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Arkansas Razorback Dorian Ulrey is headed towards his last NCAA season this fall. Ulrey—a 2009 USA World Championship Team Member and three minute, 35.23 second 1,500-meter runner—surprised himself with his sixth place finish in Terre Haute last year in his first attempt. While not running much right now, Ulrey is coming back from small injuries looks to improve on last year's individual finish and a possible team medal.

What am I distracting you from doing this afternoon?

Absolutely nothing.

Come on, what are you doing on a Sunday this summer?

Dude, I'm a runner. I'm thinking about what I can put off right now. I'm procrastinating whatever it is that the day is going to bring my way. You're just helping me a little bit.

Have you done your long run yet?

Oh, boy. That's a whole can of worms if we want to start talking about long runs. I haven't run farther than 30 minutes this summer.

What have you been doing this summer?

It's been a lot of up and downs, to be honest. I started the summer training right after indoors was over. I took a week off and came back, started gearing up. I was in good shape and did a time trial that not many people know about—until this comes out. I did a time trial in the 1,000. I went through the 800 in 1:50-point and hit the K in 2:18. That was just the first part of the workout. I ended doing a workout after that.

You want to share the rest of that workout or is that something you don't want to put out there?

I'll leave you with the time trial. I'll let you salivate a little bit.

And back to your summer...

After that was about a week and a half before New York. We were really confident that I was going to go there and really be able to run well. Maybe get around that 3:35 mark that I ran last summer. Some things happened to complicate that a little bit. I don't want to go into it too much, but it was some lingering knee issues that had been around since December. It ended up being a blessing in disguise, falling off in that race and experiencing the pain I felt. It really opened my eyes to what I needed to do to get healthy before this cross country season. After that, I took about three weeks off and tried to let my knee heal up and we got a new trainer on the training staff. He's been a great help working with me everyday, going through treatments and rehab. Thanks to him I'm running—finally—for about a half-hour on the Alter-G. Then I get off and run for a half-hour on the ground. It doesn't sound like a lot, but, for me, it's pain-free and that's the best part of my summer so far.

But, overall, you're thinking a successful cross country season is ahead of you?

You know, I've got to tell you. I feel like I'm a little bit behind the eight ball. At the same, when cross country season officially started last year, I wasn't even running. I was taking two weeks off from my really long track season. This year, if anything, I'm going to come in fresh and in better shape than I did last cross country season. I'm really confident at my chances as an individual, but we also brought in some really talented recruits this year.

The team is shaping up pretty well?

Oh, gosh! The team is kind scaring me a little bit right now. I've never been on what can be considered a “top notch” cross country team. I thought we had the talent last year to be top-10, top-15 at nationals, but, let's face it, that's not really what Arkansas shoots for. We shoot for a national championship every time we race. This year, if all the wheels turn on the same day, I think we're looking at team trophy. Which I think is a great place to start with so many young guys.

Is it painful for you to watch all that fast stuff going down in Europe right now? Especially after last summer?

It's actually very encouraging. I see guys like Andrew Wheating and AJ Acosta, just running fast times. That's encouraging, because I see these guys that I've run against several times and had great races with—and I'm great friends with. I see them doing it and it makes me think I've already tasted a little bit of that. What makes it any different? Why won't I be able to go and do that next summer? They're encouraging me to put my best foot forward right now. They're helping me step up my game.

What do you think about a guy you've raced with in the NCAA system, Andrew Wheating, running 3:30.9 this summer overseas?

I can't say that it surprises me. I honestly can't. Anything that kid does does not surprise me. He's so gifted and so amazingly talented, that when he goes and runs 1:44 and beats Nick Symmonds, it doesn't surprise me. When he kicks past me in the last 15 meters of a DMR, it hurts, but it doesn't surprise me. When he runs a 3:30.9...it shocks me and it throws me off a bit...but it doesn't surprise me because I have so much respect for him. He was just at my level four months ago, it makes feel like I can go and do something like that. I'm not going to say that I can go and run 3:30 right now. I probably couldn't even run a 4:30 right now. Who's to say that a year from now, on a European circuit, that I can't go and run 3:32-3:33. That's been the goal ever since last summer when I ran 3:35, was to obviously improve. To see Americans step up and run at the level that they're at right now, is just helping me to see that I'm going to have to step up that much more if I want to represent the USA again.

I got your cross country team assessment, but, individually, there's not much room to go up from sixth. What's your individual goal for cross?

