Sophomore Austin Smith stepped up for men's cross country

Last weekend was possibly one of the best weekends sophomore cross-country runner Austin Smith has had in a while as a student-athlete at Princeton.

Not only did he win his race at the Princeton Battlefield last weekend, but his parents and sister were there to watch it happen. And, on top of that, his birthday occurred just a few days before the race.

He is The Daily Princetonian Athlete of the Week this week and has been the focus of pieces in the Prince three times in the last few days alone.

Things weren't always so rosy. Only last year, Smith battled back from illness, missing significant time on the trails. In fact, setting a forty-second PR in last weekend's Battlefield race, as he did, might have seemed a bit implausible to Tiger running enthusiasts.

Smith first started running in ninth grade at Midlothian High School, in Virginia, making the transfer from a middle-school infatuation with another sport that places a heavy emphasis on endurance — soccer.

"I started to realize that I did pretty well for the mile runs in gym class," Smith said. "So, finally, I tried out for the cross-country team freshman year, and it went really well."

Smith's soccer legs translated into an excellent freshman year as a cross-country runner, which led to subsequent try-outs for the indoor and outdoor track teams, and finally to an abandonment of soccer itself in favor of running.

The successes of his first year motivated him to increase the intensity of his practices, often pushing himself to do more mileage than his high school teammates.

Such effort paid off in Smith's junior year at Midlothian, when he won the state championship in the two-mile event. As a senior, and captain of his team, his cross-country team won the team state championship, leading to a plethora of offers from various colleges hoping to attract the talented senior.

After fielding and mulling over offers from schools such as UVA and Penn, Smith finally settled on Princeton for the difficult-to-fault reason that "it's the best school in the world."

His string of accomplishments was derailed partway into his freshman year when he came down with the flu — a doubly detrimental illness in that it not only prevented Smith from practicing and racing for much of the cross-country and indoor track seasons, but also forced him to lose some of the conditioning he had spent much of the summer building.

"It was too bad," said Smith. "I had a fairly promising start, but then I got sick, and after that it was tough getting back on track and getting back into things. I was out for a while."

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Since encountering that obstacle, however, Smith has come a long way on the team. He credits much of his improvement over the last year to training, of course, but he also found inspiration in another, less common source — literature.

Life at these Speeds, recommended by current Michigan runner Alan Webb, gave Smith a lot to think about over the summer while he prepared himself for what would be in effect his first real season of cross-country at Princeton.

Alan Webb is quite possibly the best high school distance runner of this generation. In May 2001, Webb ran a 3:53 mile, breaking the 36 year old record set by Jim Ryun in 1965 by two seconds.

"It was just so motivating," said Smith. "I grew up like 90 miles from Alan, so we ran in a lot of the same meets. At first I resented it, that he was so good, but now I realize it was just a great experience."

"I found [Life at These Speeds] to be successful in distance running," Smith said. "You have to lovepushing your limits. It takes a special mentality not only to put yourself through all the training and all the pain, but to enjoy it. Life at theste Speeds helped strengthen that mentality in me."

Back on his feet again, Smith looks to be on the cusp of a great season.

Since three of the other top runners — junior Tristan Colangelo, senior Jon Bell, and junior Ryan Teising — are currently injured, there is no better time to break out than now.

"I'm certainly running a lot more," Smith said. "Everyone on the team is at such a high level, it makes it so much easier to train. I really felt good at this time last year, but I feel about twice as good now."

And if the rest of his season is anything like last week, then that could be a prophetic statement indeed.

The Tigers next meet is not until Sept. 28, when the team travels to Bethlehem, PA for the Paul Short Invitational. That will be a good test to see if Smith can continue to lead for the Tigers.