Tulsa's John Beattie, a senior originally from Southampton, United Kingdom, has an impressive distance running resume. At last fall's NCAA Cross Country Championship, Beattie finished in 29^th place as his Hurricanes finished 13th. This past spring, he ran 28 minutes, 46.27 seconds in the 10,000-meter run at the Payton Jordan Cardinal Invitational. After training at altitude, with Kenyans this summer, we'll see what he can accomplish this fall.

What kind of running did you do this summer?

I did the NCAAs in June. After that I took three weeks of complete rest. I basically just relaxed in Tulsa. I didn't go back, I stayed in the States. I got back into it for a couple of weeks, but building up. My friend from England came over to visit and we went to El Paso, where I know a few guys. He used to run for UTEP. We stayed down there for 10 days or so. I think the altitude down there is about 4,000 feet. Then we went from there to Flagstaff, Arizona, which was absolutely superb. We were there for two weeks, up at 7,000 feet. Then we came back to Tulsa on the 17^th of August. I've been back here ever since.

You did an altitude tour?

Yeah. You could put it that way.

How did you body handle that?

It seems to be handling it quite well. The only thing with Flagstaff is there isn't really any heat or humidity there. It wasn't too bad and I got a couple good weeks of training in there. I feel fine now!

Were there any of the “typical” world-class athletes training in Flagstaff when you were there?

There were a few of them. We met Abdi (Abdirahman), which was fun. I had coffee and cake with him. We were training with Andrew Ledwith, who ran pretty well at NCAAs last year.

Did you do any races or was it all training?

No, I haven't done any races since nationals. I figured the NCAA season was long enough for me. With the possibility of what I might be doing next summer...this might be a good reason to have a complete break so I can let the body refresh before training.

After taking those three weeks off completely, what was that first week back like?

I started with like 35 minutes a day for the first week back and then added five minutes more per day. 35, 40, 45 and so on. I don't really tend to count my mileage that much, just took more time to run. It was certainly very easy for the first couple of weeks.

And where are you right now for mileage?

It's probably between 100-110ish. Like I said, I don't keep a precise count on it, but it's somewhere around there.

That's with how many doubles?

Probably Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday...so, four.

Have you talked with your coaches and teammates about goals for this cross country season?

I was 29^th there last year. I think probably half the people who beat me last year were seniors. That would probably leave me well. I know I've been improving, so top-15 would be a decent target. The depth is obviously incredible there, so we'll see. It's quite hard to predict.

Same with our team. We were 13^th last year and that was the best the school has ever done. I think we're better this year, but we certainly have no illusions, because last year nobody had any injuries. Everyone seemed OK. We're not under any false pretenses that we'll automatically do better than before. Trying to beat last year's finish would be positive for the school.

Can you talk about the process that you went through that brought you to Tulsa?

It was kind of random. I was at Southampton and did a law degree. Out of the blue one day, I got a message on Facebook from the assistant coach here, Andy Maloney. It was a general message that he sent out, saying, “would you be interested in looking at some post-graduate opportunities? Come out and run on a scholarship.” I was semi-interested in it and he called me that day and he was sounding more and more convincing on what he had to offer. At that point I would check out races and see that everyone was racing fast. I was looking at the Stanford meet and we obviously don't have anything like that back at home in England. He recruited me more. I had no specific bounds at home and thought, “whynot give it a go?” And here I am.

Be honest: what brought you here? Was it another degree or the running?

I think it's a combination of everything really. Unless you're in that top percent at home where you're going to get everything looked after or whatever, this is the place to be running wise. And the degree, well, that's always going to help. I'm doing an MBA here, which they're always telling me how valued that is to getting jobs and stuff. Then, just the lifestyle thing, where I have an opportunity to come and see the stage and run at places like California or Texas or places I've never even heard or thought about before...well, now I'm getting a chance to see these places. I get to meet people from all over the world.

What kind of international race experience do you have?

I ran the World Cross Country Championships in Edinburgh last year. December last year, two weeks after NCAAs, I ran the European Cross Country Championships in Belgium. I've done a few.

Which international races do you have coming up?

