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A
senior at Novi (Michigan) High School, Tim Moore is the top returning
runner from last year's Foot Locker Cross Country Championships,
where he finished 8th. In the spring, he finished fourth in the
two-mile at the adidas Outdoor Track & Field Championships,
running 9:03.84 and anchored the Novi 4xMile relay to a national
title. Moore also excels in the classroom, currently holding a 4.0
GPA. We caught up with him in mid-September, just as his season
was getting underway.
How
has your season gone thus far?
We've only had a couple meets and they've just been kind of small
duel meets. We've done well as a team, we won both of them, and
nothing really major yet. We're just kind of taking [the races]
easy and training hard to make it [more challenging].
We
heard you got home course record in your first race of the season,
not an easy feat considering some of the strong teams Novi has had.
(He ran 15:24 to break Chris Toloff's 15:27 record.)
Yeah, I guess so. I got our school record but I don't know what
the course record is. They've done so much construction on the course,
it gets changed a little here and there so there isn't really a
solid course record, I would say.
Is
it true that you weren't even been the number one runner on your
team in past years?
My freshman year I certainly wasn't the number one runner, I was
basically like the fourth guy. My sophomore year in cross country,
Chris Toloff and I traded off being the first guy most of the time.
And then my junior year, Chris Toloff was the first runner all season.
(Until an injury sidelined Toloff at the end of the season. Toloff
has since graduated and is running well for Michigan State.)
After
having all those good training partners to push you the past few
years, what's it like now that Chris has graduated?
I don't mind running on my own, I never really have, so as far as
the training goes, I'm okay with it. I find that when I'm training
on my own, I push myself harder than I did when I ran with Chris,
so although sometimes it gets kind of boring, it might help me out
in the long run.
Is
it true that despite finishing eighth at Foot Locker Nationals last
fall, you didn't win a cross country race all season?
No, I don't believe I did (laughs). Chris was there and he's a great
runner. I'm sure that if he had stayed injury-free, he could have
done really well at the National meet also.
Everyone
is looking at you this fall as one of the favorites for Foot Locker
Nationals because you're the top returning runner. How are you approaching
that from a mental standpoint?
I know that there are a lot of good guys - there were three or four
[other returnees] right behind me at that meet and a lot of juniors
had really good track seasons last spring. I know that there's going
to be really good competition and I've just been training hard and
I know that if I get good training in and I have a good race that
I can hang with anybody.
Your
coach, Bob Smith, was quoted in the newspaper saying that you're
training like a collegian now and that you've fine-tuned every aspect
of your game. What exactly does that involve?
I did anywhere from 70 to 90 miles [per week] over the summer. My
training has kind of stayed the same from year to year, just increased
intensity, a few more intervals here and there, but basically the
same framework for the workouts. One thing that I've really changed
is that I've started focusing on what I eat and my diet more, which
I think has really helped me out.
You
ran a lot of miles this summer, what had you done in past summers?
Before my junior year, I did one week of 70 miles in the middle
of the summer and then I just kind of tapered down into more of
the 50-60 mile range.
Did
you attend any camps over the summer?
Yeah, my team goes to Wolverine, Michigan for the Wolverine Cross
Country Camp. It's not really a team camp but my team goes there
and a couple of other teams from our conference go there and a lot
of individuals go there so it's fun.
Will
you run in most of your team's duel meets this season?
Yeah, I run in every race on our schedule.
That's
a lot of racing. Do you take some of the races easy?
Yeah, most of them I take fairly easy, I'll just go for a nice,
paced run. I don't kill myself racing.
Will
your team compete in any big invitationals?
We have invitationals every Saturday but nothing too big until we
have our county meet which is October 6th. (Editor's Note: Moore
won the race in 15:37, breaking Chris Toloff's course record by
one second and leading Novi to a second-place finish.) Usually coach
just holds us out of major races until that race and then we kind
of pick up the intensity of our races and our running from there
on out.
In
the weeks where you have three meets on the schedule, do you manage
to squeeze in any workouts?
We'll just basically try to march right through those, do workouts
the day before or after, or work in a workout on meet day. We'll
just try to get through those as fast as possible because we don't
want to lost valuable training time early in the season.
Your
team won the state title in '98 and '99 before Rockford got you
last year. What do you think your chances are this year?
Well, I think that our team won't be as strong as it has been in
the past just because we lost a lot of good guys, but I think that
most of teams around the state graduated a lot of good runners,
so everyone's kind of starting from scratch. I think that Milford,
a team in our conference, will be the team to beat. They have a
lot of depth and they have a good coach over there so they know
what they're doing. But I think we also have a chance to do well,
and maybe even win the state title if things go well.
Dathan
Ritzenhein obviously got a ton of national attention last year.
How did that affect you, was he a role model to you at all or did
you just look at him as someone you wanted to beat?
I wouldn't say he was a role model but I definitely talked to [Dathan]
and got to know him. He knows what he's talking about. If he knows
a couple things that work for him, of course you're just going to
try it to see if it'll work out for you. He's just a great kid,
just a nice guy to talk to. If anything, it was just good to be
his friend.
In
watching Dathan and Alan Webb run so well last year and hearing
about the "revival" of U.S. distance running among the
juniors, did that inspire you to want to be a part of it? Do you
hope to take your running as far as it will go and try to run professionally
someday?
Right now, I'm just really focusing on goals for my senior year
of high school and then college. I'm not really set on running after
college. I'd love to do it if the opportunity presented itself,
but I'd be fine with just a normal job, doing whatever.
We
assume you've been getting a few recruiting calls. What are your
current thoughts as to where you might end up next year?
Well, I'm interested in Stanford, Notre Dame, Wake Forest, Duke
and Michigan right now.
What
academic subjects are you interested in?
Well, I'm really interested in everything. I've always been most
interested in math, and I'm really interested in science also. Lately
I've started to take an interest in history, so I'm starting to
get interested in a lot of different things.
How
did you come to be a runner?
I played soccer basically all my life. I would just run a couple
miles every once in a while to stay in shape for soccer and then
I went out for middle school cross country in 7th grade because
I knew a couple of guys who were doing it. Ever since then, I just
really liked it. I like the competition; I like the closeness you
develop with your teammates. It was different than anything I'd
ever done in soccer or baseball, that's what drew me to it.
When
did you give up the soccer and baseball?
I quit playing soccer and baseball right before my freshman year
and then in high school I started year-round running.
It
seems like your school must have a strong running tradition/community
with all the good runners you've produced, and just looking at your
web site… It's impressive that you even have a web
site.
We have a guy who's done a lot with [the web site]. It's hard for
me to say we have a strong running community just because I've been
to meets where Rockford's been there and they really have a strong
running community (laughs)… We have good support from our parents,
our families and our friends, so that's great. My buddies come out
and watch the meets and they're not even close to running so that's
always good.
You've
talked about your academic interests and of course your running.
Do you have time to pursue other interests as well?
Oh yeah. A lot of times I'll just hang out with my friends or watch
Seinfeld, or listen to music, or play my guitar, just do whatever
- normal teenage stuff, I guess.
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