New Mexico's Rory Fraser, a British fellow, cranked out a fast 5,000 at the Mt. SAC Relays. His time of 13 minutes, 39.85 seconds was a big personal-best and also a mark that ranks him seventh in the country for Division I athletes.

13:39. What are you feelings on running that time?

Pretty happy. Pretty happy. It went pretty well. With a 10-second PR, you obviously can't complain about that. I still think I can go a bit faster by not committing as much in the start. The first lap was in 62, so I kind of committed enough to a fast start. It was a good start and hopefully I can carry that through to nationals and be All-American.

Can you go into specifics on a typical training week for you?

It's basically where you work out on Tuesdays and Fridays. In the UK last year, I was training three times a week. As soon as I came out here, I tried to do that and got sick. The altitude takes its toll on you when you're training three times a week. And that's training hard three times a week. Basically we do a track session on a Tuesday, which can consist of normally quite a lot of pyramid stuff. Like a 400, 600, 800 and K then back down. Most of that stuff is at race pace. Or we'll do K sessions or miles or 400s. Then on Friday, we do a tempo. We've gotten used to doing an 8-10 mile tempo at nothing ridiculously fast, but again the altitude takes its toll. If you think you're going to go out and run really, really fast...we'll you just can't do it. We do a tempo at about 5:15 for ten miles or so. It's solid and that's what we do.

Why did you choose to go to New Mexico in the first place?

I knew a few people out in America. They always said how good it was when British people went to America. They said I should give it a go. Back home, I didn't really know what I was going to do with my life. It was kind of, “go to America or live on the streets.” I decided to email a few people to see what they would say and see who got back to me. Of the ones that got back to me, New Mexico sounded the best for me personally. The history Joe Franklin's got with Brits and how's he's worked with them in the past, the people he's got there at the moment are doing pretty well off of what he has them doing. That's what sold it to me. And the attitude and the work was always a plus as well.

Would you vouch for the system there when talking to other British athletes?

Absolutely. When I first got here, I couldn't believe what you got offered. It was just absolutely insane. Even the free kit or the free gear you get. The free trainers. You don't get that at all in the UK. University back home is not big. You don't go to university back home to make it pro like you do here. The biggest sport back home is soccer really, and if you don't play soccer then you don't get anything. UK athletics can only support a certain amount of people and I wasn't one of them. I wanted to see how far I could get running-wise and see how far I could get a “free ride” really. I'm living like a professional athlete and that's the way I look at it.

You're looking at it like you're a professional athlete because of the improvement of situation?

Kind of. I'm just not running as fast as a professional athlete right now. Just to be able to focus on my running and get good sleep and not have a job it helps. Every bit helps, as they say. To have access to facilities and ice baths whenever you need it. All these things help. If I would have stayed back home then I would have had to get a job to support myself. And working 9-5 and trying to run 90 miles a week or whatever just isn't that feasible.

That's an interesting point. It makes me think that we might take college for granted over here.

A lot of people back home do work full-time and still compete really well. That's just brilliant. I'm not saying that I couldn't do that, but it's a lot easier when you don't have to do those things. Rest is an important part. You can't get your rest if you're waking up at 6 a.m. every day. It takes a toll on your body after a while.

But it's not like you don't have to go to school as well.

When I finished university back home I got my degree and that was great and stuff. I've already got a degree and I'm on a graduate program out here. For me, at the moment, education is just a means to run. But it is important that I keep up my GPA and all the rest of that. But, I'm only doing that so I can continue running. The running is the only reason I came out here, the education is just another thing that I get with it.

What's the next step then?

Well, I came to America to see where I could get. With the Olympics being in London in 2012, it just gives me more incentive to make it. That's the plan for me. I've got three years to try to sort that out, to keep improving the way I have been. To get to the Olympics would be a fantastic achievement and a fantastic opportunity to run in front of my home crowd. It's not something that many people get to do.

