Butler Bulldog senior Andrew Baker recently took 40th at the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships. He's finished 28th at said meet before and looks for fast indoor track and outdoor track seasons.

Can give me the play by play of how your race played out at NCAAs?

I got out OK we were in box 29, I got to the front but then by the end of the straight the two sides of the field swamped the middle a little and I found myself a little further back than I wanted to be. My plan was to get to 5k in the mix and then try and move through. I was in a decent position at 5k but still a little far back maybe 40th – 50th. I tried moving through which I successfully did until 7k and then I fell off the group I was running with and the last 3k was just a grind. Coming down the home straight I knew I was around about an all American spot (luckily they changed the rule this year), Matt Withrow came by me and I just got the lad from Iona to get 40th spot.

Were you happy with your place?

Not really to be honest. I felt I had a legitimate shot of finishing 15-20th, my finishing position wasn’t bad but I felt I was in a lot better shape than last year where I finished 28th. Saying that I am sure if you ask anyone other than (Galen) Rupp if they were happy with their position they would say they could have finished a few spots higher.

Sam Chelanga obviously took the pace out very quickly? As a runner, how do respond to that sort of thing happening in the front of the race?

I think most people expected Sam to take it out hard, for a guy in my position there is not a lot you can do. It would be suicidal to go with it; you just have to run your own race and hope a few guys go with him and then fall off so you can pick up the pieces, unfortunately for me that didn’t happen.

Now that it's over, what do you now before indoor?

I’m taking a couple days off and then going to try and build my mileage high again until at least the New Year before doing any quicker stuff.

Can you explain how this year's Thanksgiving is going to go?

I’m spending this years Thanksgiving (only my second ever) in Chicago at my girlfriend's house, we have a big Thanksgiving meal planned tomorrow where I am meeting all the relatives that I have yet to meet, hopefully I will come out of that alive. I am a big fan of what Thanksgiving is all about, especially the food and the football. Friday, we are going to cut a Christmas tree down and Saturday I think we are going to spend a day downtown. Back to Butler on Sunday for another dose of reality.

What can we expect from you in the indoor season?

I’m not big on predictions but I am obviously hoping to qualify for indoor nationals, something which I didn’t do last year. Coach Roe and I haven’t fully discussed our plans yet but I’m sure it will involve some 3k’s and some 5k’s with possibly a cheeky mile in there as well.

How did you find/choose Butler in the first place?

I was recruited to Butler by Joe Franklin (now New Mexico coach), with Tommy Davies. We had a friend out here, Alex Hains, who basically persuaded Coach Franklin to take a shot at us. Both Tommy and I were pretty much just shots in the dark, my PB’s were 3:47 and 14:39 and Tommy’s were similar. We weren’t what you’d call stellar recruits, luckily Coach Franklin took a risk on us and we both progressed massively last year (I ran 13:49 and Tommy 14:10 for 5k). Butler was an easy choice as basically no one else wanted us. Shortly after being recruited Coach Franklin left and Coach Roe came in. There was an uneasy couple weeks as we didn’t know whether Coach Roe would still want us; again, luckily his options were limited and he kept us. I’m really glad we got the opportunity to run in the NCAA’s and at Butler, I don’t think I would change it for the world.

Did you have any trouble adapting to running in the United States?

My transition to running in the states wasn’t problem free but it was smoother than the transitions of other Brits I know. I instantly got along with and behind everything Coach Roe was about, my only real problem was that I came in with an iron deficiency which led to a 97th finishing performance at Notre Dame last year, not a good way to impress your new coach. Once that was sorted though I had a really good cross season, eventually surprising everyone including coach and myself by finishing 28th at nationals. My indoor and outdoor season then went really well until I fell apart at the end of outdoor last year. I put this down to the lack of serious mileage year long which I hadn’t had in previous years. We are trying to learn from that this year and hopefully I will hold on a lot better.

It's a long term goal, but are you going to try to run for Great Britain in the 2012 London Olympics?

I think that is the goal for any serious athlete from Great Britain at the moment. It is obviously a long way off in terms of times and performance but it is definitely something which is at the back of my mind. It would be silly to focus everything on achieving that goal right now, in order to get there I will have to achieve many “stepping stones”. At the moment I am just trying to achieve these stepping stones in order to progress to where I want to be in 3.5 years time.

How would you spend a weekend if you don't have to worry about training, running, or school?

This is a tough question which I’m sure my girlfriend will scrutinize me on. If I was at home I think it would start off with a nice pub lunch and then a trip to see a Premiership football match with some mates on Saturday. On Sunday I would take my girlfriend, maybe for a picnic and a walk on the moorlands followed by the beach (providing its not raining of course), no where fancy but just a day together. I would obviously slip a cheeky run in (I wouldn’t worry about it though so technically it counts).

What's the hardest workout you've ever done?

For me every workout is tough but I would probably have to say in and out 600’s. We did this session last year where you do 200 at 27/8 then 200 at 37 then 200 at 27/8 we did 7 of them off 2 minutes recovery. Coming in to the last few your legs are just jelly and all you want to do is be sick, you know you are in trouble when the 37’s begin to feel quick.

Can you give me a crazy running related story?

On my first Sunday at Butler which was only three days after I arrived in the states, we had an unofficial long run. It was before official practice and there were probably about ten of us. We went out to this park; we set off down this thin twisty path, after about a mile and a half I fell and tried bracing myself with my left arm unfortunately in doing so I dislocated my shoulder. I was now in a predicament, no one really new where we were, so in order to get back I had to walk the way we came. I tried putting the shoulder back in myself; I can tell you it is not as easy as it looks in the movies. I couldn’t get it back in so just had to walk back with it still out, I was in a lot of pain and it probably took me about 30 minutes to get back to the car. Once in the car no one knew where a hospital was but as we were driving out of the park we saw some fireman, we asked them if they could put it back in but they weren’t allowed to. It had now been out for about an hour and a half. The fireman kindly said they would take me to the nearest hospital (neglecting to tell me they would charge me $700 for the privilege), I then got to the hospital and it took them at least 45 minutes before they put it back in. In total it had been out for about 2.5 hours, it was so bad they had to put me out to put it back in place. I was very naïve at the time and didn’t realize that the US didn’t have a national health system for the following year I was receiving letter after letter of how much I owed everyone. I was told to have at least two weeks without running but a day on the elliptical was all I could take and it was back to running on day two.