Kids as young as twelve CAN run 90 minutes, and they can train hard to run fast, BUT they lose something in training hard at that early age.

Kids are afraid that if they race too fast they will get tired. Way too much fear and way too little COURAGE.

When you hit a certain spot you Sprint no matter how you feel inside or what your co-runner thinks. You just go! In training as a nickel, you sprint because you need to sprint! You just do it! In racing people see it and call it courage, but it is attitude; determination; duty.

When I first came into international running, most runners did about 60-70 miles or running a week. I guess that is still the standard except for Kenya and Ethiopia. I was doing 150-250 a week and some weeks as high as 350. It was unheard of! But, because I did not have access to what was possible and standard, I had to set my own possibilities and standards. I was just lucky enough to be out of the loop and not know.

The hard part is believing it can happen to you. Most likely, my runners will never achieve a 3-minute mile. I think they may all be disappointed at 3:20 or 3:30. But even if they never break 4-minutes they will have accomplished something DYNAMIC! They will have created the possibility than now does not exist.

My key to victory was that I always went out way too fast. Too fast erases every other race strategy out there. Everyone is hanging on for dear life or they give up.

If I performed poorly, I knew the eyes of the sports world would be turned away from me. In that situation I knew the NCAA would crush me for sure. But if I could run well, they would not dare to hit me with everyone looking in my direction. I HAD to have a good race.