Sixth place, just to dwell on that for a moment—if you want me to dwell—blew my mind. It was the first time I raced at Terre Haute. My first time at an individual cross country nationals. First time ever at that race. To come out on top, in my books, with a sixth-place finish, was phenomenal. I rode that high all the way through indoors. I look to hopefully duplicate that. But, at the same time, and I've said this in interviews before, when elite runners (anyone who makes it to the national meet, as far as I'm concerned. You don't have to be an All American or win a national championship. You just have to get to the national meet) get there, they always look to do better. This year, I definitely want to go for a top-five finish. At the same time, what I'm really shooting for is to help my team. That's going to be my main goal. To get my team on the podium.

Not many 3:35 guys finish that high in a long-distance race like that. Do you think you're unfairly classified as a “miler” and maybe a “kicker”?

I like that kind of classification. It gets me off the hook to doing 5K and 10K workouts during indoor track. It helps me stay away from that longer stuff throughout the year. At the same time, it's maybe a classification that won't be sticking for very much longer. I don't think my kick has really proven to be anything greater than anyone else's. If anything else, it's been less consistent than most people's. It's seems my best kick was my sophomore year at outdoor nationals. I haven't had one—in my mind—that even comes to that level since then. It would be a little unfair to classify me as a kicker. I do like that, though, because I do know that if it comes down to it, down to a kick, I can be there. I like the challenges of the longer races. The 3K and the 5K. And that all just feeds into the strength training for cross country.

What about moving up to those distances?

Just to give to give you some juicy gossip here.

I love it.

A little bit of everything. We've even discussed running the 10K on the track. We're not limiting ourselves to running one particular distance. Not the 800, not the 1,500, not even the 5K. All options are on the table at this point. That's one facet of Arkansas and Coach Bucknam that I really like. It's the ability to somewhat call your own shots and say, “hey, I want to try this. I want to try that. I want to try something new!” It's always a door that can be opened very easily. What we plan to do is come out and hit this cross country season hard. Run it like a 10K guy. Not like a miler who's trying to race 10K guys, but a run it like a 10K runner. Then go through the indoor season and run some 800s—obviously I'll be unattached as I'm all out of eligibility—maybe try to lower my mile PR and just try to stay fresh for the outdoor season. Then come out and run a fast 5K at Mt. SAC or somewhere, then settle into the 800/1,500 type stuff to get ready for nationals and hopefully another Team USA. That's the main goal. A little bit of everything. Maybe a 10K, maybe a 5K. Might just be the 1,500 for the next couple of years. I'm not really trying to narrow my options down.

What prompted this conversation of you maybe moving up in distance?

It's always been a thought in the back of my mind. In high school, I wasn't a high mileage guy. I ran 30 miles a week and still managed to run reasonably well, not comparatively to the top guys like Andrew Bumbalough and Scott MacPherson and guys like that. I was third place in the Illinois State Meet in cross country. I've always thought—especially after this last cross country season's finish—that there was ability to run the longer distances. Finding my niche, winning my first NCAA title in the 3,000 was kind of an eye-opener. I hadn't done it in the mile. I hadn't done it in the 1,500. I hadn't done it in the distance medley. The first time I bump up in distance, I win my first national title. We've always thought that there was room for more. Some of the workouts I do shows the ability for 5K. It's always been something that's intrigued me, because I've never really run a hard 5K. It's not a new conversation that my coach and I have had, but it's one that's going to continue to unfold as the year goes. We're probably not really going to decide anything until the outdoor season starts.

Come the outdoor season, what's a number in your head that you would consider to be a “fast 5K”?

I think I'm a little naïve in the respect of trying to guess my own time. That's something that I've never been good at. I ask guys on my team that run the 5K, “what do you think I could run?” We all workout together and run together. We all see the same things in each other. I see guys like Scott MacPherson, that are just tough as nails. He's the toughest guy I know when it comes to long runs, tempo runs, fartlek runs and things of that nature. He's a 13:40 guy. I straight up asked him, “what do think I could run in a 5K?” He said, “first one out, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't go 13:30 to 13:20. That sounded extremely fast to me, but the more I think about it, I ran a 7:50 in the 3K two years ago. And that was coming off the heels of a 3:54 1,600 split. If I did dedicate a little bit more of my training to the 5K and really bumped up my miles, I see no reason why after two or three of them, a 13:15 is out of my range. I don't see why that shouldn't be possible.

How do you think you would handle the difference in training for the longer stuff?

