The Buddy System Helps Keep Webb on Track

By Matthew Stanmyre
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, June 25, 2008

After soaking his legs for almost 15 minutes in a large trash can filled with ice and water, U.S. middle distance star Alan Webb walked gingerly from his garage and into his three-bedroom house in Reston. He limped through the foyer, past bunches of brown boxes with Nike apparel spilling from them, up a carpeted staircase speckled with faded brown stains.

Once he reached the top, Webb plopped down on a silky olive couch, clicked on a 52-inch plasma television and laid his sculpted legs on a cluttered coffee table next to a PlayStation controller and a "Rambo" DVD.

"Dude, you get dinner?" Webb said, looking to the other end of the couch at Joe Zak, his roommate and best friend of nearly 20 years.

"I already ate," Zak said.

It was the worst news Webb, 25, encountered on this mid-June day. He glanced narrowly at Zak -- who usually joins Webb on dinner runs to Carrabba's, Chick-fil-A or the Chinese joint down the street -- then peeled his weary body from the couch and descended into the kitchen. From the cabinets he grabbed boxes of dried pasta, jars of sauce and utensils.

Moments later, Webb slid precooked chicken from a plastic bag and smiled. "Chicken's done," he said.

"His level of cooking is just beyond college dorm life," Zak said. "He's good with ramen noodles."

The American record holder in the mile and the country's most highly touted middle distance runner, Webb prefers his existence here in his home town. Signed to a reported $250,000 annual endorsement deal by Nike in 2002, Webb has turned down lavish, state-of-the-art training compounds in favor of the modest contemporary house he bought four years ago, where he shares laundry time and parking spaces with Zak.

Whether the stay-at-home training is successful is a valid question, but there's no doubt it agrees with Webb.

After a 2007 season that saw him win the 1,500-meter run at the U.S. outdoor track and field championships in Indianapolis and run the year's fastest 1,500 two weeks later in Paris, Webb decided to skip the indoor season this year to focus on training. The results have been mixed. His progress began to plateau in March, forcing him to scale back his training and racing. In his first outdoor performance last month at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Ore., he finished seventh of nine competitors in the 1,500.

"I'm confident overall, but at the same time I'm not where I was last year at this time," Webb said. "I was just much more race-sharp."

Webb's mind remains less cluttered thanks to his living situation with Zak.

"My friends, their congratulations means more to me than just some random person being like, 'Oh, good job.' Coming from them, it means a lot more to me," Webb said. "During the good times, if they're like, 'Hey, man, I heard you did this good,' or whatever, obviously it's going to carry more weight for me. Then if things aren't going so great, we don't talk about running."

Support System

By living in Reston, where Webb became a star at South Lakes High when he broke Jim Ryun's 36-year-old U.S. prep mile record in 2001, he is near a closely coiled group of friends whom he has known since elementary school. Zak, 25, sells insurance, while other Reston area friends including Clayton Voss, Mike Orton, Mark Volo, Brendan Carey, Dave Jastremski, Kevin O'Conner and Chris Papageorge work in fields varying from government contracting to medical sales.

Webb's schedule calls for plenty of travel, but down time at home includes workouts, conversation and laughs about the latest poker game, the newest episode of "Lost," or fantasy football.

"When I first met them, I was pretty surprised that his friends weren't all runners," said Webb's girlfriend, Julia Rudd, 25. "He had friends from all different backgrounds. It's great because he can go home and he's just Alan. He can kind of escape from the track world."

Webb is preparing for the U.S. Olympic track and field trials. They begin Friday in Eugene, where he hopes to qualify for his second Olympic Games in the 1,500 meters. He works out almost daily at George Mason University in Fairfax and on the Washington & Old Dominion trail. Sometimes, he heads to Reston Sport & Health Club, located less than three miles away, where his picture is displayed above a water fountain in the weight room.

But when Webb returns to his house, he worries more about that evening's dinner choice than which middle distance runners he will need to beat this summer. He can happily argue with his friends about which episodes to catch up on -- "The Office" or "The Wire" -- before rising early the next morning to pound the trails.

"When I needed to just chill and be a normal person," Webb said, "those are the guys that are always there for me."

Webb bought his house for $475,000 in 2004, and soon five people and a Vizsla dog named Enzo were packed under the same roof. The roommates eventually dispersed, and Zak moved in last year paying a modest rent of $300 per month. Webb has known Zak since they played on the same youth soccer team when they were 6; along with the rest of their group, they graduated from South Lakes in 2001.

Webb connected with most of his friends through sports, and the bond was strengthened through time. While Webb's friends attended weekend parties and dances in high school, he was often on the road competing or training. And when Webb returned to Reston in 2002 after a disappointing freshman year at the University of Michigan -- the luster from his high school career having faded -- his friends were there to bolster his psyche.

"Those guys didn't give a crap how I was running," Webb said. "They were there whether I was running good or not. Not a lot of people can always say that about the people they hang out with. I've been pretty lucky to have people like that."

A Homeward View

Webb's coach, Scott Raczko, who began working with Webb at South Lakes, endorses his runner's home-bound training plan. "Alan did what he felt was the best path to pursue his dreams when he decided to return," Raczko wrote in an e-mail. "His friends and family are great and very supportive. It helps him to have a normal and fun life while maintaining the schedule and rigors of a world class athlete."

Webb's friends gather in his living room nearly every fall Sunday to watch football for 10 hours straight. They wire three televisions together so they can watch different games simultaneously. They order stacks of pizzas and boxes of chicken wings, and Webb can often be found planted in the middle, grease dripping from his hands.

"You would think, he's some world-class athlete, he eats like brown rice and grilled chicken," Zak said. "But nah, he'll eat like the greasiest Chinese food, and he'll eat like ice cream and cookies. He loves McDonald's. We went to Five Guys the other night. He ate a cheese steak with me a couple hours ago. He eats whatever he wants."

Rudd has marveled in the past when Webb has polished off an entire box of Entenmann's cookies in one sitting. "Alan could be sponsored by Entenmann's," she said.

When Webb competes overseas, his friends set their alarm clocks so they can catch his races. When the races are during normal hours, they often congregate at someone's house. They have even talked about traveling to Beijing this summer to cheer on Webb.

In turn, Webb has been to many of Zak and Voss's flag football games at Lake Fairfax Park in Reston, bringing with him the enthusiasm of an NFL tailgate.

"He's been to more games than my girlfriend," Voss said.

Webb's focus has narrowed over the past four months, leaving him planted on his couch when he's not working out. During the rare times he ventures onto the streets of Reston to run -- asphalt is hard on his legs -- or when he jogs to the South Lakes track for a quick workout, people shout encouragement from passing cars and honk their horns. When Webb heads to the nearby Safeway, the same store he shopped at with his parents 20 years earlier, people shake his hands and dispense encouragement.

In Reston, "I get recognized for something positive that I've done, or am doing, but at the same time it's not craziness, it's not like People magazine or something like that," Webb said. "It's not like Britney Spears in rehab, like every moment is being photographed. It's cool that I get recognized, but it's not over the top."