Last year's DMR champion Russell Brown doesn't have indoor eligibility left but will be training for USA Indoor Nationals and will be back to compete for Stanford in outdoor track.

What's your major?

Right now I'm a master's student, actually in sociology. I was political science for undergrad. Political science is not that hard of a major to fulfill. I knew I was going to come back here and I knew I had eligibility. I wasn't really interested in expanding it out. I mean, like some guys, you can save your eligibility and have barely any classes at all. I was already for the most part done with my major by the beginning of senior year. I didn't think I wanted to expand it any longer. I couldn't take two years to take three classes. It would be boring. I don't know what I'd do with myself. They have a cool program at Stanford. You can be a master's student concurrently while you're still in your undergrad. Then finish up your undergrad and strictly take your master's classes. I'm still an undergrad now and I've only got four more classes to take for my master's degree in sociology. I'm really into it though, I like it. The political science program doesn't have a master's degree so there weren't a lot of options. Soc(iology) was kind of the closest thing. I like social science. Although I'm not getting practical job experience like you (AUTHOR'S NOTE: Flotrack gives me college credit for writing these beautiful KWIK-Es) but I don't know what I want to do yet. I'm into what I'm learning about.

Have you looked into internships or anything like that?

Nope. The time to do it was always the summer and my racing always goes late into the summer. Then we have to back at school for training camp and stuff. It was hard to try to find something that works well with training and going to the races that I want to do. So, each summer I'd consider it and toss it around. But it was just easier to go home and train and go to all the races I could.

This upcoming summer won't be much easier for you.

No, no, I don't think it will be. Yeah, hopefully I'll be busy all summer and I won't have time for anything but running.

That's it. Keep it positive! So, how's your break going? What kind of stuff are you doing?

It's going great. It's funny. We got dumped on with snow pretty much the first day I got here and I figured it's going to be bad weather. But it's been warm for the most part and also I probably live in the best town, as far as training goes, in the Northeast. I live in Hanover, New Hampshire, which is right where Dartmouth College is, and they have a really nice indoor track. And the coach there, he opens it up to collegiate runners who are back on break. I have this beautiful 200-meter track that I live a mile away from that I can use every day. I can get on there and work out, the weather isn't bad either but there are only two runs I can do outside, but I try to vary that up as much as possible. There are actually a couple of other guys on the upper valley, the couple of towns where I live. They're not big enough to be their own town so we have a name for all of them. The couple of kids around, one is going to Oregon, this other guys is going Conn College, a DIII school. We all train together; we work out together, run every day. Honestly, I'm getting in pretty good training. It's going really well. We all have our different plans, so we all have to try to work around each other. Especially the guy from Oregon, I've got to make sure I don't show him all the secrets and stuff. But for the most part we can collaborate something.

So, whereabouts are you in New Hampshire? I had a buddy who went to Keene high school.

Yeah, I'm like an hour north of Keene. It's right on the border of Vermont and New Hampshire.

Is that near Thetford at all? (AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thetford hosts one of the best Cross Country Invitational's ever!)

Yeah, I live about 15 minutes away from Thetford.

Did you ever get to race there?

Yeah, I did it once. They had that real big high school invitational and I never went to that one, but there was one with just some local teams and I did that one. That's like the most beautiful course around. It's tough, but it's pretty hard. You're in the woods the whole time.

What kind of time did you run there, to help me put my running into perspective?

I'm going to try to remember. Honestly, I don't think I even broke 17 minutes. But again, it was a tough course. It wasn't much of a fast course. I just wasn't a cross country runner. I sort of got it together my senior year and wanted to win my state meet. And I did get it together enough to win my state meet, but I don't even think I ever broke 16 minutes.

That's wild though, weren't you originally a 60m guy or something?

Yeah (laughs) back when I started indoor track, I would do the 55 and other stuff like the 300 and the 600. I didn't want to run the 1,000 and the six and like the 15, so I had to double up. I think I got sixth once in the 55 at states, maybe that was my freshman year or maybe even my junior year. I don't remember exactly. One of those years I got sixth though in the 55. I wasn't that good. It just wasn't that deep of a field. I was pretty fast. But if I had gone into any competitive heat, I would have gotten destroyed. I did all right in New Hampshire.

Didn't you win New Englands in the 60m?

No, no, no. I won New Englands in the 600m.

