Interview with Samia Akbar
by Beth Whitney

Samia Akbar running at the USA National 8K Championships in New York City.

Samia Akbar, 25, of Herndon, Virginia, competed at June 10’s Circle of Friends Mini 10K in Central Park. Recently named a RRCA Roads Scholar, Akbar was a 2003 All-American in outdoor track while representing Washington, D.C.’s American University. Her marks of 33:38.55 for 10,000 meters, and 16:20.62 for 5000 meters, still stand as school records.

Akbar made a splash on the national cross country scene in 2005 with a third-place finish at the national club championships, followed by a ninth-place showing at the 2006 USA 8K Championship. In addition to impressive showings at a number of high-profile road races, including a 13th-place finish at last month’s Lilac Bloomsday Run, Akbar has excelled on the track. At the start of the 2006 season, Akbar lowered her 5000-meter best to 16:05.33 indoors at Boston’s Terrier Classic Invitational. A few months later, she took more than 30 seconds off her previous best time for 10,000 meters, clocking 33:05.49 at California’s Payton Jordan Cardinal Invitational.

Fast-Women.com spoke with Akbar while she was recovering from a 5000-meter race at the Music City Distance Carnival in Nashville, Tennessee.

Fast-Women.com: How is your recovery going from your 5K?
Samia Akbar: It’s going fine. I’m really excited about this coming weekend. I just did a long run, 12 [miles] on Sunday, and I have practice today. I did a recovery run yesterday afternoon.

FW: Are you tapering for the 10K, or are you going to train through it?
SA: Well, I’m not sure how much I’m going to be tapering, because I’m planning on doing [outdoor nationals] at the end of the month. That’s kind of a big deal, but so is this race. I’m really excited—it’s a New York Road Runners event, so I’m sure it’s going to be fun. I’ve never run in Central Park, not even just for fun. All of my family members live in Brooklyn, so I always run in Prospect Park while I’m there.

FW: So tell me about your 5K this past weekend. It looks like you ran that one solo. How did you feel?
SA: Well, that race was rough. We kind of just threw that race in—not at the last minute, but it wasn’t one of those things that was planned. This Central Park race and some other things this month we’d nailed down ahead of time. That 5K, well, my teammate Ikea Green was going to be there running the 800. We thought maybe it would be a good idea to get my legs moving a little coming into this month, so we went to Tennessee. It was on Vanderbilt’s campus. The US Music City Distance Festival was the name of the meet. It was a really low-key meet and we knew that going in, but we thought a couple of events would have pace setters. At the end of the meet, I was talking to one of my friends, and she explained that the meet director said that basically there’s always a lot of depth in the men’s field, which there was, but not really a lot in the women’s races.

There were two other women in my race. There were supposed to be four, but there were only two, and one of them was a masters athlete. I had a pacesetter for the first six laps of the race. We were right on—the first mile was 5:00, the next two laps I was still right on, I was so happy to have [pacesetting]. We’d been told there was going to be a pace setter for every mile of the race, but after she dropped out at six laps, nobody else got back on the track. I was pretty far ahead of the second-place woman, and was by myself for the rest of the race. My PR was 16:05 going into this, which I’d run at the Terrier Classic Indoor Invitational, and I ended up running the exact same time as last year [16:13]. So at first I was a little disappointed, because I'd wanted to break 16:00.

But you know how after a race you're a little emotional? After a couple of minutes, after my cooldown and stuff, I felt just happy to be there and to get my legs moving. I hadn’t run a 5K since that indoor one, and I didn’t run that indoor race on my own. In that race, there was always someone right with me. So I was happy I was able to do it and run that time on my own. It was a great time trial; I'm definitely not disappointed, and I’m looking forward to the rest of the month. It was fun to be there with my teammates and see lots of people I know, so it was a good trip.

They give away grants. For someone like me, that’s a key thing. Just trying to make sure to get in all the little extras you need to do, like a visit with a massage therapist and a chiropractor. I’m a substitute teacher, so I do work, but that’s always nice, and there are a couple of races, one is The Shamrock Shuffle in March that I think all of us are supposed to be doing. I’m kind of excited about that—some road racing opportunities.

Plus, it’s wonderful to have support from anywhere. A lot of people who are post-collegiate, they train on their own. It’s the same old story; everybody faces the same thing. Some people are lucky to train in groups or to have sponsorship, that sort of stuff. This is another way to have some sort of support, and to feel excited about what you’re doing every day. This is another positive thing.

FW: Congratulations on being named a RoadsScholar by the RRCA. What kind of direct effect do you think that will have on your training and on your outlook?
SA: I don’t know how much of a direct effect it will have on my training or my outlook—I know that I will still have the same attitude, and I kind of feel like all of the people chosen were chosen because they already have a pretty positive attitude about running, and they’re really excited to be a part of the sport in general. So I’m not sure what effect it’ll have on me, because I’ll still conduct myself in the same way. But it’s a really, really fantastic honor and opportunity.

