New Mexico's fifth-year senior, Chris Barnicle, who used to compete as an Arkansas Razorback, recently finished as the second-collegiate runner at the Payton Jordan Stanford Meet in the Kim McDonald 10,000-meter run. Barnicle crossed the line behind Liberty's Sam Chelanga, and crossed the line in 28 minutes, 10.59 seconds for a big personal-best time. The Massachusetts native is coming off a tremendous NCAA indoor season, where he finished fourth overall in the 5,000 for All-American honors, and is looking to rip things up in the his last bid for the NCAA 10,000.

You're on the plane right now. Is it quiet? Where you won't be able to use profanity?

(Laughs) Well, I wasn't planning on it anyway.

It seems like you've been at this for a while, how long have you been in college?

No, this is my fifth year. I guess I'm just your average fifth-year senior, loving the last few minutes he has in college.

This outdoor season is your last season?

Yeah, it is. I've only got a few races left in college.

Your last one wasn't too bad. This is a real general question, but: what was that race like?

It felt really smooth, to be honest. I was basically running in there, staying relaxed the whole way and didn't really think much until we started kicking with 300 meters to go. I'm pretty pleased with it.

You just slipped out of consciousness and just ran your splits?

Exactly. I was just hearing split by split for my coach. Once I heard that we were slowing down a bit, I started picking it up again. Basically, my mind was shut off...and that's pretty good.

What were your goals going in?

You know...I really wanted to go under 28. That was my big goal. My second goal was to get the school record...which was 28:05. I didn't do either, but I'm still pretty pleased with my race.

Taking a step back and looking at it as one of the more historical races in U.S. distance history, what's that like to be a part of that race?

It's just amazing. I hate to say that I got lapped, but to see Chris Solinsky 50 meters ahead of me, celebrating with 26:59 on the clock...I felt like I was going to start clapping for him. He flew by me with about 200 meters to go. We were kicking pretty hard. We weren't going too slow then. When I saw him cross the finish line, he was maybe only 50 meters away from me.

Was a goal of yours to be the second collegiate finisher, knowing Chelanga would go out with the leaders?

I didn't know how many collegiate runners would be in there. Basically, those races at Stanford and Mt. SAC, time is more important than finish. It's more of a time trial more than a race. I was basically trying to go out and stay relaxed the whole way and not even worry about those things.

Is it as obvious as running splits or is it hard not getting caught up in the mix up front when there's talk of American Records?

It's truly exciting to hear it and everything, but they closed in faster than I've run by quite a bit at Mt. SAC two weeks ago—which is my 5K PR.

How are you reevaluating your goals? Your next 10K shouldn't be a fast one.

The next one I'll run will be at regionals, in Austin, Texas. That should be a sit-and-kick race. I would love it if NCAAs was quick. We'll see though.

You said it felt smooth. Does 27 minutes look a lot more possible than it did in the past?

Oh, definitely! I had at 70-split in there for a 400 and a couple 69s. I ran a 61-62 last lap. Knowing that I have that much left in the tank makes me know that I can run 27:45-27 low 50s.

Didn't you beat Shawn Forrest, who was runner-up at NCAAs last year?

Yeah, I did. I think he was a few seconds behind me. Shawn and I were teammates at Arkansas, where I did my undergrad. Seeing him up there...I think I might have beaten him once while we were teammates. He definitely had me in most of the races. It was good to chase him down.

This season has been great for you starting with indoor. But, there was a stretch there where it seemed like you were just going to keep running right around 14 minutes for the 5K. You did that back-to-back at Stanford. What's the difference between now and then?

The training is a lot different. I think the past year and a half before this season, I was doing a lot of junk mileage. I know some people swear by doing as many miles as they can. I'd be going out for an evening six-mile run at eight-minute pace. I don't know how much benefit you get from that. Now, it's a little less miles and a lot harder workouts. I'm definitely gaining a lot from those workouts.

Without opening your play book too much, what was your weekly mileage then and what is it now?

It was about—and I would get kind of obsessive about this—I'd have to hit 100. Now I'm happy with 75-85. I think this week, with today off, I'm going to be about 60. I really don't worry about it too much and don't even keep a training log anymore.

Is it more of a feel thing?

I feel like now I'm learning to read my body rather than just focusing on hitting a triple-digit number. I'm learning it more and more, day to day.

How much has your pace picked up since dropping the junk miles?

I think in Albuquerque, at altitude, you really need to know when to take a rest day. Some days we run 7:30 pace, just for a 10-mile run. The workouts I'm more ready and recovered for. If it's intense—as they've all been this season—I'm ready to bust a great workout out.

Are you just looking at the 10K now?

