Northern Arizona's David McNeill, an Australian native, had an amazing sophomore cross country campaign with a 10th place finish. After facing a few injuries surrounding a seven minute, 50 second 3,000-meter run indoors, he's back for this huge outdoor season and ready to run fast times.

Have you run yet today?

Yeah, I went for a run this morning. We did the Navy 12K. So, like 7.5 miles.

What kind of pace did you run?

This morning I was sort of just on heart rate. So, I was sitting on about 145 beats per minute. It was a pretty comfortable, sort of easy run. A recovery day.

Do you do a lot of your workouts with your heart rate monitor on?

I don't do a lot of my workouts with it on, but I use it when I'm on my recovery runs. I'll wear the monitor so I know I'm not going too fast, to make sure I'm getting adequate recovery. I do it every once and while just to make sure I'm not overdoing it.

I was looking at your school's website. Can you tell me about "Skinny Thunder" and how you got this nickname?

Sure. That started at Pre Nats during cross country last year. One of the guys on our team, Jon Cardenas, came up with it. It's become sort of a bit of a public name for me. My teammates and the media like to call me that. It's a funny nickname. It's about where I come from, from Australia.

You took 10th at cross country this year, you've got 3:44 1,500/7:50 3,000-meter speed, what direction are going with your running?

I guess for the last couple of years my focus has been the 5K. This season I've decided I want to give the 1,500 a bit of a go. I think it will help me over the next few years. That's one of the main focuses for this season. I guess it's been a bit of a slow start so far. I had a pretty interrupted indoor season with a couple of little injuries. So, I guess I've spent the last three or four weeks trying to get fit again. In the next few weeks I have a 5K in Stanford, and then after that the focus will be running 1,500s to build up a bit of speed and see what I can do with it...because I've never really given it much focus. It will be interesting to see what I can do.

Northern Arizona is developing into quite the running university with the men and women. Where do you think you fit into that?

When I first came over here, one of the big differences between running cultures in the U.S. and Australia is the team atmosphere. It's probably the same at most schools, but certainly at NAU the team component of it, I think it helps everyone stay focused. It helps every runner achieve individual and team goals. For me, I came over here to improve my running and make the most of the opportunity. I've been able to running in a steady environment such as this. I guess I'm not different to anyone else on the team, we've just got our own individual goals. But as a team, we try to help each other out and achieve those goals. It's nice to be in a environment where you're surrounded by a bunch of like-minded athletes with similar goals. Back home in Australia, a lot of my running was done by myself.

You just mentioned how it was different. What are some other differences between here and Australia? You went to La Trobe University over there?

There's no collegiate sport system in Australia, so my running was just with the local club. There wasn't much travel. I was from the state of Victoria, which in Australia is probably one of the stronger distance communities. In terms of getting decent competition, I didn't have to travel much. Which, compared to here, where you hop on a plane or a bus to go to competition, that's been a big difference. Being able to cope with so much travel that's associated with each race you do. Other than that, it's the depth of the competition is phenomenal. There's not a great deal of depth in Australia. There are lots of good runners, but you jump into a race like NCAA cross, and you compare a track time where you're ten seconds faster than someone else and they might be 100 positions behind you in a cross country race. I think that's a great reflection of the depth and the great opportunity we have to run here.

How did you find NAU?

Well, when I graduated high school, the coach here contacted my via email. He sought me out to see if I was interested. For a couple of years, I'd tinkered with the idea that it could be good, but I never really committed. At the start of last year he asked me again and I made a bit of improvement with my running and it wasn't an opportunity to be missed. I came over at the beginning of August last year and haven't looked back since. It's been a fantastic opportunity and I have no regrets. It's all gone reasonably well, apart from a couple unavoidable little injuries. And I guess those are a part of the journey. It's all been good.

Are you completely done with those injuries?

Yeah, they're done. It was a pretty rough winter with snow and everything. In January, I slipped on some snow and bruised my meniscus, which put me out for a couple weeks. Then I sort of came back and did that 3K (7:50). Then the following week, I stepped on a rock and sort of buggered up my foot a bit. That put me out for another three or four weeks. I guess they are acute injuries which couldn't be avoided. Now I've got over all of them and have got all my strength back. The last few weeks has been about getting fit and I feel a lot fitter now. Hopefully I can have an uninterrupted season now.

Since you are coming back from injuries, is it hard to set goals for yourself, or can you tell me what your goals are for this season?

It's a big hard to say. I know I've, since the last outdoor track season, made a lot of improvements. I'm not sure, in terms of times, what that translates into. In terms of getting times, that's what I want to do. In terms of times, that's a little bit of an unknown. I'm not really sure what I'll be capable of. I certainly want to have one good 5K for the season, which I'm aiming to do at Stanford. Also, 1,500s I've put more of a focus on this season and I want to go down in the 3:40s. I think that's a pretty realistic goal for myself. I just want to get to nationals and be competitive.

You had that great cross country season, but you finished behind Lopez Lomong, did you ever feel like you were in his shadow?

Oh, for me...it was one of the big selling points for me coming over to the States. As I said, I've never really had any real training partners in Australia, so a lot of the training was by myself. Coming over here and having someone to follow around in training and pushing me during races was just stellar. One of the best experiences of my running career, especially with someone like Lopez, who's fairly outgoing and is all around a really good guy. It's been a fantastic experience, but for the running. Being in his shadow wasn't an issue. Out on the roads he was a fantastic training partner, he really pushed me and a lot of the improvements I've made in the past six to eight months can be credited to him.

Excuse my ignorance on this, but are you able to run for Australia this summer, say if you were looking to run at the Olympics?

It's a little bit tricky. We had our Olympic Track Trials in February, because outdoor track season in the southern hemisphere is December through February and March. Because I was at NAU at the time, I didn't get to do the Trials. I filled out the paper work to bid, to say ask that I be excused from Trials and things. I don't expect to be able to run the qualifying times for the 5K or 1,500. But as I've made vast improvements over the last six months, I guess I don't know what my potential would be. I sort of covered those bases by...if I run a qualifier for the 5k or 1,500, I'll be up there for consideration. It's certainly not guaranteeing me a spot on the team. They have a pretty tricky selection criteria. I guess if you run the time, you're in a better position to be selected, but it certainly doesn't guarantee you a selection. I'll just go out and do what I always try to do, running hard. If it puts me in a position where I'm up for selection then that's fantastic. It's not something that's guaranteed.

You're a young guy, a sophomore, would you say you're looking more to the next games as your goal?

For sure. That's a bit more realistic. But in between there's also the World Championships and we have our Commonwealth Games in 2010. Those are some goals on the horizon. I guess we take it one step at a time I need to start running those times. It's also about running competitive. It's not all about the times. It's about getting into races and being in the mix with some of the best runners. Especially when they're tactical races. Those are the short term goals. I'd like to be selected for the World Champs team. But Olympics in the future.

Can you give me a crazy story from your running past?

During a cross country race in 2006 over 12K, we're on the final lap of the course. I missed the finish turn off and proceeded onto another lap, only to realize that the leaders who had been in front of me were no longer there. I looked left and saw people a couple of hundred meters away, crossing the line only to realize what I had done. I jumped left over the flagged barrier and cut across to the finish line, and chucked a tantrum at the officials for not flagging me into the finish. This was probably my fault though. I looked at the turn-off afterwards and it was a massive blow-up arch saying "finishers turn here". This story is probably a little indicative of the way I get in races...completely ignorant of what's going on around me! Not the only time I've missed turn-offs. This is probably why I feel a little more comfortable running on the track. It's hard to get lost there!