Southern Illinois Saluki senior Jeff Schirmer is heading into his second NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships in Terre Haute, Indiana. Action kicks off on Monday, November 23, with races starting at 11:45 a.m. Schirmer was a qualifier in the 5,000 and 10,000-meter runs this past outdoor season and took 25^th overall last year at the NCAA Cross Country Championships. He's got his eyes set on a top-10 finish after finishing second to Minnesota's Hassan Mead at the Regional Championships last weekend. Let's see how well he finishes!

Photo courtesy of ShannonDigitalImaging.com

You just got the official word about your team not making it to NCAAs.

Yeah, unfortunately. They picked Auburn and Ohio State over us and Iowa. I would assume, based on what you guys had predicted, that we might have been the first team out. I'm not sure. I know we were real close.

That always sucks. Sorry, man!

Yeah, it's all right.

You'll be going as an individual, though. Last year you took 25^th overall, where are going to finish this year if things go according to plan?

My personal goal is to be top-10. Last year, I was 25^th and would like to be better or finish higher than that. The minimum, where I'd walk away and not be disappointed, would be top-10. I would really like to be top-five, but if I'm top-10, I won't be mad with my race and satisfied. If I'm anything lower than 10, depending on how much lower, I'm going to get more and more disappointed with my performace.

How do you approach this next week of training before the big race? Are you the type of guy who's going to taper a good amount?

I started running when I was a junior in high school. I was a late-start runner. I've never really done many miles, always in the 60s. I don't really really taper too much because I've never done many miles like some of my teammates who are up to 105-110. I don't taper much. What do we do? My coach will usually have us do some faster intervals and make them quicker and over shorter distances.

What's a typical week like for you when your hitting the 60s? Any doubles?

It's probably about two to three doubles a week. Two unless we do two workouts that week...then it's three.

Why the late start to running? What were you doing before your junior year?

From eighth grade to junior year, I played football. I never really thought much about running. In PE, you know you do that physical fitness thing? My sophomore year, it was the day we had to run the mile and most people are like, “oh, crap! We all have to run outside!” I ran 5:12 in Adidas Superstars. The track coach heard about that and asked me to come out for the team the next year. My junior year, I actually did football and cross country at the same time. I would just practice for football and on Saturday, I would just wake up and go to a cross country meet. We actually made it to States as a team and I ran like...15:54 at the State Meet.

As a football player.

As a football player. I never ran, I would just wake up on Saturday after a Friday night football game and run a race.

Now that you are training as a serious runner—and it's hard to compare these things—but, are practices harder in pads as a football player or putting in mileage as a runner?

It was just the high school level and I'm sure it gets harder through college and the professional league, but I would say running is a lot more challenging than football. In football, if you're in trouble, they make you run. They do that for a reason...it's because it's a lot more punishing. In football, there's a lot of standing around doing plays and stuff.

What position did you play?

Eighth grade and freshman year, I was a safety. And then sophomore and junior year, I was a reciever.

Do you have wheels?

Most of my teammates these days tell me that I'm pretty fast for a distance guy. I usually can close fairly well at the end of my races. I guess compared to all the teammates I've ever had, I've been faster.

Do you think you could have pursued football a little further?

No. I wasn't the best of receivers. We had a really great running back my junior year. So, the only thing our receivers really did all the time was block. I didn't have the best of hands, but I was quick. I was a pretty good blocker. I wasn't going to go anywhere with football. I'm really thankful for the opportunity that I was given to start running.

Coming off of being a football player, were you aware of Illinois history with distance running?

No, not really. Probably up until last year, my junior year, I just started learning people's names and knowing who people are. Now, I'm not by any means intelligent on knowing all those runners, but I know people a lot better than I did. I could tell you who German Fernandez is or Mead or some of those guys who I can think of off the top of my head because they're in my region. Before last year, I couldn't tell you who anyone was except maybe...Prefontaine. The only other runner I knew of in high school other than Prefontaine was Craig Virgin because he was from our area, he was from a half an hour from my house. He would talk to my high school coach and prep us up with speeches. He likes to talk a lot. I didn't know much about the running world up until a year or two ago. I started improving with my abilities. I ran 4:15 my senior year in track and gave up football and started training and all that. People would come up to me and say, “hey, Jeff, congratulations!” And I didn't know their names and I felt really bad. Over the last couple of years, I started to kind of educate myself in the world of running and know who some people are.