They must have dropped a zero on your Stanford bio (laughs).

Yeah (laughs).

So, did you get ever run down at the Northeast Foot Locker Championships in Van Cortlandt Park?

Yeah, after my senior year, I had won states that year and we were kind of thinking we should give it a try and I went down to Footlocker and I went out in like 4:45 and was feeling good, then I hit the hill and just blew up. I think I was 23rd place (AUTHOR'S NOTE: He finished 22nd and beat some very quality runners including Lopez Lomong) http://footlockercc.com/northeast/results/2002_ne_seededb.html . I thought, "I want to make it to Footlockers!" And everyone wants to make it to Footlockers. I figured that was the year, because I'd trained that summer a lot harder and thought I was ready to go but I think I went out too fast and wasn't that experienced as a cross country runner. I wish I knew then what I know now. I guess everyone does. I didn't really run that smart and I don't think I trained quite hard enough and I wasn't as good as I wanted to be. I had big dreams.

Your teammates in college, are you a pretty tight-knit team?

We're a close team and it's great. They're my best friends, all of them. I didn't really realize, although I kind got this perspective from other people, I mean we really spend a lot of time together and a lot of us live together, actually I'm living with a bunch of people on the team this year and I've done that since we've been allowed to choose our house mates. I've always lived with people on the team. They've always been my best friends. I don't think it's absolutely necessary for a team to be successful for everyone to be close like that, but I certainly think it helps. It certainly helps our team.

What big meets are you going to be doing for indoor track?

Actually I don't have any eligibility for indoor. I only have outdoor left. I still want to go to Indoor Nationals at Reggie Lewis at the end of the season. And to do that, I"ve got to qualify. So I'll probably just run one other time and get my qualifier and then run Indoor Nationals. I don't know exactly where I'm going to do that. We may go up to Seattle. But, it's possible that we go to this meet in Scotland. What's it called?. Oh, yeah, the Norwich Union Grand Prix indoor Meet. Team USA is going to send some people over there and I at least gave my consent to be selected. Although I think they just go down the rankings and I think I'm sitting probably eighth or something on that list. I don't know if they'll end up selecting me for that but if I go to that one, that would be great! I think they're going to have a 15 there. Mostly though, it's (indoor) going to be about training and getting a focus. I want to go and get some races in, but at the same time my focus is on the end of outdoor track.

So, can you talk about how you're taking steps to the Olympic Trials?

Yeah, it's hard because that's my focus, but it's also everyone else's focus. Everyone wants to be at that race. Everyone wants to be ready. Actually, I think I already have my qualifier because I'm pretty sure the window has been opened since last USA's. And I ran in Germany and ran 3:39.3 there and that will make the auto for the Trials. I'm already into the trials, but just being in is just the beginning. As far as being ready to make the team, it's hard to know exactly what I have to do. I just think I ran fast last year. At USA's I didn't have a great race, but I was in a position of at least being close. I think making the World Team last year was a step away and wasn't what I was capable of, at least last year, but I think I was capable of being close. I've also improved every year by just doing the same things I'm doing. Mostly, it's like, I'm not going to change anything as far as training goes. I'm just going to change things like what my goals are, what my expectations are and what my focus is. I find that as long as I do the right things in training, I just change my mindset of my goals and what I'm capable of then it all works out.

What would you say your biggest accomplishment is thus far in your running?

Let me think. Oh, you know what it is? It's the DMR from last indoor season. I was going to say it was my race last year at outdoor NCAAs, which was by far the fastest I've ever run and probably my best run, but I kind of made some mistakes. And the other thing is I got third place. I lost to two really good guys, but I still lost. The DMR last year, when we won that, it was cool because earlier in the indoor season my teammate Garrett and I were with Peter and we mapped out that we wanted to win the DMR. I'd been there so many times before with team's that were like, "shoot, this is the year, I want to win this, and we can get it this year," but never did. That was the first time I sort of put my eyes on winning something and it panned out. My most important memory of running, that's it for sure.

So, what did you get for Christmas?

I didn't get anything exciting. I got some good books. I got a nice pair of slippers. I can't really say this, but whatever, I might as well. One of my sisters got me a bunch of Prefontaine gear. She got me the famed "Stop Pre" T-Shirt and Prefontaine DVD. I mean honestly, I should have had that stuff long before now. I needed it. It's like the mark of a runner. Stuff I have to have.