Latest / Easy Double podcast / Cooper Teare: Oregon Phenom to Nike Professional - training for 1500/5000m double, Grand Slam Track experience, improving mentality, showing resilience & determination

Transcript

Cooper Teare: Oregon Phenom to Nike Professional - training for 1500/5000m double, Grand Slam Track experience, improving mentality, showing resilience & determination · Easy Double podcast

• 0:28
  Welcome back to the Easy Double podcast interview series.
• 0:31
  Today we have the absolute privilege of being joined by
• 0:33
  California born Milah and 5K star Cooper Tia.
• 0:37
  Cooper burst onto the scene at College for Oregon where he
• 0:40
  smashed the NCAA indoor mile record and anchored the DMR
• 0:44
  world best before taking the 2021 NCAA 5000 meter title in a
• 0:49
  meet record 1312. He then turned pro, signed with
• 0:52
  Nike and cleaned up the 2022 National 1500 meter title and
• 0:57
  then the spots at the Eugene World Championships.
• 1:00
  Cooper's range stretches from 332 in the 1500 seven 30 / 3000
• 1:05
  meters, 1254 / 5000 meters, as well as a 2024 national cross
• 1:10
  country title. Cooper continues to document his
• 1:13
  journey on YouTube through server running with training
• 1:16
  partner Carl Hocker and girlfriend Rachel MacArthur.
• 1:19
  Welcome to the Easy Door podcast, Cooper Tear.
• 1:23
  Yeah, man, thanks for having me. It's a great intro.
• 1:26
  No, the pressure is always on with the intro because you've
• 1:29
  got to cover all bases and do the guys justice.
• 1:33
  Yeah, I always like, I don't know, whenever people do like
• 1:37
  intros like that, I'm always like, Dang, I've kind of done
• 1:40
  like a lot of stuff in my like what feels like kind of a short
• 1:45
  career at least like on the pro side.
• 1:48
  It's it's funny to hear like someone like objectively just
• 1:53
  say your accomplishments in order what you've done.
• 1:58
  It's like it's really interesting and like I think it
• 2:00
  puts a little bit more perspective on it when you're
• 2:03
  like just in the day-to-day, you know, grind of running.
• 2:07
  It's cool to be like, OK, I've actually like done some prequel
• 2:09
  stuff. Yeah, almost forces you to take
• 2:12
  a step back and be like, yeah, OK, not so bad.
• 2:14
  Yeah, yeah, even like in the midst of maybe like a
• 2:17
  disappointing season, a race. All right, It's one thing like I
• 2:23
  can still make it happen. Yeah, it's hard as well because
• 2:26
  like I'm looking at kind of like your results and trying to paint
• 2:30
  a proper picture, but you don't know to what extent you hold
• 2:33
  certain weight with different results.
• 2:35
  Like to me, something might seem like one of your standouts, but
• 2:38
  to use something different. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:41
  No, it is. It is hard.
• 2:42
  Everyone has like maybe those magic moments that maybe on
• 2:46
  paper don't seem like as as crazy, but like, yeah, I don't
• 2:50
  know. I feel like you, you kind of hit
• 2:52
  the nail on the head with that. Yeah, OK.
• 2:54
  We'll take that and move on. It's an honor to have you
• 2:59
  anyway. Like, thanks.
• 3:00
  Thanks so much for giving us some of your time and hopefully
• 3:02
  we'll do it justice and the listeners can enjoy it, too.
• 3:05
  So you are in the middle of or at the end of your postseason
• 3:09
  break? Yeah, I'm definitely basically
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  at the end of it. Just got back from a little
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  vacation. And so now just like I'm going
• 3:19
  to go do like a pretty long bike ride later today, just kind of
• 3:22
  some cross training, some easy running.
• 3:24
  So I've got a little time before we get back into like the meat
• 3:26
  and potatoes to training. But yeah, definitely really felt
• 3:30
  like I needed a bit of a of an offseason and a little step back
• 3:35
  from running after this season. So feels good.
• 3:37
  And I feel like pretty reset, like mentally and physically.
• 3:40
  So had a good spot. Yeah, cool.
• 3:43
  So that's been what, since like post fifth mile 5th, 5th of?
• 3:48
  5th Ave. we like stayed in New York a little bit after that and
• 3:51
  then went to Portugal for like a week, which is really cool.
• 3:55
  But yeah, fit that was was kind of the end of the season so I
• 3:58
  was almost over 2 weeks now. Yeah, it's time to get back in
• 4:03
  before I get too fat. Yeah.
• 4:07
  So have you been jogging throughout or not even?
• 4:10
  A little bit. I, I kept going a little bit
• 4:12
  after 5th Ave. because I wanted to like when I was, when I was
• 4:15
  over in Portugal, I wanted to not run a single step.
• 4:18
  I didn't bring a single, I didn't bring running shoes or
• 4:20
  anything. So I was like, that's like the
• 4:23
  best thing ever. Being able to pack your suitcase
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  and not have to like save room for three pairs of trainers and
• 4:28
  like 10 running outfits. Definitely like lighten the load
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  quite a bit. Yeah, that's, that's so
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  disciplined to to go that way. And I guess that's the the
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  forced hard reset, isn't it? Just not packing any of the
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  gear? Yeah, it's like out of sight,
• 4:43
  out of mind, totally. And I need that because I would
• 4:46
  definitely. There's like a night where we're
• 4:48
  in Lisbon and like we're down by the water and there was like
• 4:50
  hundreds of people running. I was like, I could get in some
• 4:53
  miles right now. Like this actually looks pretty
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  nice but like chalked it up to go get dinner and a drink and
• 5:00
  ended up being way better. Yeah, sweet.
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  So you didn't even go for a little swim, Burn some calories
• 5:06
  that way? I was swimming, but I was
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  floating. I was floating like a little
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  turtle. No laps, no laps in.
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  Actually, now you say, I recall on one of the sober videos
• 5:17
  you're you swimming and you're about as gracious as I think so,
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  yeah. Swimming is, yeah, swimming is
• 5:24
  probably the the vein of my, my training.
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  We're getting big into biking. Swimming's always just been like
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  the third thing that just drags on our swim every week.
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  I can't. I can't do it.
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  I was going to ask you about all the cross training stuff later,
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  but like we're kind of at it now so we might as well speak about
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  it. So how are you like kind of
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  implementing the cycling and the swimming into your weekly
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  routine? Is it a thing when you're like
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  when you've got a high training load always or?
• 5:55
  No, it's. It's like a pretty religious
• 5:59
  part of every week's training. And this is kind of evolved over
• 6:04
  my career being coached by Ben. When we were in college, we
• 6:08
  would do basically just like one, one or two cross training,
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  strictly swimming, like 30 minute sessions basically to
• 6:20
  supplement, you know, doing a double, like a five mile double
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  or something like that. An easy double if you will.
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  And and that kind of switched into now being, you know, we'll
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  do an hour swim once a week, we'll do an hour bike once a
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  week, maybe add in a third or fourth session between the two.
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  But a lot of it is just to keep kind of like high intensity
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  minutes and like essentially trying to stay zone 2 without
• 6:55
  having like that higher impact on your body.
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  You know, it's, it's if we didn't do that and we
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  supplemented that time with just continuing to run, I think we'd
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  probably, you know, be somewhere in like the high 90s, low 100
• 7:12
  mile week range over like our six days of training.
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  But instead, we usually stick around 75 in kind of in the mid
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  70s range, but with, you know, between 3:00 and 5:00 hours of
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  hopefully around zone 2 cross training.
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  So you essentially get the same aerobic benefit without having
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  to just like pound the pavement. I would say the easy running
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  here where we live in Virginia is not the best.
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  So we'd be doing a lot of like, you know, just like a lot of
• 7:48
  kind of either on the, on the pavement or a lot of hails.
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  It's hard to get in like a really soft surface easy run.
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  So I think the, the biking and swimming are a great way to get
• 8:00
  in just like a little bit more aerobic work without having to
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  put the strain on your body. And it it helps you really get
• 8:07
  from like one session to the next.
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  Like we can, we can hit three hours hard on the bike and then
• 8:14
  go like smash a workout the next day without having the same
• 8:17
  fatigue as if you were to do like, I don't know, a hard run
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  and then try to go work out the next day or even just like a
• 8:23
  long run, something like that. So for me, I think it's like it
• 8:27
  really works. And over the last few years I've
• 8:31
  I've stayed healthy, healthier than I've been in a year in my
• 8:36
  career prior. And I feel like that is enlarged
• 8:43
  because of, you know, supplementing a lot of the
• 8:45
  actual, like, running miles. Yeah, OK.
• 8:49
  Fair enough. So 2 follow on questions to are
• 8:52
  you working towards a heart rate on the bike to hit zones area?
• 8:58
  Yeah, I think a lot of it is effort based.
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  It's, it's hard when we're at. So like kind of in the winter
• 9:07
  months, we'll just be on the trainer at home.
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  And that I think is a little bit we, we kind of go for like a
• 9:14
  heart rate and like average Watt range on the bike.
• 9:18
  And then when we're outside it's it's a little bit more effort
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  based. We kind of just try to like
• 9:24
  maybe break it up in thirds where you have warm up zone 2
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  and then you go a little bit harder at the end.
• 9:30
  But the outside, it's a lot more effort based just because here
• 9:34
  it's impossible to get like a flat Rd. where you just go and
• 9:37
  you can kind of lock into maybe a pace or an effort.
• 9:43
  It's really hilly. So there's a lot of like
• 9:45
  coasting downhill and like really work in the hill.
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  So you got to be kind of strategic about how you approach
• 9:51
  it. So it's a little bit more effort
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  based, but there's a lot of time, yeah, when we're on the
• 9:54
  trainer and it's like, yeah, try to just hit heart rate.
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  And same with the swim, you're never looking to kind of like
• 10:01
  get a threshold effort out of it.
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  It's more so just like a set steady state.
• 10:06
  Yeah, exactly. It's like a continuous steady,
• 10:10
  you know it. And even in between, like
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  there's a lot of breaks. We use it between like after a
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  session, the morning after a session and the more like in the
• 10:22
  evening we'll do just an easy like probably hour run.
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  So that morning we try to just, yeah, stay a little bit more in,
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  you know, zone one, zone 2, just continuous effort.
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  And then do a lot of stretching in the pool as well just to kind
• 10:37
  of like it's, it's almost like an active recovery session, if
• 10:40
  you will. Yeah, nice.
• 10:41
  People are probably sat here thinking, you know, we're 10
• 10:44
  minutes in and you're speaking about cycling and swimming, but
• 10:47
  I think it's important and amongst like kind of, I don't
• 10:51
  know how to group recreational runners, just non pros in
• 10:55
  general. It's probably like overlooked
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  massively because people just chase intensity and mileage and
• 11:01
  often end up running into injuries.
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  Like I have literally myself and I've been doing some cycling and
• 11:07
  swimming. So I'm trying to hold on to the
• 11:09
  value of it and implement it back into my routine as well.
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  So I think there's there's good benefit in it.
• 11:15
  I definitely agree. And I think there's, you know,
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  there's a point where you're probably going to be in the pool
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  or on the bike and you can either do it voluntarily or
• 11:26
  involuntarily. It's either like you do it on
• 11:28
  the front end and like you avoid injury or you get hurt and
• 11:32
  you're stuck on the bike or in the pool.