What were you doing this past summer? Did you have an opportunity to try to qualify?

No. I didn't run fast enough. The UK has one of the hardest qualification standards. I don't know what it is in the US, but to qualify for the 5K, you have to run the “A” standard pretty much. And that's 13:20. Last year I was an awful long way off of that. I didn't have any chance to go last year, but I knew what was four years away. A lot can happen in four years with training and stuff like that. That's the goal: to come out here and train for two or three years and see how far I can go.

What other international races have you done?

I went to the Junior European Cross Country Championships, which was a pretty big deal for me at the time. It was a great experience and stuff. I didn't perform that well, but it was just another one of those stepping stones to try to get somewhere else in the sport. That was all good. Then I competed at the World University Cross Country Championships, which was kind of a strange meet. I don't know how many teams were there, but there was an awful lot of teams competing there. Teams from Australia to Morocco to Algeria. That was another good experience. All just stepping stones to try to get somewhere farther. I haven't done a great lot competing for Great Britain, but hopefully that can change.

You sound like someone who looks at the “big picture”. Do you think you belong on the world stage, maybe three years down the road?

If you don't think like that than you might as well give up. There's no point in running if you don't think you can do those things. Although they might seem a bit unrealistic at the moment, if I can continue to take 10-11 seconds off my time each year...then, who knows what can happen? I'm still young and I've still got a lot of things to learn. I've got a lot of miles to run. With all that said, I think in the next few years, then hopefully I can get on that world stage and compete the people there. Maybe beat a few Africans.

What are some things that you're getting used to in transitioning to living in the States?

There aren't many things that are that different. The amount of McDonald's might be the only difference. The amount of fast food joints—which is growing more and more in the UK—but you can't drive a mile down the street without seeing three McDonald's. Most of the rest of it is pretty similar. It's a bit bigger out here.

That's interesting that that stands out to you.

The chocolate milkshake is the future. And that's all good. If you have a bit of a hard week...you can treat yourself to a bit of McDonald's.

Can you give me a crazy running related story?

Well, I suppose the most interesting thing that I've done is when I went to Ethiopia a couple years ago, I got to run with Haile Gebrselassie. It was the most phenomenal experience of my life. I got to know a guy at my university who was Ethiopian and he said, “if you ever get a chance, come out and visit me.” So, I did. I got there and realized that he's famous in that country. During the trip, he kind just mentions, “do you want to run with Haile tomorrow?” I was like, “are you serious? Of course I want to run with Haile tomorrow!” This is about two weeks before he ran the London Marathon and I didn't really want to if he was going to be preparing for all that stuff. I was told to go to his house at about 5 a.m. His house was massive, it was a mansion. We just set off running and he says, “follow me.” I followed him up this trail and we went past these people who own a pair of flip flops and a pair of shorts. They've never seen a TV before and were all saying, “Haile! Haile!” and everyone knows who he is. He just waves to everyone as he runs. For me it's sprinting up. We run by Tirunesh and Bekele and he is asking me if I know who they are. Of course I know who they are. He's just an absolute hero. We get back to his house and he invites me in and shows me around. I was on my own. He showed me to the bathroom and told me to take a shower and to get myself ready and come out for breakfast. I got to eat breakfast with him, his wife and his kids. We sat there eating pancakes and stuff at the table. He gave me a lift to his work in his Mercedes. It was just so surreal and just unbelieveable.

So what kind of run did you do together?

He was kind of tapering. He was going 90 minutes. Basically we ran up this mountain. Ethiopia is at a pretty high altitude as it is. We got to about 3000-meters altitude and by that time, my lungs were hurting. My eyeballs were bleeding and all that fun stuff. He noticed that and told me to wait around for a half an hour and he ran up this mountain, came back down and picked me up and we just ran back together. It was unbelievable to say he was tapering because he was running very, very fast. He's one of the nicest people ever. I don't know many people who would just run with some random person two weeks before you're going to try to break the world record.