I'm definitely not doing the British Trials for the European Cross Country Championships. It's probably unlikely that I'll get picked for the senior team. I'll be running at the NCAAs and it would be unfair to the guys to be picked after not showing up for the trials. I'm not really thinking about that too much. If it comes up, then I might consider it.

So, outside of the NCAA, which races do you have your sights on?

I've got some very specific sights this year. We have the Commonwealth Games, which is pretty much the British Empire and former-British Empire countries. It's kind of a watered-down version of the Olympics. They have all the sports ant everything. It's in Delhi, India. That would be pretty cool to compete in. That's next in 2010. We also have the European Championships on the track. That's in August next year. Making either of those in the 10k would be great for me.

How difficult are the standards?

They're not too bad. They're kind of developmental competitions for people looking to the make Olympics and World Championships in the future. I think the 10k is like 28:30ish, give or take five seconds. I think that's certainly achievable. There's not a huge amount of depth back home, so it's almost the case where if you hit the time, you're going to go. It's not like you have 10-15 guys having the time that you do, compared to the US Championships.

What do you do when you get free time?

I like playing golf. I was hugely into golf before I got into running. That was my sport before running. I played with the coach here at Tulsa a few times.

How are the courses over here comparing to the golf courses back home?

They're nice. We have Southern Hills in Tulsa, where they just had a US amateur. I haven't been able to get on there yet. You'd probably need $300 per round there.

They can't pull any strings for one of their top distance runners?

I don't think so. It's one of those types of places where you have to be in the right place and know the right people. It's one of those conservative, southern, traditional clubs. Even our coach hasn't played there and that's pretty surprising.

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

I love to do the really big 10k track preparation sessions. One of the ones that I did last year, building up to Stanford. It was 3k on the track at 10k pace, then it was five 400s quicker, then a two-mile tempo on the grass, then...

Can I start over and change this? I've got a better one! I did it with—have you heard of a guy called Kyle King?

Zap Fitness guy? Yes, I have!

He's based in Tulsa and he's got this workout called the Mongetti. It's a fartlek session on the track, where you do two by 90 seconds on, 90 seconds off, four by 60 seconds on, 60 seconds off. Four by 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off and then four by 15 on, 15 off. The aim of it is to keep your recovery going at really solid pace without ever really letting up. We did that in about 19:35-19:40ish. Straight off of that we do two by mile, where you do a hard 1500 and then rest for five minutes.

Do you realize that you started this off with, “I love to do the really big 10k preparations”?

I hate the killer lactic sessions where we do four or five by 400 hard. Those aren't for me, but the big, big 10k sessions...I love them! That's what I train for.

100-mile weeks and workouts like that and I'm expecting big things from you this season.

(Laughs) Yeah, we'll see.

What's your longest run ever?

Longest? I'd say two hours, 10 minutes. We were going to do two hours but got lost and ended up doing 10 minutes more.

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

I lived with the Kenyans this summer and they were cooking all sorts of Kenyan food for me. I (really liked) chapati. It's a really floury-type pancake. They make that and ugali as well. They live off this stuff and they tell me I'll run fast if I eat that and beef stew. It needs to be cooked by Kenyan girls. If they guys make it...they're not in the same league as the Kenyan women.

Is it crazier to go to soccer game in England or a Tulsa football game?

There's no comparison. Absolutely no comparison! The passion and everything back home is just so much more intense. It's life or death for people back home. I've seen some pretty nasty things back home. The games here are fun, but they're soft compared to the abuse and the shouting and the riots.

Can you give me a crazy running-related story?

We were doing a run at a park, trying to explore it and go out to new areas that we hadn't been. We ended up in these farmer's fields. We weren't quite sure where we were going. All of a sudden, a truck comes out of nowhere and starts following us. The guy in it starts shouting at us. I think it was along the lines of, “get off my land!” We decided not to because we wanted to keep on going and didn't want to go back. Then we ended up running through this river to get away and climbed over a few barbwire fences, thinking we were clear. We got to the edge of a highway. The guy turns around and doubles back and pulls up along side of us, gets out of his truck and he shouts, “if you ever come on my land again, I'm going to kill you and shoot you with my gun!” It was classic! We started sprinting. You don't want to mess with these people. You don't know what they're capable of or what they're carrying.