2004 FOOT LOCKER CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS
Post-race interview with Whitney Anderson

by Alison Wade

Whitney Anderson, a senior at Summit High School in Breckenridge, Colorado, finished fourth at the 2004 Foot Locker Cross Country Championships in 17:49. She qualified for nationals by placing second at the Foot Locker Midwest Regional.

Whitney Anderson (Photo: Alison Wade/NYRR)

Fast-Women.com: You were the fastest Foot Locker first-timer today. What have you thought of the whole experience?
Whitney Anderson: It's just unbelievable. I know I'm going to reflect on it a lot more after I go back to Colorado. It's like paradise here, staying at one of the nicest hotels, having all these people help you out and support you. The whole race experience was amazing, too. I'm really glad I could race here, and it was a tough course, but you have a lot of spectators cheering you on. It was really exciting, they kept me going.

FW: Did you run the Foot Locker regional last year?
WA: Yeah, I ran at the West Regional, because I was living in Alaska, and I got 25th there.

FW: Was qualifying for nationals something you had been targeting for a long time?
WA: This year, I had really improved and I just knew I could possibly make it to nationals. I didn't want to mess up at all, but I knew I had a good chance. I just wanted to make it to nationals; that was my goal this year.

FW: To what do you attribute your big improvement this year?
WA: Definitely my coach [Lyle Knudson]. He's a private coach and he has a great program which I'm on right now. He's always there for me and he's helped me out through everything. He's really made me very self-disciplined in my running and just more focused on it, because it's a big part of my life right now. And also my parents, and all their support.

FW: Why did you move from Alaska to Colorado?
WA: Well we just lived up there temporarily, for a year. I ran cross country up there, then I moved back to Colorado, because I used to live here before.

FW: Did you go back to the same school you were at before you left Colorado?
WA: Actually, I home-schooled for three years, and this was my first year back in public school.

FW: So you run for your high school team, but you have a separate private coach?
WA: Yeah, I'm glad that it can work out so well. Some high schools wouldn't agree with it, but it's just what works best for [me]...

FW: How did you end up with [Coach Knudson] in the first place?
WA: My mom found his web site, and he actually lives in Frisco, which is about 10 minutes away from me. He's coached at numerous colleges and coached Olympians.

FW: What is different about his program, compared to what you've done in the past?
WA: It's based on a lot of quality training, not just going out there and doing a bunch of long, slow distance. On my recovery days, I do a tempo run, which is only about 3-1/2 miles. I do six minutes easy, 12 minutes tempo, and then six minutes easy.

FW: What kind of pace do you do on your tempo runs?
WA: About 6:30, 6:45, and it's up at altitude, too. On my hard days, I do intervals and speed stuff. My only long, LSD day is on Sunday, and I go just for like 30-45 minutes.

FW: So you're not doing very high mileage?
WA: No, just like 37 [miles per week on] average.

FW: So you're not doing very high mileage compared to a lot of the other people here, but it's a lot of quality.
WA: Yeah, and it was hard to get used to at first, when we moved back from Alaska to Colorado — that's when I started training with him, last fall. It was different adjusting to the altitude and his training system, because it's really different from the other coaches out there.

FW: So what month did you start working with Coach Knudson?
WA: Last fall, in October [2003]. A month after that was [the Foot Locker West Regional], but I was still kind of adjusting.

FW: When did you first really start to see a big improvement?
WA: Last year, in track. I won the 1,600 and 3,200 at [the Colorado state meet].

FW: Do you train with anyone?
WA: No, it's just me out there. There aren't a lot of big runners in Summit County, but my coach is always there for me and he follows behind me in workouts. It works out pretty well.

FW: He drives behind you?
WA: Yeah.

FW: So you're running on the road?
WA: There this road that we drive up, and then I do my workouts downhill, to simulate sea-level running, and he drives behind me.

FW: Do you do all of your workouts downhill, or just a handful of them?
WA: Pretty much all of them. My recovery days, I just do those on flat surfaces.

FW: Is it a steep downhill, or is it gradual?
WA: It's a gradual downgrade... It just helps you with your turnover, so you can work on your speed.

FW: And the theory is that this makes it like running at sea level?
WA: Yeah, you're going to get the same benefit. And then I do a lot of weights afterward, so that really helps my strength. I do that three times a week.

FW: Have you made a college decision yet?
WA: I haven't. I'm still looking into certain colleges and I still have some official visits to take.

FW: Which schools are you interested in?
WA: I'm looking at Duke, [school name unintelligible on tape], and Stanford. There are a couple others, but those are the main ones.

FW: How much is running going to drive your decision? Is running pretty much the important factor right now?
WA: Yeah, I definitely want a good [running] program that can develop me, something like what I have now, and also a good academic program, because I want to be in a challenging environment, and I want to get the best education I can.

FW: Do you know what you want to study?
WA: I want to go into art and illustration.

FW: Do you have any of your upcoming races planned yet? Will you run indoors?
WA: I have not tried indoor yet, maybe I'll check it out this winter. But first, I'm going to take a break, which I've been really looking forward to. And then I'll be doing spring track, and possibly some races after that, maybe [Golden West] in Sacramento and [the Nike Outdoor Championships] in North Carolina.

FW: When you get a break, is that compete time off? And how long does it last?
WA: I'll do a couple days of not running, then I'm on RR (rest and recovery) training for a while, which is just like 45-minute long runs, then a tempo run every other day. I'll probably do that for a couple weeks.

(Interview conducted on December 11, 2004, and posted on December 18, 2004.)