Interview with Russell Brown

By Kevin Beck

Stanford senior Russell Brown, 22, has enjoyed a superb college career in a high-profile event without attracting a major share of media attention. The Hanover, NH, native and Hanover (NH) High School star, who in 2003 won the 400, 800, 1600, and 3200 meters at his state meet one week after breaking a 35-year-old state record in the 800 meters with a time of 1:50.85, has been named an All-American nine times in track and cross-country. He was third in the 1500 meters at the 2007 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships with a time of 3:37.56.

On February 24, Brown, his indoor NCAA eligibility exhausted, placed second to Rob Myers in the 1500 at the AT&T USA Indoor Track & Field Championships in 3:41.20, earning a trip to this weekend's IAAF World Indoor Championships in Valencia, Spain. The previous weekend, Brown won the mile at the Husky Indoor Classic at the University of Washington in a career-best 3:58.68.

New York Road Runners chatted with Brown as he prepared to head for Europe, discussing his often-difficult transition from the shorter events to the mile and beyond and on what can result in a psychologically challenging sport from a combination of competitive drive, athletic talent, and mental resilience.

New York Road Runners: You didn't even run outdoor track for your high school until your junior year; despite a lot of running success, you played lacrosse. Describe your overall start in running.

Russell Brown: I've always been involved with sports. I got into track summer programs when I was about 10. But lacrosse was really my main sport for a long time. I dropped soccer to do cross country as a sophomore and had done both indoor track and hockey as a frosh. I was contacted by a youth coach named Mick Grant in the summer after my eighth-grade year, when I was 14, and he said, "Hey, we're putting together a relay team for Junior Olympics, want to play?" My plan had been to play lax for Hanover High and do track with Mick the whole time. But in my sophomore year, my lax team wasn't very good and it took the fun out of it. That did it.

NYRR: Running a 1:54 at age 16 to win the Junior Olympics that summer couldn't have hurt your decision.

RB: Right. Another thing is that there was always a stark contrast between some of the prepubescent attitudes surrounding all of the losing we did in lacrosse and the maturity I immediately picked up from track athletes, just the desire to improve and succeed and not be fazed by setbacks. I still see this, and I continue to learn from it.

NYRR: Although you were a high-school state champion in cross country, you were mostly an 800-type who tended more toward the 400 than the mile and focused on the 600 indoors. But you did sneak a pretty fast mile in one of your few serious races [4:15 at the Penn Relays]. Was becoming primarily a miler part of the plan or did that evolve during your progression?

RB: I actually went to Stanford as an 800-type guy, maybe even a 400-type guy. Early in my fist season, when I was running in meets as a redshirt, I was running like crap, like 1:52s. I think it was getting used to the training. But then I ran a 1500 in 3:52, and then 3:47, and I was just kind of there in terms of confidence.

NYRR: In high school, you ran the fastest-ever 800 (1:50.85) by a New Hampshire prep in a race you won by almost five seconds. Was this designed to be a record attempt?

RB: That was at the Hanover Invitational, which I was planning to use to get into bigger meets to chase really fast times. But there was nothing special about the planning. I'd been running mostly the 400, and I remember Tim [Clark, Brown's coach] saying "You're in shape so run a fast 800, so go for it." I said “OK.” I'd had bad luck in that race for a while but I figured I'd try and see what happened. There was actually a pretty fast kid in the race for that area, but when I saw my time I was unbelievably surprised.

The more I started running 800s, the more I found out that race, in particular, works like that – sometimes you're just "on" without warning. My high-school PR was my PR for a long time; I didn't break 1:50 outdoors until last year in Switzerland. I had the worst preparation ever. I was up at 2:00 a.m. and scrounging for food. When I got to the meet I was thinking 1:53 might be doable. The rabbit took us through in 52-53 and I couldn't see the clock. When I found out I'd run 1:47 it was, again, hard to believe.

NYRR: In an interesting historical footnote, you became the second person from New Hampshire to run sub-4:00 and you did it almost immediately after Sean O'Brien, with both of you doing it indoors.

RB: Yeah. That was in 2006. He'd run 3:38 or something outdoors [in the 1500 meters], so we knew one of us would do it soon. He did it on the same track at the University of Washington where I just ran my mile PR.

NYRR: How about an overview of your progression as a competitor—your mileage, event focus, and ramp-up of the various elements of your training over the years.