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  And like I would much rather do it on the front end and stay
• 11:37
  healthy and be able to keep running.
• 11:38
  So for for me, I think it's great injury prevention.
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  I think it's a great way to get in more time in the week, more
• 11:46
  hours of intensity and because really there is only so much
• 11:50
  strain your body can handle. So yeah, I I get it.
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  And honestly, like, I feel like because of that, a lot of maybe
• 11:59
  like the stats about our training are not very flashy
• 12:03
  because there's, you know, we don't run a lot of mileage, we
• 12:06
  don't do a whole lot of intensity that often.
• 12:10
  So it definitely takes away from like the on paper stats.
• 12:15
  But I think if you look at it from like a little bit more
• 12:19
  scientific view, it makes a lot more sense.
• 12:21
  Yeah, a lot of it is almost like the power to recover that you
• 12:25
  have, isn't it? Yeah.
• 12:26
  And that's like the name of the game when it comes down to it.
• 12:28
  Like, you know, regardless of who you are, you're doing 2 to 3
• 12:33
  in 10 sessions a week and that's basically it.
• 12:37
  And the rest of your job is to like recover in between.
• 12:43
  And that's like that's, I feel like we're doing that maybe
• 12:46
  better than anyone else. Yeah, fair enough.
• 12:49
  There's this is very applicable to like middle distance guys,
• 12:53
  but there's probably marathoners like punching the phones up
• 12:55
  right now. Yeah.
• 12:58
  So let's go into some quick fire questions then, because this is
• 13:02
  a bit of a tradition that we've been doing with these interviews
• 13:05
  and feel free to pass off the order sugar free or just
• 13:11
  straight up. Straight up, I got into coffee
• 13:15
  like a year ago because I was sick of going to like a coffee
• 13:19
  meeting or hanging out with people and getting like
• 13:21
  literally a hot chocolate. So I actually literally don't
• 13:24
  like coffee. I'll do either like when I'm
• 13:27
  abroad I'll do a cappuccino or vanilla latte when I'm in the
• 13:31
  States. Sweet EPL team, any preferences
• 13:35
  there? Not really.
• 13:36
  I'm not a big. I don't follow too much.
• 13:38
  So unfortunately I don't have any allegiance.
• 13:42
  No, I had to ask. Just with my English Heritage.
• 13:46
  I get it, half tights, half tights or split these.
• 13:50
  I'm big on the half tights right now.
• 13:52
  Yeah, OK. Vapor or Alphafly?
• 13:55
  I've only ever used the Alphafly once, I'd have to say Vaporfly,
• 13:58
  but St. Fly clears both of them.
• 14:01
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 14:03
  Yeah, on the road. Yeah, for, I mean like I'm not
• 14:08
  doing anything over 5K on the roads really.
• 14:10
  So I would say yeah, streak by for sure.
• 14:14
  But if I were to do like half marathon alpha fly.
• 14:20
  That's interesting because I remember, I remember when the
• 14:22
  streak fly ones first came out and usually I would like jump
• 14:26
  the gun and just buy the shoe on release.
• 14:29
  Like not bothered about what the review was going to be.
• 14:32
  But for some reason for this one, I kind of like sat around
• 14:34
  and I felt like it was maybe a little bit of a flop, but the
• 14:38
  two seemed to be received a lot better.
• 14:41
  The two they changed the game with the 2 the the one
• 14:44
  definitely they were trying to go back to like, you know, flats
• 14:48
  that they used to do in the you know, mid twenty 10s with no
• 14:52
  plate or anything. And I think they were just too
• 14:55
  squishy. But now that they have a plate
• 14:57
  in the two, they're like the best training show I've ever
• 15:00
  had. And I think like me and Cole are
• 15:02
  on the same page on that. And I think there's a lot of
• 15:04
  people that that lean that way now too.
• 15:07
  What? You use a massive on the
• 15:08
  structures, aren't you? Would you say that clears it
• 15:11
  even? Yeah, I mean, structures are so
• 15:13
  specific to like certain things you have to do the Street
• 15:17
  Fighter just like a way more fun shoe.
• 15:19
  Plus you can like you can run like a 25 second 200 and then
• 15:24
  but you can also like do threshold if you need.
• 15:26
  So like, they're really like kind of like a Swiss Army knife
• 15:30
  shoe. Yeah, very versatile. 1500 or
• 15:33
  Five Ki? Want to say 5K but honestly at
• 15:36
  15 if if I have had the chops to be 15 I would do 15 / 5.
• 15:43
  OK, favorite track you've run on?
• 15:46
  Lakeside Stadium, Melbourne. Yeah, yeah.
• 15:50
  Yeah, that place rips. I love it.
• 15:53
  I love it there. You were there when?
• 15:55
  When I was in high school, my junior, so 2016, I actually
• 16:00
  snuck in. I had to like climb up one of
• 16:02
  the walls and jump over and I did AI did a full session and on
• 16:05
  my last Rep security or I came and like asked how I got in.
• 16:10
  And so I was like, oh, there's a gate open like way down there.
• 16:13
  So I sent him to the other side to finish my last Rep and I got
• 16:15
  my stuff and I left. So I think there's probably like
• 16:19
  wanted posted posters of me still hung up there.
• 16:23
  But yeah, that that that stadium is so cool.
• 16:27
  That's class. The the park that it's in is
• 16:29
  great for running as well. So there's like a gravel track
• 16:31
  all the way around? Yeah, no, I love it there.
• 16:36
  Do you train? Them by yourself or?
• 16:39
  Yeah, When I was there, I was just by myself.
• 16:40
  I was in high school, like on a family vacation for like, spring
• 16:44
  break. My neighbors are Australian,
• 16:50
  like in California. And so like, we went and visited
• 16:52
  them, which was super random, but yeah, I was there like right
• 16:56
  before I ran like some of my best high school PRS.
• 16:59
  So I think the the Australian training got me right.
• 17:04
  Yes, we will. We'll have to get you back
• 17:06
  because they have a meet called Zatapak.
• 17:09
  I don't know if you've heard of it.
• 17:10
  It's probably like the meet, yeah.
• 17:13
  Now I would love to do a little Australian circuit.
• 17:16
  I know like Centrowitz did that a couple years ago.
• 17:20
  It was like instead of doing indoors I think he just went
• 17:24
  over to Australia and just ripped like 3 meats and I was
• 17:29
  like that looks so much more fun.
• 17:30
  Yeah, it seems to be that like each year they kind of bring one
• 17:34
  or two internationals over. So like they brought Jake
• 17:36
  Whiteman out the other year and then randomly they had Tobogo
• 17:40
  there this year. Yeah, that's hilarious.
• 17:43
  I have to. I have to call in some favors.
• 17:45
  I was, I had quite a bit of time with Stewie this year, Mcswain.
• 17:49
  So I have to tell him to to put me on the list, yeah.
• 17:53
  You're doing the right networking.
• 17:55
  Yeah. Post race treats.
• 17:59
  I'm a big burger and milkshake fan.
• 18:02
  Yeah, that's one thing like you guys don't hold back do Yeah,
• 18:05
  it's like. No, I'm like definitely have a
• 18:08
  bad habit of like the second I finish a race, like everything's
• 18:11
  out the window like for the rest of the night, like, you know,
• 18:16
  gummies, chocolate milkshake, burger, like whatever it is
• 18:22
  like, yeah, I feel like you got to reward yourself and like your
• 18:24
  body will will be a little bit happier.
• 18:26
  You can't stick to like the salad after.
• 18:29
  Yeah, yeah. I, I don't know.
• 18:32
  I'm, I'm under the impression that you give your body
• 18:35
  something that it wants every once in a while.
• 18:39
  It's going to be good to you. So I think it's important to do.
• 18:42
  Favorite YouTube channel if you watch more?
• 18:44
  I'm a big fan of my buddies minted New York.
• 18:51
  They do like, I don't know if you know who they are.
• 18:54
  Marcus and Sean, they're like, he was like a college lacrosse
• 18:58
  player turned marathoner. And they also like run like a
• 19:02
  menswear fashion brand and they're super good guys and like
• 19:07
  some of my friends. And they always have really good
• 19:09
  cinematography. I definitely like Jake Weidman's
• 19:14
  channel. Tap in with that quite a bit.
• 19:17
  And then you know who the athlete special is.
• 19:21
  Yeah, yeah. We watch his channel all the
• 19:24
  time as like, it's kind of like a guilty pleasure.
• 19:28
  Sometimes they just get you through some of those cross
• 19:30
  trainings stuck on the elliptical.
• 19:32
  System yeah no sometimes I like go back and just like watch
• 19:37
  whatever all like even like old new Gen. videos are hilarious to
• 19:40
  watch some of my old moments I'm like cringe so hard at.
• 19:44
  Some of your one liners are unreal though.
• 19:48
  I, I was like, I was moving different when I was in college.
• 19:50
  Like no, no shame in anything. Definitely.
• 19:54
  Like, I think so was a little bit more classy.
• 19:57
  Yeah, you've you've levelled up, but like new, new Gen. was the
• 20:01
  the original. It really was it.
• 20:05
  It was insane how much like positive feedback we got and
• 20:09
  like how many people were like, you really like kept me running
• 20:11
  or got me into running. I had people from different
• 20:14
  worlds being like, I've never run a step in my life, but like
• 20:17
  I just watched 10 of your YouTube videos in a row and
• 20:20
  like, I'm going to go buy a pair of shoes tomorrow and start
• 20:23
  running, which is insane. Like you never think you could
• 20:25
  have the like power to do some that like something like that
• 20:28
  for someone. So that was definitely like a
• 20:29
  super eye opening moment when that kind of took off.
• 20:33
  Yeah, so cool. Grand Slam track or Diamond
• 20:36
  League? Diamond leg.
• 20:40
  And OK, we'll we'll wrap up the the quick fires there.
• 20:44
  So I mean, we're 20 minutes in here, but take it back to the
• 20:48
  start a bit and give a bit of a storytelling picture.
• 20:51
  So you grew up in a town called Almeida, near San Fran.
• 20:55
  Yeah, yeah. So from the Bay Area right
• 20:59
  outside of San Francisco, I, you know, kind of grew up doing
• 21:04
  every sport in the book, but the bench on a really good soccer
• 21:07
  team, played the cross growing up, played basketball, played
• 21:12
  baseball. I was terrible at baseball.
• 21:15
  I was like really mediocre at almost every sport that I
• 21:18
  played. I was like good enough to be on
• 21:19
  a decent team, but like not good enough to be like a star player.
• 21:24
  And like, kind of taking a look back, I was like, there's one
• 21:27
  thing in common that like makes me decent enough to be on every
• 21:30
  team. And it's like, I can run really
• 21:32
  well. And I actually grew up like my
• 21:35
  dad took me to like the kids triathlons.
• 21:40
  And it was really interesting because like when you're, you
• 21:43
  know, 8 or 10 years old, nobody knows swimming technique, Nobody
• 21:48
  knows how to like bike better than any other kid in there.
