans for the upcoming year to reach those goals?

If I can train intelligently and avoid injuries and illness, I will race to my full potential. In the past I have burned out towards the end of the season. This year I plan to listen a little more attentively to my body and restrain myself a little bit more in the early spring workouts. In the past I have tried to run with Steve Holman and Matt Holthaus in speed workouts. I now realize that the "give it 110% in every workout" attitude is counter productive. This year I will save the racing for the competitions and not leave my season on the track in workouts. I will also engage in various cross training activities to supplement my running.

3. What is your favorite workout(s)?

I like the race simulation workouts. A race-paced 1200 followed by some zippy quarters is always a confidence booster. I also like tempo-runs, as I have always been a distance runner wannabe.

4. What factors do you attribute to your success?

A lot of people attribute their success to hard work and determination. Sure, at this level, everyone has these two characteristics mixed with a varying degree of talent. The real question is what motivates us runners to work hard.

In my case, one name comes to mind: Jessie Carmona. In 7th grade, I left Peterson, my neighborhood school to attend Whitney Young, a magnet school downtown. Amanda Hattaway and Angela Estrada also transferred to Whitney Young, so the three of us met at the corner of Balmoral and Christiana every morning a little before 7 to catch the school bus. I remember one morning, early in the school year, I arrived late at the corner only to see the bus was almost half a block away. I slung my left arm under my backpack strap—at this age it was uncool to wear a backpack on both straps—and set chase. I had always excelled at speed intensive schoolyard games such as catch one catch all and football, so it shouldn’t have surprised my two female bus-partners that I caught the bus as it slowed to turn right on Balmoral. Maybe they were just being nice or maybe they were genuinely impressed with my burst of speed. In any case, they were still talking about it when the bus stopped at Addison and Sacramento to pick up the two cool eighth graders on our bus route, Jessie Carmona and Danny Bjerstrom. Needless to say, they were not as impressed as the actual witnesses.

To my credit, I had foreseen what would happen and tried to avoid the confrontation. I knew that both eight graders, especially Jessie, were athletic and that Jessie had a slight tendency to bully. He would have to belittle any accomplishment by a seventh grader, however small. So even before the stop prior to theirs, I tried to shift the conversation on the bus: "Did you guys do the Algebra homework?" "How about that Laffer curve?" Better to appear a helpless nerd than to attract their merciless appear to threaten their dominance and earn their But the girls wouldn’t take the bait. As soon as the guys sat down and she knew she had their attention, Amanda regaled them with the story. "Jessie, you should have seen Scott run down the bus this morning." "Really," he said in a bemused tone of voice. "So you’re a fast guy, eh?" He probably didn’t even know my name.

"No, not really." I looked down and mumbled something about the bus being slow. I think I could have escaped any further attention at this point, but Amanda was not happy with the way this exchange was going. Maybe she really had been impressed with my feat and she wanted me to get the respect she thought

I deserved. What bigger honor could I receive than approval from the toughest guy in 8th grade? "No, Scott IS REALLY fast. He was the fastest boy at Peterson...." Amanda had a future as a promoter. I winced as the bus fell silent. A smirk slowly developed on Jessie’s face. All eyes were on him. The gauntlet had been laid down. For all intents and purposes, a challenge had been issued. Never mind that I had not issued it and that I had not uttered a word about the bus chase. If Jessie was to retain his supremacy on the bus, there could be no lingering doubts amongst his followers about whether he had actually been afraid he would have lost in a race to a diminutive seventh grader. Rest assured: he was not afraid. With the confidence of a heavyweight champion addressing an amateur bantam weight, he suggested we meet at the Laflin entrance to the school at 7:50 for "a little race."

Maybe Amanda had more ambitious goals than simply seeing my accomplishment acknowledged. Maybe she was sick of Jessie bullying the younger kids. Perhaps she foresaw the challenge and naively believed I would beat Jessie in a race, put him in his place and be a savior for the 7th graders on the bus. If that was the case, she certainly expressed more faith in my speed than I did. Although I was actually fairly confident about my chances, I wanted to appear the modest hero. I wanted to speak with actions, not words, so, trying not to sound too eager, I modestly declined the challenge, "No thanks, I’m sure you’d win."Apparently I didn’t sound convincing.

"Come on, if you were really the fastest kid in your school, you must think you’re pretty fast. Besides, this race won’t be a big deal."

I agreed.

Jesse lied about the race not being a big deal. He picked the 7:50 start time and location to maximize the audience. If he had wanted a discreet little challenge, we could have run it earlier or off to the side of one of the buildings where no one would have seen it. But by 7:50, all of the buses would have arrived and the school didn’t unlock the doors until the first bell rang at 7:56, so all of the 7th and eight graders would be gathered around the Laflin entrance to the school.

Word quickly got around that some seventh grader and challenged Jesse to a race. Jesse and Danny chose a start and finish line about 50 meters apart on the sidewalk outside the school while I did my best to assure my few friends that I had tried my best to escape this foolishness. But it wasn’t until a few minutes before the match up that I had any real doubts; one of my friends who took gym class with Jesse questioned my good judgment in racing Jesse "Why would you agree to race the fastest kid in the school?" I had known he was athletic, but I hadn’t known he was the fastest. It began to dawn on me that perhaps I had just been a big fish in a small pond at Peterson. If Peterson was a pond, than Whitney Young was an ocean. I was still relatively confident when the designated starter yelled, "go." Not for long. Despite what to this day may have been my best start ever, Jesse immediately opened up a Ben Johnson-esqe gap on me. The gap only widened and he won convincingly.Strangely, despite the loss, the race probably helped my status at school. Jesse and Danny both said that they were surprised about how close I had come. I think they actually started acknowledging me in the hallways. To the other kids, it seemed the outcome was irrelevant. I was no longer an anonymous seventh grade face—I was the kid who wasn’t afraid to run against Jesse Carmona and more importantly, the kid whom Jesse deemed worthy of the effort required to take to task.

But I was bitterly disappointed. I waited patiently the whole year for a chance to avenge what I saw as a humiliating loss. No opportunity came. The next year, Jesse went to Gordon Tech high school for 9th grade. I heard he played football there. When I was a freshman, I tried out for the cross country team. Our second meet was at Horner Park, adjacent to the field where the Gordon football team practiced. As I won my second cross country race in a row, I fantasized that he was looking over and feeling lucky that our little race hadn’t been a couple miles longer.

5. What is your training philosophy?

See below.

6. Do you have any advice that may help other runners reach their potential?

If your desire is strong enough, anything is possible. Start off with a big goal and then try to reach intermediary goals. The secret is harnessing your potential with a good training program that meets four criteria. First and most important, you must believe in it 100%. Second, it must develop your strength with tempo runs and short recovery intervals. Third, it must prepare you for your specific race with race simulation workouts and race pace intervals. Fourth, it must either be customized to your needs or flexible enough to accommodate you along with the other people in the program