Subscribe
Ansbach senior Sterling Teall has the trail all to himself en route to a course record Sept. 27 at Munich International School.

Ansbach senior Sterling Teall has the trail all to himself en route to a course record Sept. 27 at Munich International School. (Photo courtesy of Brian Farrell / Ansbach H.S.)

ANSBACH, Germany — Ansbach cross country ace Sterling Teall understands the often-heard phrase "no pain, no gain."

He even made time for the pain, signing up last summer for the Steens Mountain Running Camp in southeastern Oregon and another at Mountain Home, Idaho.

"It was really tough — thin air and hills and heat," said Teall, an 18-year-old senior who already has set two course records in just his second season of serious competitive running, "but the heat helps you learn to endure pain."

Or perhaps embrace it.

Teall, who outdueled Division II cross country champion John Markman of Naples for the bronze medal in the 3,000 meters in last May’s European championship, said he considers cross country and events such as the 3,000 equally enjoyable because of the level of discomfort they inflict.

"They both require a lot of endurance," he said. "I like the pain of endurance races."

So far this season, all Teall’s pain has been purely physical; his results have been distinctly pleasurable — four victories in his four 5,000-meter jaunts, with course records at Vilseck (17 minutes, 10 seconds) on Sept. 20 and at Munich International School (16:01.49) on Sept. 27.

Both marks came as little surprise to Teall.

"I felt a lot stronger after the camps," he said. "I could go into harder training right away because of the endurance I gained."

Teall ran 17:16 last Saturday at Patch, missing a course record there, he said, because of a slight hip injury.

"It’s fine now," he said. "I really want to break the course record at Heidelberg — Greg Billington’s record — at Europeans."

No sights in European distance running could be raised higher than taking aim at Billington. The 2007 Lakenheath grad — a member of the U.S. junior national triathlon team, holder of the DODDS-Europe 3,000-meter record (8:34.16) and now on a full scholarship at Wake Forest University — blistered the sand hills at Heidelberg’s Schwetzingen layout in 15:48.97 in 2006.

Teall relishes both the challenge of 15:48 and the course itself.

"The hills are not gradual," he said. "They’re steep and short. You can lose people on them."

Although Teall came late to competitive running — Ansbach didn’t even field a cross country team his first two years there — he’s well into the sport now. Part of the reason might be the osmotic benefit he derived from spending his youth in Eugene, Ore., also known as "Track Town, USA." He even joined the Oregon Track Club, three-time host of the U.S. Olympic Trials.

"It was just for fun," Teall said of his days in such rarefied running company. "I was 5, 6 and 7 years old."

Most of his motivation, comes from within. When Ansbach coach Brian Farrell revived the Ansbach team last fall, Teall was in the sport just as a lark.

"For my runners, it was a big social event," Farrell recalled in a Tuesday e-mail. "No one really tried, not even Sterling Teall, until our first meet. Sterling flat-out didn’t like the results he got. Our very next practice, Sterling was a different person. Instead of running in the back joking with friends he was up with me leading the pack, and has been there ever since."

Farrell said Teall, determined to be among the leaders at Europeans that year, wasn’t. But his less-than-successful experience pushed him to keep working. The result was that 3,000 bronze medal in the spring track and field championships and that quantum leap in the mountains that followed.

What’s next?

"Sterling ran all summer with one thing in mind," Farrell concluded, "to win Europeans…. I’m confident he has put in his dues."

Sign Up for Daily Headlines

Sign up to receive a daily email of today's top military news stories from Stars and Stripes and top news outlets from around the world.

Sign Up Now