• 21:52
  So like it basically all came down to just like who was good
• 21:56
  at running And so like I was, I was on a tear on this like kids
• 22:00
  triathlon circuit, just like winning left and right with no
• 22:04
  training at all really. And then like in middle school,
• 22:09
  I so my best friend Gavin was like known as like the, you
• 22:14
  know, whatever, fast kid in our town, whatever.
• 22:18
  And so I became really good friends with him and started at
• 22:21
  like a local club track, track team.
• 22:24
  And we drive like, you know, 40 minutes every day to practice
• 22:28
  me, him and his dad. And kind of just got into it
• 22:30
  there. And he actually was so much
• 22:32
  better than me until he got into like high school.
• 22:36
  And then I went to like a really, really small Catholic
• 22:39
  High School. I'm like, not really religious
• 22:42
  at all, but I went to like a running camp that they had.
• 22:46
  I actually went to it by accident because my friend's
• 22:49
  brother didn't want to go. So he was like, and he was like
• 22:51
  screaming and crying. And so he's like, all right, we
• 22:53
  need some. We paid for this camp.
• 22:55
  So like someone else needs to come.
• 22:56
  So he called me up and then literally after the first day of
• 23:00
  of the camp, the coach who ended up being my high school coach,
• 23:04
  like pulled my parents aside and I was like, Cooper needs to come
• 23:07
  to our school so he can be on our cross country team and
• 23:11
  basically like recruited me to high school, which is super
• 23:14
  weird. And then, yeah, went into high
• 23:17
  school. We won the like California State
• 23:20
  cross country championship my freshman year, had a lot of
• 23:22
  really good like older guys that I think set me on the right path
• 23:26
  just to like continue to progress and really fall in love
• 23:29
  with with running. So yeah, essentially kind of
• 23:33
  just made the the steps that you would make in high school from,
• 23:38
  you know, freshman year to senior year.
• 23:39
  I got better every year, kept winning stuff and yeah, ended up
• 23:45
  running like 4 flat in the mile in high school.
• 23:49
  And it was good enough to to, you know, get me a spot on the
• 23:53
  Oregon team, which I think for, you know, pretty much any
• 23:58
  running nerd like I was in high school, that's the like Holy
• 24:02
  Grail of opportunities. So yeah, got a call from Andy
• 24:07
  Powell and ended up going to U of O and you know, it.
• 24:13
  My experience there was like, really, there's a lot of highs
• 24:16
  and lows. Like my freshman year we had the
• 24:20
  pals who were super, you know, historic had built the program
• 24:23
  up, and then they left after my freshman year and Ben Thomas
• 24:27
  came in and it was like kind of a pretty big question mark.
• 24:31
  You know, I didn't know where Virginia Tech was.
• 24:34
  I didn't know, you know, I knew he had some good athletes, like
• 24:37
  they would never bring in a bad coach to to Oregon.
• 24:40
  But you know, we had a lot of people who jump ship and
• 24:43
  followed, you know, our old coaches up to University of
• 24:46
  Washington. And I was definitely kind of on
• 24:49
  the fence there and ended up staying had a bit of a rough
• 24:54
  first year, but I was like, OK, Ben definitely knows what he's
• 24:57
  doing. And then, you know, my junior
• 24:59
  year in came Cole and like I kind of started syncing out with
• 25:04
  him. It was like me, him and Charlie
• 25:06
  Hunter and, you know, we were kind of this big three training
• 25:12
  group that ended up like really Catching Fire.
• 25:15
  And by the time I got to senior year, like we were basically
• 25:20
  winning indoor nationals as like a three Man Group.
• 25:25
  We put up I think 30 something points at outdoor NCAA's between
• 25:31
  the three of us. And yeah, that was kind of just
• 25:35
  like the start of really, I feel like living up to going from
• 25:39
  being good in high school to being good in college to like
• 25:41
  really being, you know, on the world level.
• 25:44
  And that's, that's what I always wanted.
• 25:47
  And I think having cold air was really important to like push me
• 25:50
  to that. And I think vice versa.
• 25:52
  So yeah, from there, sign with Nike and have just had like a
• 25:59
  pretty steady, consistent career since then.
• 26:02
  Wait, I'm going to have to stop you and jump in and ask a few
• 26:05
  questions because we're we're traveling pretty fast.
• 26:08
  Yeah, I was flying through that. That's good.
• 26:13
  So like once Oregon was on the table, that was always going to
• 26:16
  happen. Yeah, it was like, you know, I
• 26:20
  took you do your due diligence and like, I took some visits to
• 26:24
  other schools, but like in my head, there was never going to
• 26:27
  be another school that was going to live up to like what Oregon
• 26:32
  was in my head. And then I went there on my
• 26:34
  visit and it was like the second I stepped foot on campus, I was
• 26:37
  like, I'm I'm going here. Like it's exactly what I wanted.
• 26:40
  And like, yeah, so. So Oregon was a no brainer for
• 26:43
  me. And then so the transition from
• 26:47
  like high school, having a different coach there, I assume
• 26:51
  then into one and two coaches in like your first couple of years
• 26:55
  at college that that kind of throw you off a little bit and
• 26:59
  you kind of didn't really know where you're at or we still kind
• 27:01
  of naturally getting better as well.
• 27:05
  I definitely was still getting better, you know, like each
• 27:09
  year, I think, I think my sophomore year, the first year I
• 27:13
  had been, I dug myself. I was really determined to like
• 27:18
  show that staying was the right move and really determined to
• 27:23
  like, I don't know, just just make this as good as it could
• 27:28
  be. And I think I dug myself a
• 27:29
  little bit of a. Hole.
• 27:32
  You know, in cross country I was like 100th or something.
• 27:35
  And just like, I think I I worked almost too hard to to try
• 27:39
  to make it a reality. But once I hit indoors, like I
• 27:42
  started hitting my stride, I think I was like fifth in the 3K
• 27:48
  NCAA indoors. So yeah, I definitely, I, I
• 27:52
  definitely continued on the trajectory.
• 27:53
  I think there was a lot, there was a couple times where I, you
• 27:56
  know, I stalled out a little bit just because I was maybe a
• 27:59
  little bit too determined to have certain things go certain
• 28:03
  ways. But once I started to just like
• 28:05
  kind of trust the training and trust the process of it.
• 28:10
  I, I think I found out that like, regardless of where I am
• 28:15
  or who's coaching me, like I can be really good as long as like
• 28:18
  they know what they're doing. So I never, I will say I feel
• 28:22
  really lucky that I never had like maybe a year where I fell
• 28:27
  far below what I thought I could do or my potential.
• 28:31
  I think I was always either on the cusp or, you know,
• 28:36
  surpassing what I thought I could do each year.
• 28:40
  Yeah, I had a pretty linear, linear travel through, you know,
• 28:44
  high school, college and then beyond.
• 28:47
  Yeah. So from what I could say it
• 28:49
  looks like you maybe joined college with A5 KPR of 1406.
• 28:54
  Does that ring a bell? Yeah, yeah, that sounds right.
• 28:58
  I was like low fourteens, 840 something for two miles.
• 29:04
  So yeah, like definitely good. But you know, kids are running
• 29:08
  like 1330 in high school now, so.
• 29:12
  Yeah, well then perhaps by the 2nd year you're down to 1332 and
• 29:16
  you were the PAC 12 champion as well.
• 29:20
  Yeah, yeah, that's when I really started being like OK, then then
• 29:25
  has a good thing going on here because I like you know, I beat
• 29:29
  Grant Fisher in at PAC twelves in the 5K and like that was he
• 29:35
  was untouchable at that point in my head because I still I hadn't
• 29:40
  done anything notable. That's probably my first notable
• 29:42
  like finish or when. And so I was like, OK,
• 29:46
  something's like we got some good cooking here.
• 29:49
  Yeah, so he was like always a big name, even back then.
• 29:53
  Yeah, I mean from like when I was a sophomore in high school,
• 29:56
  he was dominating high school, came right into college,
• 29:59
  dominating college. Like, yeah, he he is also one of
• 30:02
  those guys who has gotten better every single year.
• 30:05
  And like he just has he has the tools to be great regardless of
• 30:11
  the situation. And then mileage is kind of
• 30:13
  increasing slowly throughout the years or not really.
• 30:17
  Yeah, yeah. I was like, you know, maybe like
• 30:19
  4550 miles in high school and then went from like running a
• 30:24
  lot my freshman year, probably 75 to 80 miles a week to like
• 30:31
  taking a full day off and doing more cross training.
• 30:35
  And once Ben came in. So yeah, I've always been around
• 30:39
  like, see, high 60s, low 70s kind of throughout my whole
• 30:45
  college career. So nothing.
• 30:47
  Nothing really to like write home about honestly.
• 30:51
  Yeah, it's all down to like kind of the specificity in the
• 30:54
  workout and the intensity. Exactly.
• 30:58
  Yeah. Like you can you can get it done
• 31:00
  without having to run 100 miles a week, especially in college.
• 31:04
  I think that's like a lot of people maybe dig their own
• 31:08
  graves by just being like, I have to do as much every week to
• 31:15
  like catch up. It's like, no, like if you
• 31:17
  really are smart and you put like quality over quantity,
• 31:19
  you're going to be in just as good of a place.
• 31:23
  It's interesting because you hear a lot of stories coming
• 31:26
  well as a non American that like kind of lots of athletes get
• 31:31
  burnt out in college and stuff. Is that just the Oregon kind of
• 31:36
  manage that really well or is that just a bit of a myth?
• 31:39
  I don't think it's a myth. I think it, it depends on the
• 31:44
  program and the person you, when you're in, in college, you're I
• 31:51
  think it's, it's a lot harder to be methodical about your racing
• 31:55
  schedule. Like you're, you know, you're on
• 31:58
  a, you're on a scholarship and you're in a way, you're working
• 32:02
  for the school and the school wants to see you win big meets.
• 32:07
  They want to see you in, you know, PAC 12.
• 32:10
  They want to see you win regionals, they want to see you
• 32:11
  win nationals like you have to do and you're doing cross
• 32:16
  country then right into indoors, right into outdoors, like
• 32:18
  there's no time off. And so you really you're racing
• 32:22
  like every week, every other week for essentially the entire
• 32:26
  year. And so just sheer by sheer like
• 32:30
  quantity of races, it's hard not to get burnt out.
• 32:34
  So I think you have to have like maybe a good balance of and
• 32:39
  that's why I think that not running, you know, 9000 hundred
• 32:43
  10 miles a week really benefited the longevity of my like college
• 32:48
  career because I wasn't doing that plus racing plus doing
• 32:52
  school. Like I actually had time to like
• 32:56
  have some time to myself and like sleep more, do my homework
• 33:01
  and things like that. I actually looking back at it
• 33:03
  cannot even if you put me in college right now, I think I'd
• 33:07
  have to drop out because I don't think I could do the schedule,
• 33:11
  especially after like being in a professional set at like running
• 33:15
  setting where you don't do anything all day.
• 33:18
  I don't think I could go back now.
• 33:20
  As a high level runner in college, is there a big social
• 33:24
  life as well or are you kind of knuckling down?
