Banker cashing in on his durable legs

By Nick Perry
Seattle Times Eastside bureau

JIM BATES / THE SEATTLE TIMES Redmond banker Tony Young, 42, is running faster than ever, and hopes to officially break four minutes for the mile before he retires.

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He was paid to set a hot pace for the best mile runners in the world — to be the race "rabbit." He could only watch as those runners passed him and continued on to glory while he stepped off the track.

But since turning 40 two years ago, the enthusiastic Redmond banker has been setting his own pace, and it's fast — faster than he has run before. He now holds American age records in the mile, 1,500 meters and indoor 3,000 meters. This year, he won the 800-meter masters (over 40) event at the Olympic trials in Sacramento.

Perhaps his greatest achievement came this spring when he broke the four-minute barrier in a mile race in Portland. Once considered an impossible feat for a runner of any age, the four-minute mile remains one of the most enduring standards in athletics.

His sub-four mile won't go in the record books, though, because it came in a road race. But in one final push before retiring from competition, Young is hoping to repeat the performance on an outdoor track next spring — something no man his age has ever done.

Young has modified his race strategy since his college days, when he would try to win by running slower through the first part of the race, then relying on a big kick to finish. These days, he runs a consistent speed throughout.

"I don't have a fifth gear anymore; I'm down to a four-speed now," he said.

His recent success came after a realization that he was losing his edge. At age 39, he ran a 5K race and couldn't break 16 minutes, finishing only third. That sparked an early midlife crisis.

He decided it was time to get back in shape. He asked Tom Cotner, a legend among the local running community, to coach him. "You looking for any older fellas for your team?" asked Young in a 2002 e-mail. "Cotner was my black Corvette," Young joked recently.

"After two workouts, I was highly impressed," Cotner said. "He's quite a competitor. He beats a lot of collegiate runners — he has just about beaten everyone locally."

Cotner believes Young can go under four minutes on the track.
 
"I think he was ready this year at several times," Cotner said. "But you have to have the right opportunity as well."

Young trains up to 100 miles each week, twice as far as he did in his collegiate days. A typical day now begins with a six-mile run before work and ends with another six miles after work. On Sundays, he runs 18 miles or more.

Young, who grew up in Sturgis, Ky., said he started running at age 10 to stay in shape for basketball. But as he grew older, he began "drifting further and further down the bench" and became more interested in his training.

In 1979, he won the state high-school mile with a time of 4 minutes, 19 seconds. But colleges did not offer him scholarships for a sport with less cachet than football or baseball.

So at age 18, he joined the U.S. Navy. In the days before well-equipped onboard gymnasiums, he would stay in shape by running around bombs, pallets and trucks. The steel decks made every stride jarring. "It was brutal," he said.

While training for the Navy team, he met coach John Tansley, who helped get him a scholarship at California State University, Los Angeles. While a student he met his future wife, Heather, an all-American distance runner.

After college, Young tried to go professional, picking up $1,000 every so often for running rabbit to great milers like American Steve Scott and Moroccan Said Aouita. But after a year, he had earned just $10,000 and his times weren't improving much, so he decided to get a "real" job.

He fell in love with the Northwest at running meets, and the Youngs moved here 13 years ago to raise a family. Young's boss at First Mutual Bank, Joe Zavaglia, said he only found out about Young's records last year.

"Tony's a very modest guy. He's not one to go around saying, 'Hey, I broke a world record,' " Zavaglia said.

Now, the local bank is backing Young with a small sponsorship, some days off and lots of encouragement, Zavaglia said. Young also gets a small travel stipend from Club Northwest, his running club, and some free shoes from Mizuno. But he ends up paying most sport-related costs himself.

Young said his failure to break into the elite ranks as a younger runner might be helping him now, because he has put less strain on his knees and body over the years. But while he leads many of his masters races from start to finish, what he really needs to push him under four minutes is a runner out front to set a pace and block the wind, he said.

What he needs is a rabbit of his own.

Nick Perry: 206-515-5639 or nperry@seattletimes.com