I think I could handle it just fine. Last year, during cross country season, I had never run over a 70-mile week before in my entire life. I ended up running four weeks in a row at 80-miles per week PLUS. I never got to 90 and I never got above 85, but 80-85. My body just started to feel good at the end of those weeks and was feeling like it was supposed to feel. I think my body could thrive off of high-mileage training. It just me being a “miler” and enjoying the hard quarter sessions and repeat 800s, where you're dropping down to the 1:50—or maybe even 1:49 for the last rep. I too often watch the 5K guys doing their sessions and their “mile down” workouts and they look like they're in so much pain. I can't possibly see why I would ever want to do that to myself. At the same time, it intrigues me. I think maybe last year or two years ago, it was something that I didn't want to commit to. Now it's really started to catch my fancy and I really do want to dabble with those longer distances.

In a perfect situation, how would you like to see your mileage progress going toward cross country season?

The biggest thing for me right now has been running pain-free. That's something that I can honestly say I have not done since before Christmas Break. Right now, a half-hour is only a half-hour, but I'm only running that far because I'm kind of out of shape—to be honest. I've taken my summer like most people would and just relaxed and had some fun for the first time in a long time. 30 minutes isn't because I can't, it's that I don't want to push the envelope right now. It's only July. Nationals aren't until November. I'm looking to peak in June and July, at the USA Championships. Honestly, by the end of the summer, I see myself probably getting up around a 50-mile week and that will be the most I've ever run in a summer. For me, it's going to be “situation A” going into the cross country season.

You're a top NCAA athlete and you don't get the chance to “have fun” much. What's it like to have time to do it finally?

You hit the nail on the head. Being a seasoned athlete—and being in-season—most of the year is just something that a lot of people don't understand. Cross country, indoor track, outdoor track. You're in-season year round. To go out and have fun with the guys, whether you want to go play laser tag or have a couple of beers, it's not something you get to do all the time. For me, this summer, I'll tell you everything I'm doing because it's such a fun summer so far. All my buddies from UNI are a couple years older than me. They're all getting married this summer. They're making me feel like I'm getting behind the eight ball. I've got four weddings to go to this summer and none of them are in the state of Arkansas...to make things any easier. I'm running to weddings almost every weekend. I'm getting out to Beaver Lake whenever I get a chance to do some knee boarding or swimming or cliff diving. I celebrated my 23^rd birthday just earlier this month. I was down in Houston just two weeks ago to see my girlfriend. I visited her for a long weekend. I'll actually be going home in less than two week for three days and then I'm heading to Australia for 10 days. In between there, there's been some beer, there's been some good times. It's been a lot of travel and a lot of time with the people that I love to be around. And to me, that's what's fun.

You're not getting engaged any time soon?

That's what I'm saying! I'm throwing that out there. I'm kind of an anti-marriage type guy at the moment. All these weddings are making me feel like I should be, but I'm sticking to my guns. I'm a little bit too afraid of the whole marriage thing right now to pull the trigger.

Carrying the “2009 World Championship Team USA Member” title around with you, does it give you confidence when you're competing back on the NCAA level?

It definitely does. If anything, it gives me a reputation to live up to. As not as not only an NCAA All American or a national champion, but a USA Champion. And not in the essence that I won USAs—I'm not trying to pull that over anybody. Just the fact that I've been out there and I've raced in Rome and Berlin and I've traveled all over the place. I think some people might look up to me in that respect and they see I've gone outside the NCAA. That gives me courage when I come back to the NCAA. I look at these guys that are 20-25 years old at the absolute extremes...and they just look like college kids to me. I was running with 30-year old men overseas last summer. And, I got the crap kicked out of me, but at the same time, it was a learning experience. I come back with confidence to know that I'm a 3:35 guy. I'm a semi-finalist at the World Championships. It just really just lets me enjoy the NCAA all that much more. To see what is to come, but to know what I have ahead of me before I get there. When I race at these national championships, I try to take it all in and enjoy the moment. If anything, it just lets me enjoy it all that much more.

It seems you're looking at the big picture. Is it hard, though, not to get down on yourself with where you're at right now? Is it easy because you know you're going to be there when it counts?