• 33:27
  You definitely have your groups. It's hard to, it's hard to like
• 33:32
  make a lot of friends outside of, you know, the people who are
• 33:35
  kind of built into your life, your team and like your family
• 33:39
  and whatnot. You know, I was like, yeah,
• 33:42
  there's always other sports that like, you know, hang out because
• 33:46
  they have an offseason. Like there's no offseason.
• 33:48
  You're doing cross country indoors and outdoors.
• 33:51
  Like you don't get the chance to like hang out with people.
• 33:53
  And then you have to run before class and after class and then
• 33:57
  you got to eat dinner and go to sleep.
• 33:58
  Like, it's very hard to have like a proper social life
• 34:01
  outside of your your team really.
• 34:06
  Yeah, OK, fair enough. So we got to 2021 and I think
• 34:10
  you became two time NCAA champ in the 5000 meters and the DMR
• 34:16
  and you're also become two times collegiate record holder in the
• 34:21
  mile as well as the DMR way in the mile.
• 34:24
  You out kicked Cole. I was watching that back in
• 34:26
  preparation for this. So you've had a few close
• 34:30
  finishes where despite like the fact that he's so renowned for
• 34:35
  his finishing kick, you've often come out on top as well, haven't
• 34:39
  you? Yeah, I remember in I might have
• 34:44
  been 2022, there was like someone like ran the numbers on
• 34:49
  it and like head to head. With coal.
• 34:52
  Over like mile or 1500, I was like, I think I was like 6 and
• 34:56
  one or six and two. Like I kind of, I mean, and I
• 34:59
  think a lot of that is was maybe experience and just like
• 35:03
  maturity, like I was just older and had more time to like go
• 35:07
  learn racing tactics and stuff. But yeah, no, I've had like
• 35:11
  definitely many times where I'm like, OK, I'm as fit as coal.
• 35:16
  Like I can close with coal. Like so yeah, I definitely don't
• 35:21
  think that's like out of my wheelhouse.
• 35:23
  He obviously has like, you know, that's like his superpower and I
• 35:28
  think that shows time and time again.
• 35:29
  So yeah, I think I I maybe need to think about that more in
• 35:34
  training and racing. Like, you know, that that I've
• 35:37
  been right there as well. But yeah, there was, there was a
• 35:39
  lot of times, especially in college, where like, you know,
• 35:42
  we were head to head and I think, you know, he pulled me to
• 35:45
  a lot of really, really big performances.
• 35:49
  And I think that's what made our like 2021 Oregon team like that
• 35:55
  much harder to beat. Yeah, because I've seen
• 35:57
  somewhere as well, there was a thirteen O 6 race where you were
• 36:01
  both chasing the world standard and it was pretty much solo, you
• 36:05
  and him just sharing the lead, taking laps and you've run away
• 36:08
  from him on the last lap and in a fast 5K.
• 36:11
  Yeah, yeah, that that race was ridiculous.
• 36:15
  We were supposed to have pacing through 2 miles and I think we
• 36:20
  got like 1200 meters of, of pacing and both of our Pacers
• 36:24
  dropped out before we even hit like the first mile.
• 36:27
  And so essentially like him and I just like we're talking during
• 36:31
  the race and like trading off laps.
• 36:33
  But yeah, like, and I think with like 2 laps to go, I kind of
• 36:37
  broke it open. And yeah, that was that was also
• 36:40
  a big one where I was like, OK, this is my time and commitment
• 36:45
  to like, you know, building the aerobic base, having some really
• 36:49
  good anaerobic work in. Like I think I was like, OK,
• 36:53
  yeah, I should be separating here.
• 36:56
  But yeah, that was also like a huge breakout race my first year
• 36:59
  being pro. Yeah, OK, sweet.
• 37:00
  So then you've signed pro as you mentioned with Nike.
• 37:03
  I always say Nike, but I know it's a Nike, isn't it?
• 37:07
  I call it Nike. Yeah, I definitely hear, hear
• 37:11
  all different things, but I think it's Nike.
• 37:14
  So that was December of 21 after, was it the Olympic trials
• 37:19
  that year as well? Yeah.
• 37:22
  So did was that in the works for a little while?
• 37:25
  Then obviously you kind of knew that that was where it was
• 37:27
  bubbling up to. Yeah, I had had talks about like
• 37:32
  maybe signing right after the trials.
• 37:34
  I know. So me and Cole where we were
• 37:37
  talking and like, all right, we're both going to come back
• 37:40
  and we're going to run cross country.
• 37:41
  And then we'll sign like in the new year before indoors and
• 37:45
  we'll just like GoPro after that.
• 37:47
  And then like a weekend training for cross country.
• 37:51
  Cole was like, yeah, I'm just going to sign now.
• 37:53
  Like I don't want to do cross country.
• 37:55
  And I was like, oh, damn it. Because we were like, yeah,
• 37:58
  we're going to win. We're going to win like NCAA's
• 38:01
  as a team. I think NCAA's, our team got
• 38:04
  like last place. I got third to last.
• 38:06
  I literally crawled across the line.
• 38:09
  I had, like a crazy, like, crash out.
• 38:13
  I don't know if you've like seen the video from that, but it's
• 38:17
  like kind of a hard watch, but also like a super big turning
• 38:20
  point in my career in terms of like, somehow people were
• 38:25
  talking about that more than like, Conor man's actually
• 38:27
  winning the race. And like, I also like, it
• 38:31
  changed the trajectory of my career.
• 38:33
  Like I started doing so many more things after that to like,
• 38:35
  stay healthy and like make sure that never happened again.
• 38:38
  So yeah. And then and then right after
• 38:41
  that, that was in November and I signed the day of that cross
• 38:45
  country race. And then, yeah, come the new
• 38:48
  year as a officially pro. Similar to the way it was always
• 38:52
  going to be Oregon, it was always going to be Nike if that
• 38:55
  was on the table. Yeah, I mean, like, I same as
• 38:59
  going to college, like did my due diligence talk to the other
• 39:03
  brands and you know, there's, there's some other really like
• 39:05
  intriguing offers and like, but I was like literally talking to
• 39:11
  Phil Knight. Like Nike had been the only, you
• 39:17
  know, running show I'd ever run in.
• 39:19
  It was, yeah, it was literally the the dream realized from my
• 39:24
  like 10 year old self. So yeah, there was really, there
• 39:29
  was no other way it was ever going to go if that was an
• 39:31
  option. And and Nike's been super
• 39:33
  amazing to me. I love everyone at the brand and
• 39:37
  it's they really treat you so well.
• 39:39
  So for me it was a no brainer. I guess allowed you to stay put
• 39:44
  where you were as well and didn't have to move.
• 39:47
  Exactly yeah, no, we got to stay with Ben and I think we just
• 39:51
  like continued. We were on such an upward swing
• 39:55
  and being able to not like skip a beat with that and like have
• 39:58
  to go somewhere else. I think, you know, it made that
• 40:04
  that season super special and made kind of rookie season
• 40:07
  really fun and I, you know, one USA's made worlds that year and.
• 40:13
  So that was like the best thing I could have asked for, for, you
• 40:16
  know, a first year pro. And how was that world's
• 40:19
  experience like home games? It was, it was cool.
• 40:25
  So it was pretty unfortunate because both, so like 2 weeks
• 40:30
  before USA's, both Cole and I got injured.
• 40:33
  I had a stress reaction in my tibia and he had like a
• 40:37
  metatarsal stress reaction or stress fracture.
• 40:41
  And so like we were cross training the entire two weeks
• 40:44
  leading up to USA's and I think Cole might have had like another
• 40:49
  couple days off before I did. And I think that kind of just
• 40:54
  caught up with him. You know, I basically like was
• 40:57
  fully tapered. So ended up running really well
• 41:00
  at USA's and winning, you know, had another three weeks to
• 41:03
  worlds of just like being on the bike basically.
• 41:07
  And so when I got there, like I was a rugly fit, but when it
• 41:09
  came to the last lap and like people were turned on The Jets
• 41:13
  and it was like went anaerobic, I basically like jogged it in.
• 41:17
  So that stuff to not being competitive there, especially
• 41:20
  after winning USAS and feeling like I could be in a position
• 41:24
  to, you know, make a final, get a medal.
• 41:29
  It was bittersweet. But it was cool to like be in
• 41:31
  Eugene and kind of be in the in the mix of everything that was
• 41:37
  going on there. So it was really cool and it
• 41:39
  was, I think it was a great experience for me to have even
• 41:41
  just like, you know, getting bounced the first round and
• 41:44
  being on the outside looking in, but like being able to be in the
• 41:47
  mix of things and just like get experience and talk to other
• 41:51
  people who were there so. Yeah, I think that definitely
• 41:55
  kind of set the stage for. Moving forward as a pro.
• 42:02
  And I guess like, although you're Uber talented and like
• 42:05
  stack up on paper going into it, you're obviously very green and
• 42:09
  quite raw, a bit like the way maybe like Cooper look Canal, So
• 42:13
  Ethan Strand were kind of like this year going in like
• 42:16
  expectation based on the results on paper.
• 42:19
  But like, actually turning up and competing in that sort of
• 42:22
  field is a bit of a different ball game.
• 42:25
  Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, it's a lot
• 42:28
  different when you're away from home, you are actually wearing
• 42:33
  the USA stuff and you're, you're racing 30 year old dudes who are
• 42:38
  like have run XY and Z close to the, you know, getting close to
• 42:44
  world records. And like, it's, it's
• 42:46
  intimidating and you need time to actually have experience.
• 42:50
  Like experience goes so far in this sport.
• 42:52
  And I think that's why like Kohl's just getting better and
• 42:55
  better each year. He's getting more and more
• 42:57
  experience at the world level. And so that's really cool to
• 42:59
  see. And I think, yeah, same goes for
• 43:02
  me. So yeah, it's all about just
• 43:05
  like time on the circuit, really.
• 43:06
  And that's why I like this is changing subjects slightly, but
• 43:10
  like the GB selection process. Oh sorry, my cat's just like
• 43:15
  attacking me under the table. That's right, I had to put my
• 43:19
  cat away for this. Yeah, we're on to cats.
• 43:23
  The the listeners love the the cat talk.
• 43:26
  What is your cat called? His name is Tank.
• 43:31
  Tank. Tank yeah, he's a, he's a little
• 43:34
  grey cat. He's really annoying right now.
• 43:37
  He's we got him as like a kitten.
• 43:41
  I did not ask for a cat, but Rachel like went to the shelter
• 43:44
  and brought him home one day and he made so.
• 43:46
  This story is identical in our bloody flash, really.
• 43:52
  Yeah, and now we have like, so I also have a rabbit, like a
• 43:56
  little Bunny here. Send Tank in here.
• 43:59
  OK, never mind. Well, you can.
• 44:03
  Here's my rabbit Hachi. Hachi.
• 44:07
  Yeah, her name's Hachi. She's a beast.
• 44:10
  But yeah, Tank is a menace. He like, he's big on biting and
• 44:15
  scratching and stuff right now. So yeah, definitely like, not
• 44:19
  good. No, not really.
• 44:22
  We we were told that, so we had Hachi first and we were told
• 44:26
  that like getting her like a friend, either like another
• 44:29
  rabbit or a cat would be really good.
• 44:30
  But Tank has proven to just be like a bully to her.
