Fast friends: Faculty runners win national cross-country championship

Even in midwinter, Virginia Tech’s outdoor track is crowded with the university’s fastest track and field athletes — the kind who notch a four-minute mile or whose race times land them in the ACC top 10.

So on Tuesday nights, when the seven members of the Blacksburg Striders 50-plus men’s team show up, no one’s kidding themselves that they’re the fastest runners out there.

“We’re twice their age, sometimes three times their age,” said Ignacio Moore, professor of biological sciences. “I’m nowhere near as fast as they are. You don’t realize exactly how fast they go until you see them running around here.”

Maybe they’ll never catch Virginia Tech runners like George Couttie or Olympic gold medalist Cole Hocker, who famously trains here. But those seven guys, all over age 50? They’re almost definitely faster than you.

In January, a seven-member team composed overwhelmingly of Virginia Tech faculty or AP faculty members captured the national title for 50-plus men at USA Track and Field’s Cross-Country Championship in Lubbock, Texas. The Virginia Tech runners included:

• Andy Norton, professor of mathematics
• Brad Paye, associate professor of finance
• Durelle “Scotty” Scott, professor of biological systems engineering
• Ignacio Moore, professor of biological sciences
• Michael Stowe, senior director of communications and marketing
• Scott Huxtable, associate professor of mechanical engineering

The team also won first place in its age category at last year’s 50-plus cross-country championship in Richmond with the help of Sean McGinnis, materials science and engineering associate professor of practice, and Kevin McGuire, a Radford resident who doesn’t work at Virginia Tech but who happens to be extremely fast.

Drafting success

Runners can be intense and competitive. Add in that most team members are scholars who regularly vie for grants and publications in their own academic fields, and you’d expect them to be cutthroat.

Instead they’ve turned into good buddies who can race their hardest against each other in the Blacksburg Classic, then cheerfully congratulate the winner at the finish line.

“It's about much more than running,” said Stowe. “It's about community, friends supporting friends. Everyone out there is an amazing runner — but they are better people.”

Case in point: At the Lubbock race, Moore knew that McGuire had a fighting chance of winning first place for his age group, 55 to 59. A blustery 20 mph wind was slowing everyone down, so Moore offered McGuire a self-sacrificing assist: “I said, ‘Look, you run behind me, let me break the wind for you. You can sort of draft off me. It's not quite as good as NASCAR, but it's the same idea.’ And he ended up winning.”

The magic of Track Tuesday

How this group formed is a bit of a mystery. Some of the guys have been running together for over a decade. Scott met Stowe when their daughters ran cross-country together in high school. Norton met a few of the guys through pub runs sponsored by Blacksburg’s Runabout Sports. Others first admired each other’s impressive times at local races. “First it was competition, then respect, and then just friendship,” said Norton. “Michael is kind of the glue. We call him the team mom.”

Organically over time, the core group coalesced around a shared commitment to Tuesday-evening track workouts, which have become sacred as both a social touchstone and a vital form of self-care and stress relief. 

On a recent evening in January, the runners started trickling in around 5 p.m. along with other Track Tuesday regulars like Matt Wisnioski, associate professor of science, technology, and society, and Michelle Lowry, assistant professor of accounting and information systems. They began to warm up on the Virginia Tech track, generously shared with them by head coach Ben Thomas and distance coaches Katie Kennedy and Tim Sykes. The runners always check to make sure they won’t be in the team’s way.

Moore set the workout: 2 kilometers, followed by a 400-meter rest; four 1-kilometer intervals with a 200-meter rest between them; then a final 2 kilometers, for a total of 8K, or about 5 miles.

Provided with support from ASICS, their matching blue shoes thump-thump-thumped on the burnt orange and Chicago maroon lanes. They began the run in a tight pack, talking and joking together. Eventually they spread out. They breathed more than they talked. 

Norton took the lead — everyone agrees he’s the fastest. Faces turned red. Heart rates revved.

On the final 2K Moore, nursing an injury, ended his run for the night but settled into his role as the group’s unofficial coach. “Vitamin ibuprofen works wonders,” he joked, applauding and encouraging his friends as they passed him.

Better runners, better friends

In addition to Track Tuesday, team members train on their own, averaging between 35 and 60 miles per week. They race individually too. Scott, for instance, ran the New York City Marathon in November, placing in the top 7 percent of runners. He and Stowe are both preparing for the Boston Marathon in April.

“If I were doing it by myself, I wouldn't be running as fast,” said Scott. “It’s not just the race, it’s the training that goes in, and being in a supportive environment for us to kind of push each other.”

Norton agreed that the group has made him a better runner, but he’s especially grateful that it’s made him a better friend. “I’ve learned a lot about friendship from the people I’m running with, who are just generous people, always looking out for everybody else, and always quick to praise others.”

On weekends, the group sometimes returns to the track to cheer on Virginia Tech runners at their home meets. “It's basically us and the parents,” said Moore. “It's not like the football games, where there are 60,000 people. But it’s really cool for us because we realize exactly how fast they’re going. You’re thinking, ‘That’s twice as fast as I can run.’”

Maybe so. But when they go for a three-peat at next year’s cross-country championship, they’ll very likely tear up the track.