You ran that 4:15 mile in Adidas Superstars, right?

(Laughs) No, my senior year in track or starting in cross, I ran in Adidas Superstars. They're not running shoes at all and I remember having the worst shin splints. During PE, I would sit on the sidelines because I couldn't walk without my legs hurting. My very first pair of running shoes, I can remember, my high school coach game me a pair of his old ones and were Nike Pegasus. They made a world of difference. He gave me a used pair.

It's kind of off subject, but I didn't have much money in high school. When I was 13, me and my siblings were put in foster care. Everything I had, I had to buy myself from working. That's why I didn't have running shoes or anything like that.

How did it happen that you ended up in foster care?

I have three siblings and we left my dad when I was two. I have a stepdad, but there was a bunch of stuff where my dad was always gone and my mom was always gone. My grandma lived with us and she was there off and on too. They were doing drugs and alcohol or whatever. When I was 13, the state got mad with all the stuff my mom and stepdad were doing and finally took us away. They split us all up and moved us all around. I was in two different foster homes and was in a boy's home in between those two. But, I was pretty lucky. I was in two foster homes and a boy's home, some of my siblings went through 10 different houses and that was pretty rough on them because they were so much younger. One thing I was lucky about was since I was 13, I was able to choose my last name. As bad as some of the things my mom did, I still love her and want to carry on my last name. I wanted to keep it and carry that on. Over the last few years, in everything I've accomplished, I've wanted to make a name for my family and be a good role model for my younger siblings and show them that they can do it. I'm the first kid in my family to graduate high school or go to college and I graduate this year with a degree in accounting.

Are you in constant contact with your siblings now?

I've talked to them throughout the whole system. I just turned 23 and I'm kind of older. We moved around so much when I was younger, always going from house to trailer...moving around with friends or whatever because we were really poor, that I missed a lot of school and did third grade twice. So, I'm a year older than most people in my grade. My mom had me when she was 13, had my other sibling at 15, one at 17 and one at 19. She had all four kids before she was 19. I told you that my mom was always gone. I always had to take care of my siblings. I made sure that they got ready for school, got something to eat. I was doing that since I was like eight. Like I said, I always wanted to be a good role model for them and keep in touch with them. I make sure they're doing the best they can do. I recently got my 21-year old sister to go back to school. She's going for something in nursing and I'm really happy about that. My brother graduates from high school this year and I'm happy about. He says he wants to go to college like me. Hopefully I can make some money with my degree and help him with that.

Any runners in the bunch?

No. There are no other runners in the family. Like I said about no one graduating high school before me, there are no real athletes in my family besides me. I don't really know how I got the running ability I did.

Between running and your stellar grades, that's what got you to Southern Illinois?

Before my late junior-senior year, I didn't think I was going to go to any university. I might have gone to Swic, which is a little community college next to my hometown...and that's if I was even able to afford it. When I ran 4:15 in the mile in high school, I started getting some college phone calls. Money was really important to me...because I didn't have any. I needed to try to get as much as possible. My coach, Sparks, offered me a full ride. I get a lot of financial aid money, but he told me he would cover all my other expenses if I came here and it was only two hours from my hometown. I said I would and I don't regret any of it.

Sparks is a great coach and he's taken me from being 43^rd my senior year in cross country to 25^th in the nation last year. He's a great coach and he really knows what he's doing. With the talent that he's able to get...we're Southern Illinois and most people don't know about us. Even in your (Flotrack's) pre-ranking thing, of teams you thought would get in...someone on the video says, “we don't know much about Southern Illinois” and people ask me all the time what a Saluki is. Sparks isn't able to get the best athletes from high school, but I feel like the athletes he gets, if you see what they were compared to what they turn into...I would say he's one of the best coaches in the NCAA.

There are no foreigners on our team. Mohamed Mohamed, some people think he's a foreigner, but he's been in America since he was six. I don't know if you knew but at Regionals the past two seasons, Mohamed has been in the top-14. He qualified for Nationals two years ago and redshirted last year. He was in the ER for six hours last week and had to drop out of the race. With him dropping out, we were still fifth. If you put him at 20^th, just 20^th with him being top-14 the past two seasons, we would have been third...in front of Iowa State and Minnesota and been in for sure. If was 36^th, we would have been in front of Minnesota and probably have been in. That's with all kids who were really nobodies. It wasn't with kids from Stevens or Pope Joy or teams you would associate with running success. We're a bunch of small-town runners, who he's taken and really exploded our talented. He's a great coach and a great guy. I have all the respect in the world for the guy.