• 44:34
  So definitely she's not super thrilled about it.
• 44:37
  That's close. Well, getting back to the the
• 44:41
  nitty gritty, Yeah. So I guess then somewhere around
• 44:46
  here you join Bauman. What was kind of behind that?
• 44:51
  Had you been sold a bit of a dream or yeah, what was the
• 44:55
  process like? Yeah, I think so.
• 45:00
  A large part of even like looking at that was I had felt
• 45:06
  like I had it was gonna it was hard to be in a situation where
• 45:14
  I didn't feel like I was like top priority.
• 45:16
  And with Ben, he was coaching the Oregon team at the time and
• 45:22
  it was hard to, you know, I'd always been like kind of the the
• 45:26
  center of things, just kind of being one of the big point
• 45:29
  scorers and things. So being pro like he still had,
• 45:33
  you know, or Oregon was paying his bills.
• 45:35
  So he had to put, you know, a percentage of that effort
• 45:42
  largely into Oregon. So, and my my agent was also big
• 45:47
  on like you need to, you know, there there's kind of a process
• 45:51
  to this and you kind of have to like mature and get out of just
• 45:56
  like maybe your college situation that you've been
• 46:00
  really. Good in but maybe gotten to to
• 46:03
  the ends on and so I'd looked around a little bit and
• 46:07
  obviously that he has multiple really good groups and I talked
• 46:11
  with Jerry and I just really liked all the guys on the on the
• 46:14
  bowerman team. And so I essentially after that
• 46:20
  USASI committed to joining Bowerman under the pretense of
• 46:27
  like, OK, I'm going to move to Portland.
• 46:30
  They were still in Portland training at Nike world
• 46:32
  headquarters and yeah, it's just going to be like training with
• 46:37
  these these world class guys. You know, Jerry is is coaching
• 46:43
  only this group and you know, we're at Nike and we have all
• 46:48
  these resources. And so two weeks after I
• 46:51
  committed to going to Bauerman, Jerry called me and was like,
• 46:56
  hey, I'm going to I've been asked to like be the head coach
• 47:01
  at Oregon. And so I'm going to take that
• 47:05
  job. Everyone from Bauerman is going
• 47:06
  to move down to Eugene and we're going to stay there.
• 47:10
  So essentially the environment I was trying to leave, I jumped
• 47:18
  right back into at even kind of like a larger scale.
• 47:22
  So now Jerry, like Ben went from having, you know, me and Cole as
• 47:26
  pros and then the Oregon team to Jerry had an entire team of
• 47:30
  men's and women's pros, plus the entirety of the Oregon team,
• 47:35
  jumps, throws, distance sprints. And it was his first year like
• 47:40
  back coaching college. And so that was like, that was a
• 47:44
  pretty big shock. And whereas I went also from
• 47:48
  like, you know, I'm leaving Eugene.
• 47:51
  I'm going to get out of here where I've been going to
• 47:53
  college, and I'm like, going to have a fresh start.
• 47:55
  And I'm going to have, like, new places to run, new things to do.
• 47:58
  And then I'm thrown back into staying in Eugene.
• 48:02
  And yeah, it kind of all, like, fell on its head when that
• 48:07
  happened. And I was still really committed
• 48:10
  to, like, trying to make it work and just like, trusting it
• 48:13
  because I was like, there's still really great guys.
• 48:15
  Jerry's a great coach and yeah, so like jumped into training
• 48:20
  with Bowerman, honestly, like it was, it was a pretty tough
• 48:25
  transition is really like different from what I was used
• 48:28
  to. But at the same time, like I
• 48:30
  really, really liked all the guys on the team and got along
• 48:33
  really well and ended up having like a pretty solid year.
• 48:36
  But I just like, I don't know, I wasn't sold on it.
• 48:39
  It didn't, you know, it didn't feel like I, I didn't have that
• 48:45
  moment like I had had with Ben where I was like, this really,
• 48:49
  really works. And this is really, really going
• 48:50
  to work for me. And so I had to make like maybe
• 48:53
  a selfish decision to leave again and go back to Ben, which
• 48:58
  at the same time was like also hard because it was hard like,
• 49:03
  for lack of better words, like breaking up with Ben and going
• 49:06
  to like going to not like a rival, but like kind of a rival
• 49:11
  in a sense. And I was really like, it was it
• 49:16
  was really great to hear him be like, yeah, I would love to have
• 49:19
  you back and like continue to train.
• 49:20
  And I think for both him and Cole, like they both were really
• 49:25
  welcomed me back with open arms. And that was really nice.
• 49:28
  And I think, you know, Cole, Cole had been kind of training
• 49:31
  by himself that year and was up and down, had some injuries.
• 49:35
  So I think for both of us, it really was a big step to like be
• 49:41
  back together training. And I think that's been, yeah, a
• 49:45
  really good decision. I'm trying so hard to take all
• 49:47
  of that seriously, but when you're talking about like
• 49:49
  breakups and you and Cole and you and Ben, but how, how was
• 49:55
  kind of like the Baumann set up then?
• 49:56
  Was like each athlete catered to individually?
• 50:00
  Or was it more of like a Baumann system and the athletes fit the
• 50:03
  system? It was a system Jerry,
• 50:06
  definitely I think he would he would draw sometimes on like,
• 50:11
  you know, you would have a concern.
• 50:13
  He big look at all these Peach people that I've coached.
• 50:18
  You know, I've had Mohammed make every world's and every Olympics
• 50:23
  for the last million years or however long he's been running.
• 50:26
  And you know, he like it was definitely like AII hear you,
• 50:31
  but like trust the process. And for me, like a lot of the
• 50:36
  guys were really like, you know, distance 5K10K guys.
• 50:40
  And like I was trying to be more of a 1500 guy at that time.
• 50:44
  And so, yeah, it was hard to like feel like I was getting
• 50:49
  everything I needed and I was so fresh to the program that and
• 50:53
  but the hardest part was like, I would have maybe stuck around
• 50:57
  longer, but I felt like I had already had success at the pro
• 51:03
  level in my first year out of college with Ben and I, I didn't
• 51:09
  want to, I didn't want to take time to have a year where I, you
• 51:14
  know, had to adjust and was not running super well and then hope
• 51:18
  that the second year went better.
• 51:20
  For me. It was like, why would I
• 51:23
  continue to follow blindly when there's something that I know
• 51:26
  that really works, It's out there that I could, you know,
• 51:30
  have now, which is maybe like a a little bit rash.
• 51:35
  But at the same time, I felt like I trusted Ben so much that
• 51:40
  it was important to like, go back and continue exploring that
• 51:43
  route. Because then how much of that
• 51:46
  are you thinking about? It's an Olympic year next year
• 51:49
  and you you want to be like in the right environment and stuff.
• 51:51
  And that was perhaps a big goal at the time to be ready for
• 51:54
  that. Yeah, that was that was the sole
• 51:58
  focus really. And it's hard because like a lot
• 52:02
  of times people, I think it's a pretty common thing where people
• 52:09
  are like, you know, you need two years in a, in a program to like
• 52:12
  really hit your stride. And, and so I was kind of
• 52:16
  rolling the dice going back to Ben because like I hadn't been
• 52:19
  doing that training for the last year.
• 52:21
  So like, that was even a risk going back because like maybe I
• 52:25
  did need 2 years to like hit my stride there again.
• 52:27
  And maybe I was going to hit my stride really well that second
• 52:30
  year on Bowerman. So it was kind of it was hard to
• 52:34
  make the decision, but when I did, I had to just like fully
• 52:37
  trust it and not like look back at all.
• 52:41
  So yeah, knowing that I had gotten forth at the previous
• 52:46
  Olympic trials with been coaching me, I thought that that
• 52:51
  was going to be my best shot. Yeah.
• 52:53
  And then so jump into that in the build, in the build up to
• 52:57
  those trials, you ran the standard as per World Athletics
• 53:00
  in both the 15 and the 5K. So you must have been kind of
• 53:04
  pretty confident and on a bit of a buzz going into those trials
• 53:07
  feeling like you're in a good place.
• 53:10
  Yeah, Yeah, I had a couple breakthroughs.
• 53:12
  Like I had a tiny meet, ran 332 flat basically and 12:54, which
• 53:19
  was like a 12 second PR at the time.
• 53:23
  And yeah, I just felt like at. At this point it's important to
• 53:26
  highlight to Australian listeners that if if Cooper was
• 53:30
  Australian, then he'd be the Australian record holder in the
• 53:33
  5K because Craig Mottram is the record holder still from 2004.
• 53:38
  And the likes of Stewie and stuff have obviously tried
• 53:42
  multiple, multiple times. And perhaps Kai might get it
• 53:45
  because he's looking pretty good.
• 53:46
  But yeah, it's still for 20 odd years.
• 53:50
  Yeah, that's, that's crazy to think just with like the history
• 53:53
  of Australian running and everything too.
• 53:56
  But yeah, that was like kind of a random, random performance
• 53:59
  that just like happened and I was like, holy shit, ran 1254.
• 54:05
  That's not you can't, you can't argue that.
• 54:10
  That's on paper that I think it was the number three US time all
• 54:15
  time at that point. I was like, all right, like I'm
• 54:19
  like ready to do some damage. And yeah, like felt really good
• 54:25
  leading up. But got to Eugene and it, it's
• 54:31
  hard because, you know, I had five races over 10 days and I
• 54:35
  felt like I was really, really primed to do really well in the
• 54:38
  5K. But I had three rounds of 1500
• 54:42
  first and you know, made the final in the 15 and just kind of
• 54:47
  had a rough go. Wasn't ever super like really in
• 54:53
  it. Kind of got bumped around a bit
• 54:54
  like missed a couple moves and like mentally had to reset.
• 54:58
  Made the final for the 5K and by the time I got to the 5K final,
• 55:01
  I was so burnt like mentally, emotionally and physically.
• 55:06
  Like I think we got like 3 KN and I was running like 72nd laps
• 55:13
  and just like, yeah, I was, I was never in contention to even
• 55:18
  like give it a shot. So that was pretty
• 55:21
  disappointing. And I think I'd wish that I had
• 55:25
  just focused on the 5K because I I really think like I would have
• 55:28
  been there in Paris, like racing for sure.
• 55:32
  But again, like everything in retrospect makes sense.
• 55:36
  And at the time I was like, I could make the team in the 15
• 55:39
  and the five. So yeah, it's definitely,
• 55:42
  definitely hard to. Feel good about it, but it's all
• 55:47
  perspective for the future. Yeah, I was going to say so.
• 55:50
  The decision making process around going for both the 15 and
• 55:55
  the 5K was a genuine hope of an expectation that you could
• 56:00
  qualify in both rather than using the 15 as like a bit of a
• 56:03
  primer for your 5K main focus. Yeah, I mean, it was always
• 56:09
  going to be like. You're all in on whatever the
• 56:13
  first event is. Like we're all in on trying to
• 56:16
  make the 1500. And like, Cole and I had both
• 56:19
  run really well over the 1500 and the mile that year.
• 56:22
  And, you know, we're doing all of our workouts together.
• 56:27
  And Cole had won the trials before.
