By Amy Shipley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 25, 2007; E03

BOSTON, Feb. 24 -- On Valentine's Day last year, Nick Symmonds worked 17 hours delivering some 200 bouquets of flowers for a florist shop in Salem, Ore. The day proved neither romantic nor restful. This year brought a change for the better. Symmonds woke up in Eugene with nothing on his schedule but a date with a dozen other men.

While Symmonds's early morning training session with an unshowered and unshaven bunch of running buddies did not qualify as a greeting-card moment, at least it had this in its favor: It was productive.

And Symmonds, considered among the fastest-rising middle-distance runners in the United States, says he's in love with the change.

"I'd never be running the times I am now if I didn't have a whole stable of runners pushing me every day," he said. "This is how America is going to get back in the world scene in distance running."

Symmonds, who easily advanced to Sunday's 800 final at the U.S. indoor track and field championships at the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletics Center with a time of 1 minute 49.93 seconds Saturday, is not merely at the head of a rising U.S. running class. He also sits smack in the middle of a training renaissance that track officials hope will transform the sport over the next decade.

After years of failure among U.S. runners competing in just about everything above the 400 meters, various independent training groups have emerged over the last five years with the shared goal of reversing U.S. fortunes in those events by providing post-collegiate runners with financial and training opportunities they had previously been denied because they failed to win big shoe company contracts.

Symmonds, a seven-time NCAA Division III champion in the 800 and 1,500 meters who actually has a contract with Nike, trains with the Nike-sponsored Oregon Training Club Elite not for financial reasons but because he believes daily workouts with other high-caliber runners make him better. Others in the group lack shoe contracts, so they rely on small stipends and the free rent provided by the group while also appreciating the collaborative training.

"It means the world to me," said Brandon Shaw, one of Symmonds's teammates who had the second-best 800 qualifying time (1:49.48). "Coming from a small school [Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, Calif.], I didn't have anybody to train with. These guys are working me to death every day, and I have a great coach."

The coach is Frank Gagliano, the legendary former Georgetown coach who oversaw the now-defunct Washington-based Reebok Enclave for nearly a decade. The difference between that well-known group and this one?

Gagliano put it succinctly: money.

"They were working first and running second," Gagliano said. "Here's it's run first, work second."

Gagliano said athletes in the Reebok Enclave received free travel to meets and some equipment but were otherwise on their own to make ends meet. Qualifying athletes at the Oregon group get free coaching, access to the University of Oregon's Hayward Field, local apartments, travel expenses, health insurance and non-strenuous part-time jobs if they need them.

Gagliano's group is not unique. In fact, it's a latecomer to the club scene, born just last year. There are perhaps a dozen other such groups, all connected philosophically but vastly different in methodology. There is, after all, no blueprint for this yet. Though USA Track and Field President Bill Roe and others in the organization saw the promise in having groups of like-minded athletes living and training together with some financial burdens relieved, USATF did not have the resources to support them.

So Roe and his colleagues have provided encouragement, competitive opportunities, and training resources, but left the details -- and funding responsibility -- in the hands of each individual club. There is Team XO in Eugene; the Hansons-Brooks Distance Project in Rochester, Mich., which emphasizes marathons; the Nike-sponsored and Alberto Salazar-led Oregon Project in Eugene; ZAP Fitness in Blowing Rock, N.C.; and others throughout the country.

ZAP Fitness, which began in the spring of 2002, offers many of the amenities Gagliano's group provides, but without the backing of a major shoe company and with a focus on fringe athletes who have no access to shoe-company resources. A nonprofit corporation, ZAP Fitness provides some $25,000 in room, board, health insurance and training to as many as 10 athletes, funding the undertaking through running camps and private donations.

Three Zap Fitness runners competed in the men's 3,000 meters today, finishing sixth (Kyle King), seventh (Thomas Morgan) and ninth (Brendan O'Keefe).

"Our goal with our athletes," ZAP Fitness Coach Pete Rea said, "is to get them to the point where they don't need us."

So far, the biggest experimental effort in track and field seems to be working. Deena Drossin-Kastor and Meb Keflezighi trained with a distance group in Mammoth Mountain, Calif., leading up to the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, then provided back-to-back stunners: Drossin-Kastor captured the bronze in the women's marathon and Keflezighi the silver in the men's. The duel marathon medals were a first for the United States in Olympic history.

"The goal is to make that a regular occurrence, not just a magical occurrence," USATF chief executive Craig Masback said. "That's where we are now."