Brian, as a competitive marathon runner are you going to shoot for the 2012 Olympics in London?

It’s hard not to dream big when you’re out on a 20-plus mile run, especially as those big dreams seem to become more achievable. I started off in high school dreaming of making the varsity team and eventually being recruited by a Division I school. Then once I was at a Division I school, the dream became to make it to national championships and to break a school record. Post collegiately, that dream again shifted focus and took on the form of the Olympic Trials. That’s where I am now.

Tell us why you missed out on the 2008 Olympics.

I was stationed at Goodfellow AFB, Texas, when I ran my first marathon. I knew I had put in solid training, but I didn’t know what to expect from myself the first time out the gate. I ran the Houston Marathon in 2:24:51 (5:31 mile pace) and missed the mark by a little under 3 minutes.

Man, all that running. I bet you can eat anything you want.

I can eat whatever I want but in reality I try to eat healthy.

We hear vanilla ice cream is one of your vices? Can vanilla and vice be used in the same sentence? Sounds too boring.

I don’t identify vanilla as cautious so much as consistent, and consistently good. I do branch out occasionally, but it’s hard to deviate from deliciousness. I’d say salt and vinegar chips, V8, and Gatorade is the most glorious post run snack ever. EVER.

Tell us something about you few people know?

I own every Audrey Hepburn movie. I never buy the same tube of toothpaste twice in a row. Chewing gum makes me nauseous. And one day I will have a room in my house that I refer to as “The Museum Room,” but it will in fact have little, if anything, in it - stark, spartan, white, and at least 10 degrees colder than the rest of the house.

You said you are a big fan of college hoops. Who do you see winning it all this year?

Since neither of my alma maters are in the tournament this year — Air Force Academy, (B.S. 2005) and Colorado State (MA in literature 2006) — I am going with a D.C. hometown favorite, Georgetown.

If you could be a professional athlete, what sport what it be?

If it weren’t for the fact that I dream of being a professional runner every day, I would pick soccer … that is, unless being part of a emo-power-punk-jump-around-type band counted because those guys must be pretty athletic, and then I would pick that. That being said, I have been fortunate in my running at Osan Air Base. In addition to the car horns, cat calls, and waves around base, my girlfriend Jamie will ride her bike next to me when we have time off together. The company is motivating and helps assuage some of the longing for the companionship of a team.

Fill in the following statement. A good pair of running shoes islike a …

[beater] car. You buy one knowing it:

a) won’t last forever

b) has a terrible color (sometimes colors)

c) has a muffler held on with masking tape

d) only has one of four doors that open from the outside (and it’s not the driver’s door), and

e) has a strange unidentifiable rattling somewhere in the engine

But you proceed to log the miles on it every day anyway, occasionally taking it on a long voyage across the peninsula, journeys on which you eventually grow accustomed to its idiosyncrasies — indeed you begin to find them endearing if not essential to the driving experience. But then you get angry when it dies after 350 miles and you have to buy another one.

Know someone whose accomplishments, talents, job, hobby, volunteer work, awards or good deeds qualify them for 15 minutes of fame? How about someone whose claim to glory is a bit out of the ordinary — even, dare we say, oddball? Call or email Paul Newell at Stars and Stripes with the person’s name and contact information at DSN 229-3158.

1st Lt. Brian Dunn

Age: 25

Location: Osan Air Base, Korea

(Claim to fame: Long distance runner, nice person)

Pacific readers: Know someone whose accomplishments, talents, job, hobby, volunteer work, awards or good deeds qualify them for 15 minutes of fame? How about someone whose claim to glory is a bit out of the ordinary — even, dare we say, oddball? Call Paul Newell at Stars and Stripes with the person’s name and contact information at DSN 229-3158 or e-mail him at: newellp@pstripes.osd.mil.