• 56:30
  Like, it was, it was just about like, you know, being ready for
• 56:34
  it. And so, yeah, I definitely like
• 56:38
  went really hard for the 15 and yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't a
• 56:43
  just like, oh, let's let's get ready for the five and like get
• 56:45
  some rounds in or whatever. So it was hard to like burn a
• 56:49
  lot of matches for the 15 and still be able to like come back
• 56:52
  and perform in the 5K. And I definitely paid for that
• 56:56
  down the line when it came to the 5K final.
• 56:59
  Like I remember being on the star line and be like, what am I
• 57:02
  doing? Like terrible.
• 57:05
  And there's nothing like starting one of the biggest
• 57:07
  races of your life telling yourself that you feel like
• 57:10
  shit. So that was a not not an ideal
• 57:15
  scenario for me. That just keeps the the fire lit
• 57:18
  going into Lai. Know it's a while off, but
• 57:20
  obviously it's kind of probably at the forefront of your mind
• 57:22
  with everything that you're doing.
• 57:24
  Yeah, totally. I mean, you know, Olympic,
• 57:27
  Olympic Games are like pinnacle of running.
• 57:31
  And it's crazy to to think like I'm training with someone who's
• 57:36
  like won the Olympics. Like I, I couldn't even fathom
• 57:39
  if I was, you know, 22 years old and had an Olympic gold medal.
• 57:42
  Like pretty insane to, to think about.
• 57:46
  And like knowing that that came out of like the camp that I'm
• 57:49
  in. Yeah.
• 57:50
  It's, it's like super inspiring and like definitely puts a lot
• 57:53
  of confidence on, on my mind and feeling like I can.
• 57:58
  Yeah, achieve the same things. I just got to get it right on
• 58:01
  the day. Yeah, exactly.
• 58:02
  You're probably trying to draw from some of those sessions
• 58:05
  where no doubt, like you would have buried Cole and then you
• 58:08
  know what he's gone on to achieve.
• 58:10
  So you know that you're more than capable as well, given like
• 58:13
  the right brakes and stuff. Totally, yeah, that's the thing.
• 58:17
  Like you just got to you got to make it happen on the day.
• 58:20
  I think that's what like also one of Cole's kind of
• 58:23
  superpowers kids. More consistent then anyone I've
• 58:27
  ever met. Regardless of the day he's going
• 58:29
  to like he's going to show up. Just got to be on that, on that
• 58:33
  same wavelength. Doing it in practice I think is
• 58:36
  like the first steps continuing and like having years stacking
• 58:39
  together. By the time we get to LA, like
• 58:42
  we're going to have yeah, like 5 years of just like consistency.
• 58:46
  And that feels like a like a pretty unbeatable scenario.
• 58:51
  Will you look to still be targets in like the 15 and five,
• 58:55
  Obviously you can't say for definite one or the other, but
• 58:57
  like stay in that range up until LA?
• 59:00
  Yeah, I think so. I actually just met with my
• 59:03
  coach and like this year was really like 5K focused.
• 59:08
  I did one 1500 and it was like pretty mediocre and like.
• 59:13
  I felt like that was kind of to my detriment.
• 59:15
  So yeah, I think, I think I definitely want to like get back
• 59:19
  into the swing of the 1500 a little bit more this year and
• 59:21
  like. It's only going to hold my 5 Ki
• 59:24
  do think 5K is probably my my best event.
• 59:29
  It's it's like the same thing where I'm like, OK, I think like
• 59:32
  I'm better than Cole at the 5K. It's always like kind of been
• 59:35
  more my wheelhouse. And then he goes and wins worlds
• 59:38
  in the 5K. So like, why, why can't I be
• 59:43
  doing that? So that's definitely like it's
• 59:46
  super cool to to think about again, like, yeah, what we do,
• 59:52
  you stack it up, you do the training, like you trust in it
• 59:56
  and you will be good enough to like be in the mix out world
• 1:00:00
  champs. So yeah, just like continuing to
• 1:00:02
  do that. And yeah, and both the 15 and
• 1:00:06
  the five. So I definitely, I, I could see
• 1:00:08
  that being a double, but I think when it comes down to like, you
• 1:00:11
  know, trying to qualify for LA, I'll probably be a little
• 1:00:14
  smarter and just pick one. Yeah, fair enough.
• 1:00:17
  But even on the disappointment of those trials, you you didn't
• 1:00:21
  shut the season down. You went to Europe on a bit of a
• 1:00:24
  pardon the punter and took about six or seven race wins.
• 1:00:29
  That must have been pretty fun. It was super fun.
• 1:00:33
  I was. I was going for the perfect
• 1:00:36
  European circuit, ended up getting picking up a second
• 1:00:38
  place in one like in a 2K somewhere, but it was super fun
• 1:00:44
  to just. Have you noticed who will not
• 1:00:46
  race now with the hindsight of Tokyo?
• 1:00:49
  Yeah, yeah, Camelli. So like you can't be too pissed
• 1:00:53
  about that. Yeah, that's definitely, it
• 1:00:58
  makes me feel better about it. But that was that was super fun
• 1:01:00
  to just go back to kind of go back to the basics of like just
• 1:01:05
  racing and like winning and like learning how to win again and
• 1:01:10
  like learning how to run from the front.
• 1:01:11
  Because a lot of the times, like I would go into the race being
• 1:01:14
  kind of slated as the best guy in there.
• 1:01:16
  So it was fun to just like, push myself and like, really like
• 1:01:21
  look inwardly on how I'm racing and all of that.
• 1:01:25
  That was super fun. And yeah, just getting to be in
• 1:01:27
  Europe. For a little bit and a can train
• 1:01:30
  and like see friends. I, I needed that to get back to
• 1:01:33
  like equilibrium and like get back to being, to like, wanting
• 1:01:36
  to like run really badly because after trials, you know, that's a
• 1:01:43
  culmination of like 3 or 4 years of training for that one goal.
• 1:01:46
  And when you fall short, it's so hard to be like, oh, whatever
• 1:01:51
  and just move on. Like it really takes a toll on
• 1:01:54
  you because, you know, this is our, this is our livelihood.
• 1:01:56
  And you spend 24 hours a day thinking about it.
• 1:02:03
  Yeah, it was cool to like have like a reset button and be able
• 1:02:06
  to just like go back and like back to the basics and have fun.
• 1:02:09
  Yeah, the perfect kind of like Pick Me up and confidence
• 1:02:12
  booster just to go round winning races.
• 1:02:15
  Yeah, that was awesome. I have to ask what you what you
• 1:02:20
  made of the the race you done in the UK because it was a a
• 1:02:23
  British milers club or BMC and is it was it Berry or Trafford?
• 1:02:28
  Yeah, it was Berry. What did you think of that
• 1:02:32
  proper working class northern town?
• 1:02:35
  Yeah, it was a it was a funny little track, like, no stands,
• 1:02:40
  no nothing. It was cool that, like, went
• 1:02:44
  into Manchester after. Manchester was nice.
• 1:02:47
  I was like, I was kind of charmed by the quaintness of the
• 1:02:52
  meat. Yeah.
• 1:02:54
  It was just like, you talk to every official, you talk to all
• 1:02:58
  the people and you go around give high fives after.
• 1:03:00
  It was cool to like actually run fast there too.
• 1:03:03
  I think in that race I was like the only person that went with
• 1:03:06
  the pacer and so I kind of just had got a free win.
• 1:03:10
  I just had to finish basically. So that was cool.
• 1:03:13
  But I did like I like how the the BMC races are run.
• 1:03:17
  I definitely I think it's a really good circuit and down the
• 1:03:20
  line I might use that. I think we're planning on being
• 1:03:24
  doing like a maybe six week circuit in Europe this year,
• 1:03:29
  this coming year. So hopefully get in some more of
• 1:03:32
  those. But yeah, Barry was Barry was
• 1:03:35
  cool. I don't know if I would go back
• 1:03:36
  there necessarily, but I definitely I would do some more
• 1:03:41
  BMCS. Yeah, because it's like proper
• 1:03:43
  grassroots athletics, but feeds all the way up to like proper
• 1:03:47
  elite running in the UK as well. Well, yeah, you totally get like
• 1:03:51
  a little bit better sense of like how they how they do it and
• 1:03:54
  like what the setup is like, because it is kind of a lot
• 1:03:57
  different than like it's, it's kind of more professional at
• 1:04:01
  like a younger level than it is when you're in like high school
• 1:04:06
  or middle school in the US. Like you see kids like really
• 1:04:11
  like tuned into, into athletics and stuff and you see how that
• 1:04:15
  kind of runs up the ladder as you get older.
• 1:04:17
  So it was cool to see see like a different approach to to track
• 1:04:22
  and it was fun. Everyone was like super cool
• 1:04:24
  there too. Like I I liked all the people
• 1:04:26
  who were running to me and everything.
• 1:04:28
  And again, that's just the whole tour is like big learning
• 1:04:32
  experience going back to like the the world's in Eugene being
• 1:04:35
  so raw and green, like you learning and developing so much
• 1:04:39
  from all these different races, I guess.
• 1:04:41
  No, it's like the earlier you start, the better you're going
• 1:04:44
  to be in. It's cool to to kind of run up
• 1:04:47
  the circuit and be like, I would, I would have lost it if I
• 1:04:51
  saw like some of the some of the people that I had looked up to
• 1:04:54
  you. They're like, we're the same
• 1:04:55
  level as people were at, you know, the BMC meet.
• 1:04:59
  If I saw the meta meet that I was running at too, Like it's
• 1:05:02
  really cool to kind of intermingle that and like
• 1:05:04
  inspire maybe some of the younger kids there.
• 1:05:08
  So yeah, for me that was really cool and like, cool to just like
• 1:05:12
  chat with kids after. That's the amazing thing I think
• 1:05:16
  with like running an athletics, if you compare kind of like the
• 1:05:19
  access that you have to the athletes and the way the
• 1:05:22
  athletes integrate pros down to like recreational runners and
• 1:05:26
  stuff compared to like say, I don't know what US sports you
• 1:05:30
  follow, but like baseball or NFL and they're like just complete
• 1:05:33
  top level celebrities, like completely segregated.
• 1:05:37
  Yeah, you can't. Even like get the time of day
• 1:05:39
  from someone meanwhile, like you can DM the best guy in the world
• 1:05:43
  and he'll probably reply like it's pretty insane.
• 1:05:48
  Like if you're trying to talk to Patrick Mahomes or whatever,
• 1:05:51
  like. You couldn't, you couldn't, you
• 1:05:54
  could know his brother and still not be able to talk to him.
• 1:05:57
  Like that's, that's like the crazy part.
• 1:06:00
  So it is, it is cool to be able to just like have a little bit
• 1:06:04
  more communication. And, and I think I draw a lot on
• 1:06:11
  like I said early in the podcast, like I was such a nerd
• 1:06:14
  when I was in high school. I loved running more than
• 1:06:16
  anything. I knew all the stats.
• 1:06:18
  I knew all my favorite runners, I knew workouts they were doing.
• 1:06:21
  I've seen every YouTube video on it.
