Back Up to Speed

Workouts at Nike helping Alan Webb regain his form

By kerry eggers

The Portland Tribune, Jul 29, 2010 (5 Reader comments)

ANDY LYONS / GETTY IMAGES

In 2007, Alan Webb celebrated his U.S. championship in the 1,500 meters at Indianapolis. These days, Webb trains with distance star Galen Rupp at Nike, hoping to jump-start his track career.

Alan Webb and Galen Rupp are running on the Nike campus, as is their wont. But the two distance stars are talking amongst themselves, too.

Talking about upcoming weddings, for one thing.

Rupp is getting married on Sept. 25. Webb goes to the altar on Oct. 15.

The pair joins Joaquin Chapa (marriage) and Kara Goucher and the wife of Dathan Ritzenhein (pregnancies) as those in Alberto Salazar’s running stable enjoying major life events over the next month.

“We’ve been putting hormones into everybody,” Salazar jokes.

It could make a feature film. Three Weddings and Two Babies, perhaps?

“I hear ‘Hangover II’ is coming up for you guys,” Salazar cracks to Webb and Rupp, drawing a wave of laughter.

Webb is in the mood for humor these days. For the first time in more than two years, the American record-holder in the mile is healthy.

“I appreciate every step now, more than ever,” says Webb, 27. “I don’t take it for granted anymore, that’s for sure.

“It’s fun being out here, getting into the rhythm of the training. It makes me even more confident and more excited about racing.”

Only the true track-and-field aficionado is aware Webb is a Portlander now. Or more succinctly, a Beavertonian. He recently bought a house near Nike in which to live with his bride-to-be, Julia Rudd, after living since last September in a Northwest Portland home he shared with Rupp.

“The city of Portland is great,” says Webb, a native of Ann Arbor, Mich., who lived in Virginia for seven years before moving to Oregon. “Beaverton is quieter and more suburban, but I grew up in the suburbs, so I’m used to … strip malls.

“Oregon is a beautiful state. Lots of trees. It rains a lot, but that’s part of the territory.”

Webb moved here last September to work with Salazar, the Nike exec who bestows his coaching talents on a select few.

“I wasn’t performing,” Webb explains. “I was getting my butt kicked for a couple of years. I felt like I was losing my steam in terms of my career. I couldn’t just keep doing the same thing. I’d had a lot of success, but it was time for a change.

“I’ve known Alberto for a number of years and I’ve known Galen and Dathan for a long time. I felt I would fit in really well with this group of guys, and Alberto felt the same way.”

A Webb primer: The first American high schooler to run a four-minute mile indoors. As a senior at the 2001 Prefontaine Classic, broke Jim Ryun’s 36-year-old national prep records with a clocking of 3:53.43 in the mile and 3:38.26 in the 1,500. After one year at Michigan, left school, returned to his high school coach and mentor, Scott Raczko, and enrolled at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. Turned pro in 2002. Won the Olympic trials 1,500 in 2004 but did not advance beyond the first round of qualifying in Athens. Won the 1,500 at the U.S. championships in 2005 and ‘07, setting personal records in the 800 (1:43.84), 1,500 (3:30.82) and mile (3:46.91) the latter year. Failed to qualify for the 2008 Olympics in the 1,500, finishing fifth at the trials in 3:41.62.

Let’s back up a little, to early 2008. Webb was training well, in good shape and in position to make a run at a medal in Beijing. Then he contracted food poisoning before a road race in the spring.

“I finished, but I stopped in the middle of the race,” Webb says. “After that race, I was never the same. It messed up my rhythm of training and really my season. I went to Europe and tried to race that summer, and my hamstring started bothering me. It was a disastrous year.”

In 2009, Webb developed a problem with his left Achilles’ tendon that lingered all year.

“Another lost year,” he says. “I was struggling to figure out what to do, but I knew I had to do something. I just couldn’t keep floundering.

“The opportunity to work with Alberto presented itself, and I had to make a tough decision, to leave a situation I’d been in for a long time. But I think long-term it will be the right choice.”

Last December, Webb underwent surgery to repair the Achilles’ tendon. Then in March, he suffered a stress fracture in the same foot, “which kind of killed my season,” he says.

Slowly, Webb has been working his way back. In early June, he was able to begin running, “but it was only like a mile a day,” he says.

Now he has begun rigorous workouts with Rupp, 24, the prodigy who could be the next great U.S. long-distance star. Rupp — who has run the 5,000 in 13:10.05 — will run 5Ks on Aug. 6 in Stockholm and on Aug. 19 in Zurich. Salazar thinks Rupp can break 13 minutes, which would put him in reach of Bernard Lagat’s American record of 12:54.12.

So Rupp, who is profoundly fit, is leading Webb around at this point, and Webb is feeling it.

“I’m sort of sore everywhere on my body at this point,” he says. “I have to be careful with my workouts. I can push, but I can’t totally go to the well yet. I’ll keep pushing, but I won’t go crazy.”

Salazar won’t let him. He is breaking Webb into training at a gradual pace, preparing for four or five races in Europe in late summer, beginning with a 1,500 at London on Aug. 14.

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