FW: Your transition from being a collegiate runner to a professional runner, at least from the outside, has looked really smooth. What are some of the reasons you attribute this to? There seems to have been a long-term trend—and this may be changing in recent years—of having a lot of very good female athletes come out of the college system who then either quit the sport, or who are otherwise never heard from again. I know it happens with our male runners as well, but it seems to happen more with our female runners. Speaking as someone who has managed to make that transition, do you have any insights as to why this might be happening?
SA: I can’t speak for anyone else, because I don’t really know why that happens, except for a blanket reason for everyone, both men and women, which is, it’s definitely hard to do. Our sport...I mean, you could become a post-collegiate athlete, but it’s not like the NBA or the NFL and you go off and get drafted into this whole other thing, where it’s obviously going to be your job for the next several years. Yet, this is definitely my job, it’s my main focus in life, and all of us make some sacrifices to do it.

I think as far as myself, my first year after undergrad was definitely a difficult one. I was pursuing my master’s degree at American, and I was working two jobs. I was assistant coaching and I was running, and it was completely overwhelming. I think that’s one thing a lot of people face, both male and female—just trying to find that balance. Coming from college and coming from high school, you have a pretty structured life. You’re kind of in your own world. You then have to find a balance that works for you, and it takes a while to figure out how to basically keep your life as simple as possible, so that your main focus is on your training, and your racing, and your rest, and good food, and all that stuff.

I think that’s probably the biggest thing. I’m now really happy and really excited because my life is scaled back a lot, and very simple. I’m not in school currently, but hopefully I’ll be going back fairly soon to finish up my master’s in psychology. Even something like school, it’s something you can manage, but you just can’t take a full course load. Things like that you have to learn by trial and error.

So now I live at home, in my family’s house with my parents in Herndon, and there’s lots of places to run nearby. My coach is located in Reston, which is basically, like, five seconds away from my house, and then the people I train with are in the area as well. We meet a couple of times a week for practice. I do recovery runs a lot on my own, but sometimes people are able to meet me for those as well. It’s just a pretty simple thing. I substitute teach, and the hours are extremely flexible. I basically choose my own schedule.

I think it’s all about keeping things simple, as well as being able to maintain yourself. I think that’s another big thing for post-collegiates. I just recently became a Reebok athlete, and I’ve got support rather than doing everything on my own. I think that kind of thing is the main difficulty for a lot of people—how to run after college, and focus mostly on your running, and find things that work for you, in a position that you’re really comfortable with, and still be able to live and eat every day. That’s one of the biggest issues.

You have to love what you’re doing, too. I still love running. I love to compete. You have to be able to see yourself making some sort of progress as well. That’s [important] on the mental side of things, to have a positive attitude and to believe you can do it, to just see yourself as a good competitor. In college, your whole schedule is planned out for you, and you kind of “Go! Go! Go!” The focus is not necessarily on you; it’s on your team, and lots of other things play into that. But when you’re post-collegiate, you get a chance—which is nice—to focus on what you are doing and to do the things that are probably most advantageous to your own training.

FW: You mentioned that you’re very near to your coach, Scott Raczko, now. How did that partnership come to be? I read somewhere that you trained with him briefly as a high schooler. Is that true?
SA: Yes, that’s true. I went to Oakland High School in Vienna, Virginia, and he was my coach for a year. The first year into my master’s, I was kind of running still, and we bumped into each other at a race, and he sort of was asking me, “Well, what are you doing?”

I still really wanted to run. We talked about it, and he was fantastic. He’s been so supportive, and he’s made the transition basically really easy. Like I’ve said, I scaled a lot of things back in my own life. Coach, when we first met again, was kind of like, “Whatever you want to do, if you want to run recreationally, if you want to still be competitive, just let me know. You can always show up and work out with us,” and that sort of thing. But I told him that was my main goal, to still run competitively. So I made that transition with Coach Scott, and, well, here I am.

I’ve known him, and I used to see him all the time when I came home, and he knew exactly how I was doing and stuff. We definitely kept up with each other. He’s somebody I never lost touch with in the first place. We just hit it off, and since I’ve been post-collegiate, he’s been my coach. I’ve had a great college experience at AU, with Coach Matt [Centrowitz] and great teammates, and now as a post-collegiate I’m having another pretty positive experience with Coach Scott. It’s a great training group that we’ve got going on. He’s always available and we can communicate really well. I’m really comfortable where I am now.

FW: I have one last question. I’ve read that you are considering running a marathon either this year or next. Is that still on the agenda? Have you started to shift your training in that direction, and how do you expect your training to change if that’s something you decide to pursue?
SA: I definitely am thinking about a marathon. I was thinking about maybe a fall marathon, even. We’re not quite sure. I know my training is not going to change a whole lot. Obviously some things will get a little bit longer. But I’m already a 10K runner, basically, and a road runner. So I’m already doing things that are longer.

It’s so weird, because I forget that I’ve only really been in this good training mode since, well, last year, I guess. Last year was my first half-marathon, for example, and my only one to date. It’s weird to think about things like that right now. Time goes by so fast now, and it’s like, “Wow! Look what I’ve been up to!” whenever I start to look back.

Interview conducted on June 6, 2006, and posted on June 8, 2006.