• 1:06:23
  Like like the access is so much easier to get in like a more raw
• 1:06:28
  form. And so I think at the same time,
• 1:06:32
  like now kind of being at a higher level and maybe like
• 1:06:36
  having that same influence on younger kids, like you want to
• 1:06:38
  be a role model and you want to be able to inspire that next
• 1:06:43
  person that, you know, could be the next me or Cole or whoever
• 1:06:48
  it is. So it's cool to like see that
• 1:06:52
  and have like kind of a tangible thing to be like, OK, like I've
• 1:06:56
  given you this, like go out and do what you will with it.
• 1:06:59
  Yeah, exactly. And that's not to say that
• 1:07:01
  everyone's the same, like that's down to your personality type,
• 1:07:04
  like and the fact that you're so willing to do that.
• 1:07:07
  So I think it's cool just from you as well.
• 1:07:10
  Yeah, definitely. No, I and I, I, you see a
• 1:07:13
  majority of, of runners because it's such like a, a humble sport
• 1:07:17
  because you don't get, you can't be like jaded by like status or
• 1:07:22
  anything. It's like because nobody has
• 1:07:24
  anything. Nobody cares outside of the
• 1:07:27
  like. I think it's so easy to think
• 1:07:31
  that everyone's watching everything you do.
• 1:07:32
  But like at the end of the day, literally like nobody actually
• 1:07:36
  has anything invested. People aren't betting on us and
• 1:07:38
  have like, you're not betting the house on US winning a race.
• 1:07:42
  Like, yeah, if like people really just like, like following
• 1:07:47
  along. I see why people hate people in
• 1:07:49
  the NFL because they ruin their lives because you're depending
• 1:07:52
  on it or something. So it's a really humble sport.
• 1:07:56
  I guess that brings us to this year then and not to overanalyze
• 1:08:00
  too much, but I guess a big part of the early part, your season.
• 1:08:04
  You opened your season in mill rows as you have done so often.
• 1:08:07
  You ran 730 / 3 K for a a nice PB and then how far ahead of the
• 1:08:15
  Grand Slam in Kingston? Like how did that all come
• 1:08:17
  about? Yeah, so I, I had wanted to do
• 1:08:21
  it. Cole had signed.
• 1:08:22
  I remember it was when I was in Europe racing the summer before,
• 1:08:26
  right. Cole was like the third, second
• 1:08:28
  person to sign with Grand Slam. And I was like, OK, that'd be
• 1:08:32
  sick. But in terms of like the
• 1:08:35
  challenger spots, it wasn't until maybe like a month or a
• 1:08:39
  month and a half before Kingston that they actually reached out
• 1:08:45
  and for like, yeah, I would love you to be a challenger.
• 1:08:49
  So I was super excited once I got that call.
• 1:08:51
  And we actually we're we just set off to like altitude camp
• 1:08:56
  right before and Cole and I went from Utah to to Kingston before
• 1:09:02
  to go to Grand Slam. So that was kind of like, yeah,
• 1:09:05
  the first big meet and nobody, nobody had any clue how I was
• 1:09:08
  actually going to go because, I mean, they obviously brought in
• 1:09:12
  like pretty insane athletes. Like give her wet headrun, you
• 1:09:16
  know, 1236, the year before. I was like, OK, is he just gonna
• 1:09:20
  like go RIP a sub 13 off the off the bat like in the hot Jamaican
• 1:09:27
  sun? Like, and then we ended up
• 1:09:29
  running 1440 and just jogging. And it was just like such a,
• 1:09:35
  such a weird way to race and such a such a difference from.
• 1:09:39
  The culture of. In the last couple years, every
• 1:09:43
  every race is a time trial. So it was weird to.
• 1:09:45
  Actually have a tactical race. But it was super fun, like the
• 1:09:49
  first Grand Slam went super well and so I was like, I was pretty
• 1:09:52
  hooked on on the Grand Slams after that.
• 1:09:55
  Yeah 'cause like drawing to that 5K race where it was 1440 odd
• 1:10:01
  you you finished second to Fisher so proven the fact that
• 1:10:04
  you can close hard in a slow race and then in the 3K.
• 1:10:09
  So after after that result finishing second, are you then
• 1:10:13
  like overthinking tactics like shit, I need to beat this person
• 1:10:16
  to end up finishing here And like how's that play out in the
• 1:10:19
  actual 3K race itself? Or do you just go for everything
• 1:10:22
  you've got I. Probably should have thought
• 1:10:24
  about it a little bit more, but like I didn't.
• 1:10:26
  I was just like oh I'll just try to win.
• 1:10:28
  And then like 2 guys broke away so I was like all right, I just
• 1:10:32
  like, I was just racing. I know Grant talked about how he
• 1:10:36
  was like OK, I just have to finish third and like I'm
• 1:10:39
  guaranteed to. And he was like doing all the
• 1:10:41
  calculations mid race. I didn't care.
• 1:10:43
  I was just running. I just wanted to run as hard as
• 1:10:46
  I could and finished as high as I could.
• 1:10:49
  It honestly like ended up working out.
• 1:10:50
  I got third overall, which was like pretty huge.
• 1:10:55
  I was like, OK, this is like sick.
• 1:10:57
  I was like, we're going to get paid really well.
• 1:10:59
  You know, it's it's a fun way to race where you get tactical
• 1:11:03
  experience without having to like recover off of running 730
• 1:11:09
  and 13 minutes. We jogged, we jogged both of
• 1:11:12
  them. We didn't break.
• 1:11:12
  I think we were in like 817 for the 3K.
• 1:11:17
  It's like a steeple time. It was awesome.
• 1:11:20
  So then obviously you've you've run well and you placed third
• 1:11:24
  overall. Was there anything in the
• 1:11:25
  initial conversation for Kingston whereby it was like if
• 1:11:29
  you do XY or Z, you can come back from Miami or?
• 1:11:31
  No, there wasn't anything specific like that, but I I've
• 1:11:36
  known Kyle Merber for like some time.
• 1:11:39
  So I was kind of like in his ear.
• 1:11:41
  I was like, yeah, yeah, you got to that was pretty exciting.
• 1:11:44
  And there was a there was something where it was like the
• 1:11:46
  most watched or like replayed race was the 5K.
• 1:11:50
  And I was like, kind of put on a show.
• 1:11:53
  They're like, you're going to have to bring you back from
• 1:11:54
  Miami and like, we're going to get the viewership way up.
• 1:11:59
  And then I still had to wait like a couple like two or three
• 1:12:02
  weeks before I found out I got into Miami.
• 1:12:05
  But I think it was just a thing of like, yeah, I competed really
• 1:12:09
  well. And the two people who beat me
• 1:12:11
  were like signed racers. So yeah, had a bit of a chip on
• 1:12:15
  my shoulder going into that and kind of did the exact same thing
• 1:12:20
  I did in Kingston, just like did pretty well in the 3K and then
• 1:12:27
  got second in the 5K in a kind of a much different race.
• 1:12:31
  So it was cool to be able to like take a step back and be
• 1:12:35
  like, OK, I can compete when I'm jogging and when it's a little
• 1:12:40
  bit faster. But you still close hards.
• 1:12:42
  No, it's cool. Those those, I think talking
• 1:12:45
  with Ben where like he was like, these are great to just learn
• 1:12:49
  tactics and race the guys that you're going to race and figure
• 1:12:52
  out how people run. And yeah, so that was super fun
• 1:12:56
  and like honestly be a lot of really big names in some of
• 1:12:58
  those races. So for me, that was like a great
• 1:13:01
  way to start the season. So did that because obviously
• 1:13:03
  you would have had your year mapped out probably ahead of
• 1:13:06
  kind of getting those calls. So did that change plans quite
• 1:13:09
  drastically when they came up? Not really.
• 1:13:11
  I think going into it, that was always the plan to try to go to
• 1:13:16
  the first two Grand Slams and then just see what happens from
• 1:13:20
  there. I was maybe going to do Philly
• 1:13:23
  also, but I end up going to the Doha Diamond League instead,
• 1:13:30
  where I did absolutely awful. So maybe I should have done
• 1:13:35
  Philly, but at the same time, like it was one race and at that
• 1:13:39
  point Grand Slam was like kind of it was in its phase of kind
• 1:13:45
  of falling apart. It was, it was probably, I don't
• 1:13:51
  know, there was no bad or good choice.
• 1:13:54
  It both ended up being fine. But yeah, I was, I was happy to
• 1:13:59
  like go and get some Diamond League experience at least.
• 1:14:01
  Yeah, not a bad alternative really.
• 1:14:03
  And you can be as diplomatic or sit on the fence with this as
• 1:14:07
  much as you like, but kind of like, how do you sit with Grand
• 1:14:10
  Slam now? It's hard to say like the the
• 1:14:16
  thing that like is my issue is like they're, they've been on
• 1:14:23
  this big kick of like full transparency and being like,
• 1:14:28
  look, we don't have the like investments right now.
• 1:14:31
  Like these people pulled out this nanic when you first read
• 1:14:36
  it, you're like, OK, you know, that makes sense.
• 1:14:39
  Like at least they're telling us like they're being really
• 1:14:40
  upfront about it. And then but then like 3
• 1:14:43
  different people sent me an article where it was like from
• 1:14:46
  the get go, they didn't have like the money.
• 1:14:49
  And I'm like, OK, now you're just like, you're just lying to
• 1:14:51
  us. And you know, you're already
• 1:14:55
  talking about getting investors for the next season.
• 1:14:57
  Like you need to cover your bases before you actually go out
• 1:15:01
  and like try to keep moving. And now they're like, OK, there
• 1:15:04
  will be no 2026 season unless they're everyone gets paid.
• 1:15:09
  So I don't know, the hope of getting paid is just like
• 1:15:12
  dwindling. Every every time I see something
• 1:15:16
  new, there's nothing. There's nothing that's like
• 1:15:18
  keeping me hooked. So that sucks.
• 1:15:22
  I personally like, yeah, it sucks like losing out on a good
• 1:15:27
  chunk of money. But I think there's a lot of
• 1:15:30
  other people who are in a much worse scenario.
• 1:15:33
  Like some of those got like some of the like Ethiopian athletes
• 1:15:38
  put, you know, put diamond leagues that they could have won
• 1:15:42
  on the back burner to go and they won hundreds of thousands
• 1:15:46
  of dollars that they're not going to see.
• 1:15:48
  And now they've lost out on the opportunity to maybe run the
• 1:15:52
  Diamond League final or, you know, get ten $20,000 from
• 1:15:56
  winning a Diamond League when they were under the impression.
• 1:15:59
  That they were going to get life changing amounts of money.
• 1:16:01
  So like when I look at it like that, like my life isn't over
• 1:16:07
  because I'm not getting paid from Grand Slam or haven't been
• 1:16:09
  paid. But yeah, obviously it's
• 1:16:13
  frustrating and I at. Least feel like I had fun racing
• 1:16:17
  there, like they they put us up in really nice hotels, like they
• 1:16:22
  treated us well when it was happening.
• 1:16:24
  It just sucks. It like this is kind of the rap
• 1:16:26
  that it's getting now and that they kind of did it themselves.
• 1:16:31
  Yeah, I think it's just disappointing overall because
• 1:16:33
  like kinda as fans of the sport and Grand Slam coming in as a
• 1:16:39
  bit of a disruptor, like people kind of, I know it's split
• 1:16:42
  opinions, but I was kind of like all for it, like willing to get
• 1:16:46
  behind it and see where it goes. And then the fact that it's just
• 1:16:49
  kind of falling on its face and the the athletes are the victims
• 1:16:52
  of that is just like the the worst possible result, really.
