North Carolina State senior John Martinez is a steeplechaser at heart. The Stony Point, New York native ran 9 minutes, 6.6 seconds in high school over the hurdled 3,000-meter distance. Martinez has lowered his steeple personal-best time to 8:44.92. Heading into his last cross country season, Martinez looks to better his 49th-place finish from last year.

You're back at NC State, right?

Yes, sir.

Have your classes started again?

Yup, class started two weeks ago from tomorrow. I've been here for nearly a month.

How did you spend most of your time this summer?

Most of my time was spent working, I guess. I was a lifeguard this past summer with both my brothers. My brother is my manager, so it was pretty cool...being able to make my own hours. I scheduled my work around my running. I would wake up early, get my running in an do everything I had to do then spend my day working. This past summer is the first that I didn't really do as much as I normally would. I'd normally hang out with my friends. I did a lot of work on my car this summer...with my friends.

Working on a hot rod or something?

I have a Mustang. It's a new one, but I made a lot of modifications. I put rims on it, exhaust and intake. I was working in the driveway with my friends and stepdad.

Did you put in runs after you finished working on your car? Or no doubles for you?

Over the summer, I didn't double too many times. Once I got to school, that's when I really started doing my double runs. I doubled today and doubled three times last week...just to get the mileage up. I started slow with my mileage this summer because I was injured all of last spring. My summer was a little more of a building period, more than high mileage. I didn't double much over the summer.

Where did you start for mileage this summer and where are you now?

I started around maybe 35 miles a week, on about four days. Then went up to 50. Now I'm up to 90. The progression has been pretty good and I'm feeling a lot better now. It's high mileage now. High last week, high this week then it will kind of be a down week.

Is 90 the highest you'll go? Will you hit triple digits?

No, no triple digits. I think I've only done that maybe once...and that was two years ago when we had a really long workout followed by a really long long run.

No fun races or anything like that?

Nope. Nothing like that. Coach really doesn't want us to race over the summer. He really doesn't even like us doing workouts over the summer. I pretty much did a few runs with friends...other than that, it was all on my own. That's why I came down to school as early as I did. I wanted to come down here and be able to run with a few guys, rather than running by myself every day.

Are you doing a lot of your miles on trails, or is it on pavement?

Most of it is on pavement and roads. We do two runs at a state park, about ten minutes from campus. It's 100 miles of trails. We go out there for two of our longer runs. We stay on the trails, a softer surface...there's lots of shade, so we get out of the heat. It's pretty busy there on the weekend with recreational runners, bikers and walkers.

You still do most of your miles on roads with those trails available?

Yes, only because it's off campus. It would be a hassle to get the whole team out there every day. We'd have to get into vans and drive out there and probably have to start practice a little earlier than we normally would. Most of the runs, we meet in the locker room then meet at the track or whatever. Twice a week we go off campus to that park and run.

What are your goals for this cross country season?

I've been thinking about it, of course. I obviously want the team to win the conference title. We haven't won since 2006. Get NC State back to the top of the ACC is my main goal. That being said, I would also like to win the individual crown. The team is more important, so if I have to finish second, third or fourth and trade that for a team victory, I would. Regionals, as long as our team makes it to nationals. It doesn't seem all that important to me...as long as we make it to nationals. At nationals, our team wants to improve on the places we've been finishing the past few years for our program. We've had the personnel, we've had the team to be able to run well at nationals, but for some reason when we get there...it doesn't work out for us and it's disappointing. I'd like to be All-American. I was 49^th last year and just missed it. Top-30 would be real nice for me this year.

You've been with your team for a few weeks this year, do you have the team to win the ACC title and go on to do well at nationals?

Yeah, I do. Our team looks good. Obviously we have a few holes to fill on the back end of the rotation. We're really young and the guys are really excited to get to work and earn their spot. The ACC has gotten really tough in the past few years. This year, I expect it to be one of the more challenging years. Florida State just got a new transfer from Michigan that's going to help them out a lot. Virginia has been hot the past few years and even Virginia Tech has improved dramatically in the past few years. I think it's going to be a real dogfight in the conference this year. Some of the freshman and redshirt freshman will be ready to step up then.

Why did you redshirt in 2005? Was there an injury?

