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Trevor Dunbar shook up the world in high school with his two-mile time trial in the midst of an Alaskan snow storm and his runner-up finish at Footlockers. Now, with the NCAA Cross Country season starting and a full year under his belt, the Portland Pilot sophomore made not one, but two USA World Junior Teams and is aiming for All-American honors in Terre Haute.

Did you just get done your long run?

Yeah, I actually just showered and cleaned up. I did 17 over in Forest Park with a bunch of my teammates.

Is that a typical Sunday for you?

17 or 18. Somewhere around two hours is typical.

What's your typical mileage right now?

It's around 80-90. That's mostly all singles. Maybe there's like one day when I do a little morning run. I'm a singles guy.

What's your impression of how your first full year went in the NCAA?

My first year, I think I've got a new level of confidence, just feeling like I'm going to be really confident when the meets come around and I'll be assertive and be up at the front of the packs, going for it in races. I think I'm more comfortable with the training, so it's not going to be as much of a shock as I get toward the ends of races.

How would you sum up your whole 2009-2010 season?

It was a great season. If I had to grade myself, I'd give me an “A”. There were a lot of cool experiences, making two US World teams and going to some cool track meets and the cross country season was great. All in all, it was an awesome year.

When do you open up?

It looks like we're going to be opening up at the Willamette Invite. It's a little, smaller meet in Salem. That's on October 2^nd, sorry. Then Pre Nationals after that. We've got about four weeks until the first race. I'll just work until then.

Dare you throw out any goals? What are you looking to do this cross country season?

I hope to be an All American. We'll see if I need to adjust the goals and be a little more challenging later. But, that's the goal right now I think. I just want to help out the team as much as I can and get an All-American award. That would be my goal.

You've seen your team with the recruits in. Where do you think you place in the top five?

I'm not going to guess on that. I'm not really sure. We'll have to just see what happens when the first race happens. We've had a good group. A couple of us have been staying together in workouts. There's no ranking order as of right now. It should be a really competitive year.

Did you take a lot of time off after the outdoor season and what did you do this summer?

I didn't really take any time off. I'm not really a big fan of taking big breaks after I get done with my seasons. It seems like if I do, it'll be the best time for me to get hurt. I've gone right into training and I went a few weeks in the Lake Tahoe area and lived with my brother up there. Then I went and traveled around a bit. I went to Worlds in Canada for 10 days and was home for another two-and-a-half weeks. I was just traveling around a little bit.

When I ask people about time off, they say how they take one to three weeks off and then have to build up their mileage. There wasn't any of that with you?

Maybe I went down just a little bit. It's kind of a consistent thing. I'm always staying consistent with daily runs and weekly mileage. I'm just staying even, I guess.

You were only back home in Alaska for a couple weeks?

I was there for about two-and-a-half weeks or so.

What's the running like there compared to Lake Tahoe? Were there lots of trails in both places?

It was good at both places. I enjoyed being at both places. The area in Kodiak is obviously not high elevation. I think it's right around sea level. Kodiak's got some trails and probably half of my runs are on trails and half on the roads. The Lake Tahoe area was all trails and really hilly.

I guess I assumed that since you were from Kodiak, Alaska, that you only ran on trails. You're not a soft surfaces guy? Is it half and half?

It's probably half and half. We do all our runs here in Portland over in Forest Park, with workouts in different parks, but it's mostly soft surfaces, but that's with a little bit of streets. When I'm home, it's probably more streets than when I'm here in Portland.

Have you picked a major yet?

I'm studying somewhere in the business field. I'm focusing toward a marketing management degree.

What's your dream job? Is it in the marketing field or using your legs to run professionally?

Right now, I just want to see how far I can take running. We'll see how it goes. I definitely looking to run after college if I can do it.

What do you and your teammates do for fun in Portland when you're not training or studying?

We have a lot of fun here. We just had a get-together with all our new people yesterday—like a barbecue. We barbecue and hang out. Some of the guys play video games, but I'm not really into that. Right now we've got the first week of school and four of my teammates and I just moved into a house off campus. We're trying to get that organized and we're trying to get a bunch of stuff for the house. It's kind of empty right now.

Is that the “official” or “unofficial” track house of Portland?

It's the unofficial track house. Actually one of our track houses is called “The Track House”. We're just trying to make a new one.

What are some of the essential things you have in there?

Yeah, we have a TV. We need some more furniture and a table. We'll figure it out.

It sounds like your typical, anywhere-in-American, broke college kids?

(Laughs) Exactly. Yes, exactly. We're just struggling college students, trying to make our house a little prettier.

Are you a running dork, studying every result as it comes out?

I'm kind of a running dork. I pretty much keep tabs pretty closely with what's going on with running. I never write anything on message boards. I glance and I browse sometimes.

When you put your two-mile time trial up on the internet that was a huge deal. What kind of feedback were you getting from that?

If I went to a cross country meet, I'd get the standard, “oh, you were that guy. I watched your YouTube video. You're the guy who runs in the snow!” Stuff like that. That storm kind of died down, which is fine with me. I had to answer questions about that enough.

I don't want to ask more of those questions, but were you signing autographs?

I'm not much of an autograph signer, but I think I signed a couple with my high school team. It wasn't too big of a deal.

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

I'd have to go with my mom, just because I like the way she cooks and I'm used to it, I guess. I'd probably go with her enchiladas or something Mexican. I love Mexican food. She cooks pretty well.

You only get those when you go home?

I get those rarely on occasion. Now that I'm not eating mom's food every day, it's not as nice. It's much better when I go home and get to have some of mom's food.

It's a little different now that you're a struggling college kid? What's your diet consist of these days?

It's not the best diet, I would have to say. Our coach, Rob Conner, is a huge vegan. He's always talking to us about eating vegetables and dark greens and stuff like that. We've been making a lot of pasta and Top Ramen—pretty standard poor college kid stuff.

Can you share a crazy running-related story?

Everyone knows I'm from Kodiak, Alaska, so I'd like to make it something related to that because not everyone is from there. Kodiak is famous for its bears. I've lived there almost my whole life. I moved there when I was in first grade and had never seen a bear until my junior year of high school. I did a lot of my runs by myself and on this one, it was just about getting dark and I was about a half-mile from my house in an hour run. Now an hour run wouldn't be too much, but then I was pretty much dying. I'm finishing up my hour and it was pretty tough and I'm running along. There were a few cars in the neighborhood streets, driving up and down. I see, walking up toward me, a huge Kodiak bear. It was a huge creature. I think by that time I had seen maybe one bear but nothing up close like that. It was walking toward me and I was running and just froze there for a bit. It was going the speed I was. I was on a jog and it was at a fast walk. It seemed like it was moving toward me. I just froze and it luckily just went off and did its own thing in a side ditch up the road. I got up next to the side of a car that was going to opposite direction and just sprinted back to my house as fast as I could, but it was really scary. It was a huge bear. A crazy creature to watch move. It's amazing how fast they can move too. I was having visions of it chasing me down as I was going. I was busting my ass off trying to get away.

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