Whiteley Strives to Train for the Long Run : University Graduate Resists Overtraining, Finds Right Pace for Success

One week from today, some of Orange County’s top high school track and field athletes might wake up with a sad and perhaps sudden realization that, as graduating seniors, their high school track careers have finally come to an end.

No more Orange County championships, no more Southern Section meets, no State championships.

For many, their athletic futures will begin in the fall when they enter that exciting yet somewhat intimidating world of collegiate competition.

Greg Whiteley, a 1985 graduate of University High and the last county prep athlete to run less than nine minutes in the 3,200 meters, remembers his exit from high school sports as an unfortunate one. A throat virus knocked Whiteley out of the final two weeks of his senior season, forcing him to miss the State meet, where he was a favorite in the 3,200.

But, as Whiteley discovered in the next four years, life as a track star does not necessarily end after high school.

Today, Whiteley will graduate from Brown University in Providence, R.I., as one of the nation’s top collegiate distance runners. As a five-time National Collegiate Athletic Assn. All-American in track and field and cross-country, Whiteley, 22, is one of the best success stories to come out of an Orange County high school.

After he receives his bachelor of arts degree in economics today, Whiteley will leave for Provo, Utah, site of the NCAA outdoor track and field championships, which take place Tuesday through Sunday. The meet will be Whiteley’s final competition as a collegian.

Whiteley will compete in the 5,000 meters--preliminaries are on Thursday, final on Saturday--the same distance at which he captured his only NCAA title at the national indoor championships in March.

According to Track & Field News, Whiteley’s season-best time of 13 minutes 48.79 seconds, recorded at the Penn Relays last month, ranks him as the fifth-fastest collegian in the country. Marc Davis, a former San Diego prep star now at Arizona, ran the year’s fastest time, 13:32.58, at last month’s Mt. San Antonio College Relays.

Whiteley’s lifetime 5,000 best is 13:37.53, run last June at an all-comers meet in Boston.

Many runners dream of the kind of success Whiteley has enjoyed in college, but not many achieve it. Especially, it seems, those from Orange County high schools.

Other than Whiteley and former Los Alamitos and UCLA star Mark Junkermann, few county runners have reached such a national-class level in recent years.

In a telephone interview, Whiteley, who ran the 3,200 in 8:57.4 as a senior at University, was asked if he was surprised that he was the last county prep to run under nine minutes in the 3,200.

“Wow . . . yeah, I’m surprised. That’s pretty disappointing,” he said. “A lot of people out here (on the East Coast) have said to me, ‘You’re the only distance runner from California that’s still running well after high school.’

“That’s very disappointing for me because we’ve got great talent in California. I’m not exactly sure why we don’t perform better out of high school, but a lot of it probably has to do with overtraining.”

Yes, the O-word. One that in the past few years has become quite a topic of conversation among county coaches. Many longtime coaches seem to be paring down their runners’ mileage in hopes of curtailing injury and burnout.

Whiteley, who currently runs about 60 miles a week--about 20 fewer miles than many of his peers--said the training program he followed in high school was the same that he followed as a successful runner before high school. Both were based on the less-is-more philosophy, adhered to by Frank Duarte, who coached Whiteley in both the Blue Angels, an Orange County-based youth running club, and during his senior year at University.

“Greg only ran four days a week, and he took whole summers off,” said Duarte, whose current proteges at University include senior Erin Vali (en route to Brown in the fall) and freshman Tanja Brix.

“I knew that there were other runners at the time who really piled up the miles, but gee-whiz, I don’t think Greg ever hit 40 (miles a week) during the cross-country season. . . . But truthfully, I pride myself on what the kids do after high school, in college and beyond. I want to read about them later .”

True, Whiteley did not get as far as he has solely by his training methods. His fierce competitiveness, for one, is probably his greatest asset. He is also extremely race-smart, as tactics and cunning have helped him win races he probably would not have won otherwise.

And few who worked with Whiteley would say he didn’t have plenty of natural talent. Duarte said as a youth, Whiteley won “at least three national championships in cross-country, and the same amount in track,” but did so on nearly no training at all.

Still, Whiteley said he believes it was not talent, tactics or tenacity that has brought him this far, but patience in both his training and achieving his well-thought-out goals.

“Mostly, I’d say the reason I’m still running well today is because I didn’t let running consume my life and I didn’t overtrain,” he said. “I mean, I started competing when I was 9, but here I am still improving. That seems to be pretty unusual these days.”

Whiteley’s caution has been demonstrated in his resistance to running events longer than the 5,000.

Last Saturday, he ran only his second-ever 10,000-meter track race in an impressive 28:45--the third-fastest time in the nation this year. But, even though his chances of winning an NCAA title may look more promising in the 10,000, Whiteley said he is not even tempted to try the distance again for another five years.

“I plan on staying with shorter distances to develop as much speed as I can while I’m young,” he said. “As I get older and stronger, I’ll probably go to the 10. But not until I feel I’m ready.”

Asked what advice he would give younger runners today, Whiteley, who will compete on the European circuit this summer, outlined his opinions:

--”I would say cut back the miles, number one. Not over 35 a week, 40 max. More than that and you’re just going to burn out down the road.

--”Look at the big picture, that’s the most important thing people forget. Decide when you want to run your best races because you can’t run your best every week.”

--Don’t race too much. “In high school, I rarely raced more than one race a meet.”

--Take time off. “I took a month or two off each year. I never let myself become too absorbed in running to the point where it would control my life. In the end, I know that has benefited me a lot.”

--When it’s time to run hard, run hard. “When I step on the line to run a hard workout, I run very hard. But also try to focus in on the big picture, where is it I want to run my best this month, this season, in my whole career. . . .

“When I came to Brown, they asked me when I wanted to run my best. I told them after college. They accepted that, and planned for that. Now I think that’s going to happen.”