I think the 5K is going to be the best race at NCAAs. There's just so many talented guys. Obviously Chelanga is the collegiate record holder in the 10K, so that's a great race as well. But the 5K, you've got so many guys around 13:25-13:35, that I feel like in the 10K, I can do as well as I can.

Are you going to get any more 5Ks this season?

I could see myself running it at conference, but that's going to be here at UNM, at altitude, and won't be quick at all.

Dancing around with all these 10K questions, I think I have more. What do you think about the new regional set up and running a handful of 10Ks?

I'm not looking forward to running a 10K in Ausitin, Texas when it's going to be very humid. But at the same time, I think it's kind of good. It's going to make it more interesting this year with something new. The old regional system wasn't working, so we'll see what happens when we go. It should be interesting to say the least.

Do you have a game plan on how you're going to handle that heat?

I think we're going to start doing some workouts when it's the hottest part of the day. Obviously Albuquerque is pretty dry...maybe he'll have us run in a sweatshirt or something (laughs)...or probably not. Basically, we have three guys in the 10K at regionals and if we have three guys at the 10K at nationals, that would be great!

You think he'll put you through some Rocky training? Maybe a treadmill in front of a wood stove?

(Laughs) Yeah, I don't know!

Do you know what you're going to do after college?

I have no idea to be honest. I'm taking one day at a time.

Did this bust-out indoor and outdoor season give you more options?

Before this indoor season, I thought that I wanted to run post collegiately...but it wasn't certain. Now, I'm certain that I want to keep running post-collegiately until 2012.

I see you have a Spanish undergrad degree. What are you taking in graduate school?

I'm in the college of education and I have a concentration in teaching English as a second language. I think I'm going to take a semester or maybe a year off and just run and think about if I want to finish this degree at UNM or if I maybe want to get a grad degree in something else. We'll see.

When I remember you in high school, you were kicking butt in your black and orange singlet, but you always had these huge, baggy black shorts. Do you still have those?

I know what you mean. They were my old soccer shorts. I was pretty superstitious then. I had certain underwear and certain shorts I had to race in and a certain sweatshirt and sweatpants...and all that is gone. Those shorts...they're gone.

Are you a little strange with your running? The way you had to hit 100 miles and wearing certain clothes?

Yeah, I guess so and it's working out.

I've seen videos of you guys have fun down there. What do you and your teammates do for fun when you get free time?

The guys team is pretty close. We have a good group of guys and have a lot of fun. One thing that's always on topic is most of the guys do this thing called “Streak for the Cash” on ESPN.com. We get pretty competitive about that and I'm probably the worst...at least this month. For April, I was the worst on the team. I'm convinced it's all luck. The winner out of our group gets a free dinner. We've been doing that. Lee (Emanuel) has the record with nine. It was the first month we did it. Now Dave Bishop did it with a streak of eight. I did my first cricket game and was following it, looking at some cricket website and I don't even know what's going on or how the game works...but it's like an eight-hour game. It's just another game.

You're pretty close to finals now. Are you looking at bad weeks with training and studying?

No, not really. I'm done a week from tomorrow with school. I've just got one presentation in one of my classes and then one paper in my other class. Nothing too serious.

If you could have one meal, prepared by anyone, what would you have and who would make it?

Every time I fly home, back to Boston, the first place I go. My dad and I go to Santarpio's Pizza in East Boston. It's the best pizza in the world. That's probably the meal. Eating Sartarpio's Pizza in East Boston with my dad. I'm kind of a pizza snob. I don't think you can find good pizza outside of the Northeast part of the country. Maybe I'm wrong...but, I haven't seen it yet.

Can you give me a crazy running-related story?

I don't know if people are going to believe this or not. I was a Spanish major at Arkansas and always wanted to go study in a Spanish-speaking country. In the summer of 2007, I visited my friend in Bogota, Colombia. He was always a runner. We were doing quite a few runs together. One day we decided to do this one that goes outside of town, up this mountain on these outskirts of the city. We do this run up this mountain on this very narrow path, kind of in a secluded area. We make it to the top fine...and coming down, we see—100-meters away from us on the path—these guys with a lot of guns in their hands. I'm not an expert on guns, but they looked like something you don't want to mess around with and a big sack of drugs...or guns. We started running down the mountain, not on the path...just straight down with adrenaline just taking over. We made it near the bottom and back on the streets when this little Colombian guy...about 10 meters away from me...jumps out of the bushes and points a handgun right at me. He says, “pare o voy a disparar culo puto!” which means, “stop or I'm going to shoot!” and the last part is a swear, so I'm not going to translate. I stop for a split second, thinking, “what am I going to do?” Finally, something told me to go for it and I just went for it and dove through these bushes and I made it and I'm here today...telling you this story.

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