I'll try to answer that whole thing and I'm not sure how good of a job I'll do. I'll try to wrap it into one pretty little present for you. (laughs) You can't look back on what you haven't done and what you didn't do. That prevents you from doing what you want to do three months from now. I can look back and say, “oh, Jesus! I ran 3:47 in New York and was last by six seconds. I embarrassed myself.” Or, I can say, “I went out there and tried my best. I moved up through the field until about 500-to-go and I just didn't have it.” I use that as motivation. I use that as some kindling to really start the fire. I can't concern myself with what I'm NOT doing right now. I can only concern myself with the things that I can. That's all I can control. You really can't control many things, but when it comes to things that you can do...that's what I have to focus on to be the best that I can be. What I'm doing right now is taking things one day at a time. I'm not going to concern myself with what others are doing right now. I'm not going to concern myself with what I was doing last summer at this time. I'm just going to enjoy the moment and take everything as it comes. It's obviously not meant for me to be running 70-80 miles a week right now. That might have just set me up for a peak three weeks before nationals at the conference meet and then I come in and run like shit. Or maybe I injure myself a month from NCAAs, instead of six months out. I've given myself time to improve and I am looking at the future, looking at the things I want to achieve six months from now or a year from now, instead of the things that I can't do at the moment. 30 minutes a day right now might not seem like a lot, but it's all I need right now. It's all I'm going to worry about.

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

I'll tell you what. It's not a meal, it's a dessert. If I can change this on you and spin the question a little bit and change this into a dessert. I'm going to throw this out there, that my Grandma Blanche, she made the world's best peach cobbler. I'm not kidding you. The world's best cobbler. Just in case anybody wanted to know the recipe, it's just not possible because she had some memory issues and the recipe was never written down and it can never be recreated—which is probably the best thing for it, because now it's going to live on in folklore in my mind as the greatest peach cobbler ever.

My last question: can you share a crazy running-related story?

OK, we have a trail system here in Fayetteville that a lot of teams know about when they come in for the Chile Pepper Cross Country Festival or they come in for indoor nationals, outdoor nationals or any of the meets. It seems like a lot of teams know about it and it's a simple figure-eight loop on a wood chip trail. It's up in some pine trees and some oaks. It's really nice. You go up there in the winter and there's no wind. You go up there in the summer and there's no sun, so it's a little cooler. It's the perfect place to run. This is where we go on the majority of our runs. There's a family that lives up there. They kind of make sure that we're the only ones that are using the trails up there. They let us go up there because we clean them and we keep them runable. I was up there running with a couple teammates a few weeks ago. The lady stopped us in her car and asked if we noticed anything strange about the trails these past couple of months. To be honest, they've always been a little strange. They're kind of the home to homeless people, if you will. You always see tents up there and every once and a while, you see fellows walking around up there that don't quite look like they're about to go for a run—if you know what I mean.

Absolutely.

She had been informing us of things we already knew, that there were homeless people up there and took it a step further, saying that they're not only homeless people, but apparently are hostile homeless people. They're not your average “hard times, fell on some bad luck, needed a tent to sleep in” people. These are criminals, who are running from the law. She's telling us this and we've never seen anybody up there, trying to kidnap us or anything, so we weren't too concerned. But apparently it's become the hideout for people who are running from their problems, rather than embracing them.

We're up there and going for a run. Nothing out of the ordinary. This goes by for another couple of days. It must have been last week that we were up there, so this is pretty fresh. We were up there going for a run with some new guys, some recruits, who came in for the weekend to get to know some of the teammates and get to know some of the trails. While this figure eight is a simple trail, it's very hard to understand the first couple of weeks you're here. We're three seasoned Arkansas guys who knew where we were going and three guys who don't know their left from their right up there. We are filling them in on how they could see anything from armadillos to alligators, snapping turtles to deer to coyotes up here on these trails. Somehow we forget to mention these killer hobos. It must have been karma that day that we didn't mention them. We notice that they're moving closer and closer to the trails with their tents. I don't know whether they're getting territorial or what, but they didn't like that we were there. They let us know by harassing us as we went by on each loop. We probably all have small-man syndrome—because we're distance runners. We kind of harass back and exchange words. Next thing you know, we've got some convict homeless people chasing us on our own trails. This definitely takes a turn for the worse when we literally come to our first turn. All the guys who know where they're going take an immediate right. All the incoming freshman take a left. We get split at this point. We don't know where they are. They don't know where we are and have these killer homeless people chasing us. We finish our loop—it's not like they're going to catch us. We finish and pop out by the cars where we parked. We're waiting for these guys and don't see them for what must have been a half-hour. The worst possible thoughts are running through our heads. The homeless people caught them and they're skewering them right now. They're getting their meal off of our runners. They come out 30 minutes later and they look disheveled, like they have seen hell and they've come back from it. It was quite an experience and thankfully no one got hurt. No one was attacked or anything. The attack of homeless criminals is an imminent threat in Fayetteville.

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