It must be hard not to get down about the way the season ended for the team.

Yeah. He's (Mohamed) a fifth-year senior, I'm a senior. His last year of cross, my last year of cross. We have two other seniors on the team and it's like, “we were this close!” We were all praying. We almost had given up after Regionals, happy with what we did even with him dropping out. We gave it the best we could. And then your (Flotrack's) pre-ranking had us in there and we got really excited. It was a really long day for us and none of us really slept that night. Even though I qualified as an individual, I was really hoping that the whole team could go and that's been our goal all season long. We're a really big underdog and nobody really knows about us and we wanted to change that. It kind of sucks that we were that close and everyone had a great race...but it was just fate that Mo was in the ER with infections and was on three different antibiotics. It sucks but we're going to try to make the best of it and come out in track and give it everything we've got.

What are your goals for this coming track season?

I really want to top what I did last year and stride to be All-American in track.

Are you going to be able to head out to the West Coast to run some fast races early on?

Yeah. We have Mt. SAC on our schedule again. Last year, it was just me and Sparks that flew out there. I was the only athlete on our team to go. This year, we plan on taking a bigger handful of runners, distance and sprinters. We plan on going to Mt. SAC and that's probably where I'll run the 10K again this year.

If you could have any one meal, prepared by anyone, what would you have and who make it? Or just give me your go-to meal?

I want to start off by saying that I'm not your typical runner-eater. My dinner tonight was an entire box of mac-n-cheese. I just got done eating it...and a soda (laughs). It was a Dr. Pepper and a box of macaroni and cheese. I really don't get into all that. I feel like running has a lot to do with your mentality and I just don't get bent out of shape over those little things. I know some runners who are really picky and they have to have this before every meal and have to carb load or whatever. The only time I really worry about what I eat is the morning of the race. I eat probably cereal. The morning before the Regional race, I went to McDonald's and got hot cakes.

I could probably tell you what my favorite food is. I probably shouldn't have said that...because I don't really know (laughs). It will probably sound corny, but my favorite food that I eat most often would be a whole Tombstone Cheese Pizza and a Mountain Dew. I don't like paying attention to all those little details. The more things you try to perfect...if one of those little things go wrong, then your mentality is like, “oh, I forgot to drink three and a half cups of water the night before...” and you shut down. It's too much to worry about and I just run and stay focused.

Can you give me a crazy running-related story? About the Running Warehouse:

Last year we went camping as a team. We do a lot of activities like that. We live really close to a national park. There's a really big national park to the south of us...like 15-20 miles. We drove out there and set up camp and everything in the middle of the woods. It wasn't like a campground...we had to clear it and cut down some bushes and stuff and make room for our tent in the middle of the woods. We went on our run that night. It wound up that there were like four tornadoes within a 10-mile radius of where we were camping that night. It was just a really bad storm the entire night. As we were finishing our run this was all happening. The wind was blowing, trees were falling down. It was pretty crazy. Our coach was calling us, telling us we had to come home. We're telling him that we're men and we're going to tough it out. It was probably the worst night of my life for trying to fall asleep. Everything was soaked. It was pouring rain and haling. It was bad.

 

About the Running Warehouse:

My KWIK-Es are sponsored by runningwarehouse.com, located on the California coast in the small community of San Luis Obispo. The folks over there include one of the owners, Joe Rubio, a two hour, 18 minute marathoner and current head coach of the Asics Aggie RC. Jonathan Spiros oversees footwear buying and served many years as assistant coach at College Park High School helping Lindsay Allen. Erik Dube is in charge of accessories and helps with footwear buying. Erik has finished the Western States 100-Mile Race several times and was assistant coach at San Ramon Valley High School helping Scott Bauhs through high school. Erik’s wife, Tera, is in charge of customer service and is an ultra marathoner and former track star at Campolindo High School, where her brother Chuck Woolridge is currently head coach. Kara June handles web content. Kara was 6th at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials in the steeplechase. Kara was also third overall at Last Fall’s USATF Club Cross Country Championships. The entire online and phone customer service representative staff at the Running Warehouse, including the staff listed above, have spent considerable time working the retail floor. This, along with the coaching and personal athletic experience, enables the company to have a unique perspective of understanding the needs of every level of runner from beginner to All-American. Check them out when you get a chance!