No, there wasn't an injury. Coming out of high school, I wasn't used to the mileage, I wasn't used to the pacing. The transition was really difficult for me. In high school, I ran 30 mile weeks at close to eight-minute pace, really relaxed. Getting to college and having to run 70-mile weeks around six-minute pace...was something I wasn't ready for physically or mentally. It didn't work out. I think coach could have inserted me into the lineup. It would have been tough...to be a six or a seven guy...wouldn't have been worth it. He just sat me out and let me get some experience before lining up.

Would you prefer running a steeplechase on the track or do you prefer running cross country?

I prefer track only because it's 3,000 meters. I know who's in the race, I know what they've done. It's pretty constant. I feel I'm a little bit better in track than I am in cross country. There's something about the cross country atmosphere...the whole thing: the team aspect, everybody counts. In track, you can just worry about yourself and not what other people on the team are doing. In cross country, you make sure everyone is on the same page, doing the right thing. The weather starts changing, it's the fall, which is really amazing to run in. Everyone is one race, running the same distance at the same time. I prefer track, but cross country is something that is also very special.

You've developed pretty consistently as a steeplechaser—running low nines in high school.

I ran 9:06 at Junior Nationals, then redshirted freshman year. I think I ran 8:52. Then 8:44 my redshirt sophomore year. Then I didn't run last year. I've been really excited. Not being able to race this spring was disappointing. I thought I could have gone low 8:30s. The NCAA meet was harder to watch. Other than Kyle Perry, I don't think anyone ran particularly well. It seemed like a down year for the steeple. It was disappointing to see those results, knowing I could have been up there in the mix for the top three or something like that.

What do you do when you get free time? You're a Yankees fan?

Oh, my God. Yeah. Down here in North Carolina we don't have the YES Network and I called up Time Warner Cable and it's only like six extra bucks a month to get the YES Network. I've got like seven Yankee hats, Yankee posters all over my room, my phone cover is the Yankees, my ring tone is the Yankees! I love the Yankees!

Non-sports related, what do you do for fun when you get time?

I watch a lot of TV, hang out with the guys on the team. We play a lot of Halo or FIFA. We're really competitive with the team. There's a lot of kids from the South—North Carolina, Virginia...there's a lot of kids from North too—New York and Ohio area. We have a lot of North vs. South competitions. Ultimate Frisbee, swimming races, volleyball...things like that. I like to interact with the guys on the team.

There's a mini-Civil War? North vs. South sort of thing?

Pretty much. Every year we play a series of games. We just started playing basketball last year...but that's after the season ends. We keep score and see who's winning what. Surprisingly with the North being outnumbered as badly as we are, we always seem to win these games.

That's history. There's nothing you can do about that. It's in the textbooks.

Exactly.

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

It would probably be something cooked by my mother or my father. It would be something that I'm used to eating. Thanksgiving, Christmas and summers are the only times that I'm there. While I'm there, I usually eat the same things when I'm with them. Rice, beans, platanos—usually yellow ones. Some sort of meat...the meat will change...anything from beef, to chicken, to pork, to fish.

Can you give me a crazy running-related story?

On a long run at the state park I was telling you about earlier, one of the older kids on the team named Tibor was like, “hey, I've got this loop, do you want to do it?” We said, “sure” and were running on trails and it didn't seem like anything different from any other runs. Well, all of a sudden, he veers off and starts running through all these trees and bushes. It was just running through the woods. We didn't know where the hell he was going. We end up in this field that has grass taller than us. He veers off again into more woods. We don't know how he found this—he's done it a few times—but we got through spider webs and get to this stream and there's no way around it. We all jump in and start swimming across the stream. We get out, run another quarter mile, run into the stream again and start swimming. Well, one of the kids on the team, Jeff, starts getting out and falls back in. I think his leg cramped, so he starts to scare me and flail his arms and is coughing. We jump back in and grab him. He's freaking out, so we grab him by the neck and make the situation worse. Eventually we get him out of the water. We continue our run, jumping over fallen trees and avoiding snakes. Everyone hates them and we always seem to run into about 10 of them. We hit the end of the trail with two kids who almost drowned and we're cut and bleeding and itchy from God-Knows-What...and we look at our watches and it only took us 40 minutes to do this. We have another hour of running. The next hour of running...there was blood rolling down our legs, we had wet shoes, itchy backs and legs...it was kind of miserable.