RB: In high school I never did more than 35 or 40 [miles a week], in track more like 25 to 35, with lots of jogging, and I mean slow jogging. My workouts were mainly repeat 100s and 200s. So when I got to Stanford, [Stanford coach] Andy Gerard had sent a plan to follow for the summer and I thought it was a joke. Not an actual joke, but something no one did or could do – 90-minute long runs, 20-minute runs at 4:40 pace, stuff like that.

I did a little more work than before that summer, but my first workout [at Stanford] was a cold, cold awakening. We would go to Mammoth Lakes and do a run on windy dirt road at 8000 feet, and run about six miles steady before hammering the last five. The best guys would close in under 26 minutes. I had been struggling early, so coach actually dropped me off four miles ahead of everyone else and put me with Sara Hall and Alicia Craig. But even though I only had to do two miles instead of six before the fast stretch, Sara and Alicia beat me by probably two minutes—I ran 30:00, maybe.

I tell kids when they come here to Stanford that there are periods where they'll not only perform poorly but will run so far below what they've done, and will possibly even have whole seasons where it's easy to say "What's the point?" Even when you expect some off days, you can have days that fall short of your worst expectations, and can easily just start to hate running. It happens to me at times, and sometimes it's inexplicable. It's a hard sport that way.

But I came a long way. That season I ran 12th or so in the 4K at our invitational as a redshirt and mostly trained with the 800-meter guys. In the fall I was on the track maybe every couple of weeks at most. By spring I was up to 60 miles a week and still adjusting.

NYRR: Is there any one race you'd call a watershed moment in your journey from a practice dummy for the women's team to a World Champs qualifier?

RB: That was regionals in my redshirt freshman year, my second spring at Stanford. I had sucked at the Pac-10s two weeks before. At regionals I ran 3:45 [in the 1500 meters] but closed in 57. The time wasn't special; I was just excited how it played out. And that set me up to run 3:41 at nationals.

Sometimes the head is ahead of what the body can handle, while at other times it's vice versa.

NYRR: Given that you ran so well in the Boston area as a prep, was the fact that Indoor nationals this year were there a factor? Had you run there since high school?

RB: Absolutely. The last time I had run there was the 2003 Indoor New Englands, where I ran 1:19.41 to win the 600 meters [Note: At the time, that was the second-fastest 600 ever by a high-school runner]. One of last things my dad said to me before the 1500 was reminding me of that win. But in terms of Boston, it's not just track – I've also been going to this camp in the summer run by the Boston YMCA on Sandy Island for my whole life, so my parents let them know about Nationals and my dad got 10 or so tickets. There were maybe 40 people there and I didn't even know that until just before the start of the race, when they announced my name and I heard this huge roar and couldn't figure out why.

NYRR: In the race, you appeared to be content to position yourself in the top three without being super-concerned with the pace.

RB: Yeah, I didn't know whether I needed a qualifying time for Worlds. When I ran 3:58 for a full mile the weekend before, at first I assumed they would take that, but then I started thinking, "That was on an oversized track and they're going to be picky, so I need to run under 3:44 at nationals." I really should have looked into it.

My race strategy was to put myself in position to win the race from the start, which has been my strategy for a year or so now. You can't go in with anything much more descriptive than that because things happen and you never know what they're going to be, and you can't count feeling like you plan on feeling. You can do your damnedest to stay relaxed and within striking distance, though. I tried to get out really well – indoors, you can get a lot of real estate without that much of an investment if you get out fast in first 60 meters.

It's worth doing this indoors because moving up at any other time besides the start is tough. Look at who had to pass the most guys. [Steve] Sherer had to pass maybe 10 guys. Gabe Jennings had to go by like seven. If Sherer didn't have to move from the back he would maybe have taken first.

NYRR: What is your goal in Valencia?

RB: Specifically, it's to make the final and be competitive. There will be guys substantially better than me, but in these races if you run smart you can still do well. Leonel [Manzano] was in good shape when he went, but sort of got beat up and couldn't take advantage of that. I'm in good shape now. It will be important to get experience there, to learn to adjust to traveling and to different surprises.

And the fact that I'm going to worlds period is a little bit of a surprise, to be honest. But I want to look like I belong. I'm not going for the trip. I'm competitive, and I want to show it.

NYRR: What are your plans for after spring season?

RB: I don't know. I'll have my master's degree in sociology in May and I'm still talking to people. One of the resounding things I've heard is not to change too much. So maybe I'll stay here and train, but I haven't really talked this through with anyone just yet.

Interview conducted March 4, 2008, and posted March 7, 2008.