By Amy Shipley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
After breaking the 36-year-old high school mile record in a jam-packed stadium during his senior year at South Lakes High in Reston, Alan Webb shared a victory lap with track legend Hicham El Guerrouj, made guest appearances on several major network shows and sat next to President Bush at a baseball game.
No such fanfare accompanied an even more significant milestone at a minor meet in Brasschaat, Belgium, last month. Webb, six years and many rough strides removed from his heady days as a fleet-footed prodigy, sprinted through a magical final lap to take down another long-standing American record, Steve Scott's 25-year-old mark in the mile.
Several hundred spectators sprinkled among three rows of plastic seating -- too small to be called a stadium -- provided an enthusiastic but oddly understated response to Webb's stirring finish in 3 minutes 46.91 seconds. His performance punctuated a recent resurgence in U.S. middle distance and distance running with the Beijing Olympics less than a year away.
"It was weird . . . [but] it was almost perfect," said Webb, who resides in Reston and trains at George Mason University. "It was just about me trying to run my best time. . . . The American record is something I dreamed about since high school."
Though just 24, Webb has become something of a grizzled veteran in his sport, a boy wonder gradually transformed into a grown-up object of wonderment: Will he ever be as great as he was at 18? Hindered by setbacks, injuries and a climb to international stardom that took longer than many expected, Webb has been rejuvenated this year by a stream of fast times and record-breaking runs that have revived old expectations. Welcome ones.
Webb, who owns the fastest time in the world this year in both the mile and 1,500 meters (he ran a 3:30.54 July 6 in Paris), will try to become the first American in 20 years to win a world championship medal in the 1,500 at the 10-day championships that begin Saturday in Osaka, Japan.
"It's been a career year for me," he said by phone last week. "I'm soaking up the moments. . . . Ever since I've been in high school, nobody was going to be satisfied until I won six gold medals and set the world record 10 times. I relish that because I have high goals. I want to be the best runner in the world.
"Make sure you tell everybody: Don't worry, [my goals] are high. I'm going for it."
When he broke the record Scott had set in 1982, one year before he was born, Webb finally validated the hype and hysteria that enveloped his teen years. Though the result received little attention, the significance was not lost on track cognoscenti, who realized the U.S. revival in distance events had reached an important climax.
Improvement no longer would be measured by U.S. legends. Now, getting better would mean taking down the world's best. With the U.S. mile record finally lowered, Webb could set his sights on the previously unthinkable: the 1,500 and mile world records (3:26.00 and 3:43.13)0, both held by the now-retired El Guerrouj of Morocco.
"His goal all along was to be the best runner he could be, run as fast as he could, and be as successful as he could," said Scott Raczko, his longtime coach. "That doesn't change now, except being the best runner, running as fast he can and being as successful as he can means being one of the top runners in the world.
"He's been through a heck of a lot for someone who's only 24 in this sport. It's a great testament to him that he's one of the top guys right now."
Unlike in the sprints, events in which the United States has long been dominant, U.S. runners have struggled for respectability in every distance from the 1,500 on up. The last American to win an Olympic medal in the 1,500 was Jim Ryun, who claimed the silver at the 1968 Summer Games in Mexico City. At the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, Americans Meb Keflezighi and Deena Kastor nearly doubled the U.S. tally of Olympic medals in the distance events -- 1,500, 5,000, 10,000 and marathon-- since 1968 when each won a medal in the marathon. There had been only three others.
Webb was projected to be the antidote to the performance problem when he ran a 4:23 mile as a freshman at South Lakes in 1998. He took 17 seconds off of his time a year later and, during his senior year, clocked the record of 3:53.43. But Webb's astonishing progress stalled during his first year at the University of Michigan. After an injury-plagued season, he finished fourth in the 1,500 at the NCAA championships, and his best time was more than three seconds slower than he had run in high school. He left the school and turned pro, returning to Reston and rejoining his high school coach, Raczko.
The next summer proved even worse. Webb's best times dropped again. Demoralized and baffled, he didn't know what to do. So he worked harder. He concentrated on building strength by running longer distances and lifting weights. He wanted to ensure he could win both fast races and slower, more tactical affairs that required hard sprints at the finish.
A year later, he won the 1,500 at the 2004 Olympic trials. He set, finally, a host of personal bests.
"The last three years, I got back to where I was improving again," Webb said. "Right after high school, it was like, 'Whoa, I'm not getting any better.' "
Despite the turnaround in 2004, the Athens Games brought another round of disappointment. Webb did not get out of the first round, finishing ninth in his opening race after colliding with Bernard Lagat, a Kenyan-born star who has earned his U.S. citizenship and will compete in his first major championship as an American in Osaka, giving the United States not one, but two, medal hopes in the 1,500.
Lagat, once one of Webb's idols, has become one of his biggest rivals.
A year after the Olympic debacle, Webb found some redemption at the world championships in Helsinki -- but no medal. He advanced to the final, a major achievement, but finished ninth. Last year, Webb concentrated on longer distances. Despite a hamstring problem and iron-deficiency issues, his foray into distance running proved more successful than expected; he won an early-season 10,000 at the Stanford (Calif.) Cardinal Invitational in 27:34.72.
As a boy, Webb taped a poster of distance specialist Steve Prefontaine to his bedroom wall, but he knew his heart was in the mile. The four-minute barrier provided the boundaries, then a new starting point, for his dreams. He viewed the longer distances as something he could do later -- after he had knocked off his goals in his signature events.
Enter Osaka.
"To win a world championship, that's in my mind," Webb said. "That's probably a bigger goal [than running a personal best]: to be the best runner in the world. They kind of go together. I want to run fast and win medals."
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