• 1:16:55
  Right. Like, especially when the
• 1:16:57
  entirety of the thing was built around lifting athletes up,
• 1:17:02
  building athletes brands like getting athletes paid because
• 1:17:06
  like, I think Michael Johnson knows that as well as anyone
• 1:17:09
  that like, we don't get paid anywhere near what you know,
• 1:17:13
  other athletes get paid. And it was really cool to see
• 1:17:16
  someone like advocate for that. But then but then they like turn
• 1:17:20
  it on its head and just kind of screw everyone out of, you know,
• 1:17:24
  like Cindy McLaughlin is a huge athlete.
• 1:17:27
  She was what this whole thing was built on and probably would
• 1:17:31
  have gotten upwards of like close to half $1,000,000.
• 1:17:35
  And now now what? Like, yeah, it sucks.
• 1:17:40
  And it's like, it kind of makes you wonder if like the
• 1:17:44
  institutions that are set up in track and field now are, you
• 1:17:48
  know, nothing can ever change. And anything that tries to is
• 1:17:51
  like just destined for failure. This is kind of like the the
• 1:17:56
  fate of the sport is just to be mid tier forever.
• 1:18:01
  I don't know, it's a bit disappointing, but at the same
• 1:18:03
  time like it's cool that someone even tried it and I think it'd
• 1:18:07
  be hard to fail again if someone else tries.
• 1:18:10
  There's something to be said for that.
• 1:18:13
  Yeah, fair enough. Well, I hope you get your
• 1:18:15
  settlements anyway. Me too.
• 1:18:18
  I'm hoping I already spent it all.
• 1:18:20
  So it's not good, Yeah. That's probably the problem,
• 1:18:25
  like a lot of people would have made commitments on the back of
• 1:18:27
  this and stuff so there is messy.
• 1:18:30
  Yeah. I'm like, do I pay taxes on this
• 1:18:31
  money that I'm not getting or like what's going on?
• 1:18:34
  So we'll see. We'll see what happens.
• 1:18:37
  So on the back of Grand Slam then it was obviously a world
• 1:18:40
  championship year. You went to the USA's in the
• 1:18:44
  5000 and finished fifth behind Cole Grant, Nico Young and
• 1:18:50
  Andrew Hunter. But there was obvious, well, was
• 1:18:54
  there still a chance on the back of that, that if Grant or Grand
• 1:18:58
  Blanc's won the Diamond League final, it would open up a spot
• 1:19:01
  for you, even still? Or not.
• 1:19:04
  Yeah, I was like actually on the edge of my seat.
• 1:19:07
  So I ended up going to like the Knock Act Championships, which
• 1:19:12
  is just like kind of like a small area championships because
• 1:19:17
  you can get a ton of points from it.
• 1:19:18
  And so drew Drew Hunter beat me at USA is, but he did not have
• 1:19:23
  the world standard or the qualifying like ranking.
• 1:19:28
  And so I like essentially if he had gone to knock axe and run
• 1:19:32
  like third five and one, he would have gotten enough points
• 1:19:37
  to move up in the quota to be like in the running to make
• 1:19:42
  Tokyo if someone won the Diamond League final.
• 1:19:45
  So I, like, went to knock Axe to, like, try to make sure it
• 1:19:49
  wasn't that. Yeah, literally it was like
• 1:19:51
  playing defense. It was crazy.
• 1:19:53
  And we ended up running another like 1440 race because it was
• 1:19:57
  like terribly hot and just like, awful.
• 1:20:00
  So that's when I knew I was like the Next up to if Grant somehow
• 1:20:05
  won the Diamond League final, I would go to Tokyo and then the
• 1:20:09
  Diamond League final. List came out and I was like, oh
• 1:20:13
  Grant can totally win this. This is a race Grant should win.
• 1:20:17
  And then he got second by like, you know, less than 1/10 of a
• 1:20:20
  second. And that was just like, that was
• 1:20:23
  a bit of a heartbreak. And I think I lost a little
• 1:20:26
  motivation after that just because, like, emotionally it
• 1:20:30
  was really hard to like be out of it, then feel like I was back
• 1:20:34
  in it and had a shot and then be out of it again.
• 1:20:36
  Like, it just kind of like beat me down a little bit.
• 1:20:39
  So I ended up just training for a couple more weeks running 5th
• 1:20:42
  Ave. and 5th Ave. was decent, ran 349, got Eighth or something
• 1:20:48
  like that. Nothing like spectacular.
• 1:20:50
  But at that point I was just kind of like, felt a little bit
• 1:20:53
  rundown and like the season didn't go exactly how I wanted
• 1:20:56
  to. So it was hard to just like keep
• 1:20:59
  pushing on. But yeah, I like, in retrospect,
• 1:21:03
  it wasn't a bad season. I think there was a couple
• 1:21:06
  things that if they had swung a different way a little bit could
• 1:21:11
  have made, you know, huge, huge jumps could have been in
• 1:21:15
  contention for some really big things.
• 1:21:18
  But like, that's how it goes. And things aren't always going
• 1:21:21
  to, you know, go your way. Yeah, it was it was a bit of a
• 1:21:24
  whirlwind 2025 and especially USA is being within half a
• 1:21:29
  second of making the team. Also, you know the whole, the
• 1:21:34
  whole goal is. Making global championships and
• 1:21:37
  being, you know, painstakingly close definitely sucks, but it's
• 1:21:45
  it's, it's a thing you have to deal with and it's part of the
• 1:21:48
  sport. And, you know, I feel like, you
• 1:21:51
  know, high ties, raids, raises all ships and that's what's
• 1:21:54
  going on in the US right now. And so, you know, there's guys
• 1:22:00
  that I think could be top, top ten, top five in the world that
• 1:22:05
  aren't making the team and that you see that in the 15, the
• 1:22:09
  five, you know, basically every event in the US.
• 1:22:12
  So, you know, it's just about staying consistent and trying to
• 1:22:16
  continue to, you know, push the envelope and know internally
• 1:22:23
  that you can be one of the best in the world.
• 1:22:26
  And that's what I'm training for.
• 1:22:27
  So yeah, just going to keep, keep on keeping on and continue
• 1:22:33
  to do as much as I can to to be there in the future.
• 1:22:37
  Ahead of then the next World. So I've seen 2027.
• 1:22:41
  Is there any specific thing you feel like you you want to focus
• 1:22:45
  on? Or is it just like double down
• 1:22:46
  and keep stacking? Yeah, I think, I think there's
• 1:22:51
  some of like the mental, emotional side that I need to to
• 1:22:56
  get under control when it comes to to racing and just like
• 1:23:00
  feeling like I'm ready to be in these positions because I know
• 1:23:05
  physically like I'm always in a place where I can be
• 1:23:09
  competitive, especially with my training group and just how
• 1:23:14
  things have gone. So I think.
• 1:23:17
  Maybe just being a little more methodical.
• 1:23:18
  About how I'm approaching the season races I'm doing and yeah,
• 1:23:24
  just being ready for for when the time comes up and you got to
• 1:23:27
  be clutched. I think I got there's some
• 1:23:29
  things that I've strayed away from a little bit that I can can
• 1:23:33
  come back on. Yeah.
• 1:23:35
  I mean, when it comes down to it, it's about consistency and
• 1:23:39
  running is a very long, it's kind of a long game.
• 1:23:44
  So I feel good about being healthy, continuing to to to
• 1:23:49
  train at the highest level. And yeah, I think as the years
• 1:23:53
  go by, I think I'll continue to to progress and hopefully, yeah,
• 1:23:58
  give give World's Olympics, all of that a run so.
• 1:24:03
  Yeah, I'm excited. I don't.
• 1:24:04
  I don't think there's. You have to reinvent the wheel.
• 1:24:06
  Yeah, you're, as you reference like it's, it's not about
• 1:24:11
  getting on the team and then figuring out how to be
• 1:24:13
  competitive on the global stage. It's like if you're on the team,
• 1:24:17
  then you're there in the race anyway.
• 1:24:19
  Yeah, exactly. Like there's no, there's no
• 1:24:23
  question marks if you're going to be ready to go out worlds
• 1:24:27
  because if you make the team like you're you're competing,
• 1:24:31
  it's almost harder to make the team than it is to like make a
• 1:24:35
  final out world. So yeah, if you can do that, you
• 1:24:39
  can. You can do anything.
• 1:24:41
  So that's kind of always going to be goal #1.
• 1:24:44
  All right. Well, thanks very much for going
• 1:24:46
  through sort of a timeline with us.
• 1:24:49
  Really appreciate the transparency and the honesty.
• 1:24:52
  I guess just kind of like a 510 minute wrap up.
• 1:24:54
  I've got a few more ad hoc questions if you can spare some
• 1:24:58
  more time. Yeah, go for it.
• 1:25:04
  Do you spend a lot of time in the gym doing strength work and
• 1:25:06
  stuff? Not a ton.
• 1:25:07
  I mean, we, we lift probably twice a week, but they're pretty
• 1:25:12
  brief sessions. And I think I'm one of the big
• 1:25:16
  things I'm working on is like doing a lot more like strength
• 1:25:19
  and mobility outside of just like on a daily basis.
• 1:25:25
  But yeah, we definitely don't hit the gym.
• 1:25:28
  As hard as I think. A lot of other teams might.
• 1:25:32
  Yeah, it's interesting because we spoke to Cam Levens, you
• 1:25:35
  know, the Canadian marathoner, and he was saying about how
• 1:25:38
  like, Jim, like, changed the game for him and helped him
• 1:25:42
  level up. And I think it's maybe like,
• 1:25:44
  overlooked by a lot of people. But then there's obviously a
• 1:25:48
  time and a place for it. Yeah, You have to know, you have
• 1:25:53
  to be pretty, pretty dialed in on what you're getting out of it
• 1:25:58
  as to not like, I think you can also take away from your
• 1:26:03
  performance if you're working the wrong thing.
• 1:26:06
  So if you have a really good strength, strength coach and
• 1:26:09
  someone who really knows your body well, like yeah, you can
• 1:26:13
  entirely change, change the game with like good proper strength
• 1:26:18
  work. What is your favorite workout?
• 1:26:20
  And you can just be as simple as like hills, tempo, whatever, or
• 1:26:24
  you can be specific. I would say like cut down reps
• 1:26:29
  on the track. There's we have like multiple
• 1:26:33
  workouts where we don't ever do anything at one consistent pace.
• 1:26:37
  It's never like threshold miles at 5 minute pace or something
• 1:26:41
  like that. Like we're always cutting down.
• 1:26:45
  And yeah, we have quite a few different workouts where there's
• 1:26:49
  a lot of like change of pace. So I think that is kind of the
• 1:26:53
  secret weapon to to like really being good and really being like
• 1:26:57
  tactically sound. Even in like the long runs and
• 1:27:01
  stuff, you're kind of chipping away with the progressions,
• 1:27:04
  aren't you? Yeah, yeah, there's no like, it
• 1:27:08
  can be frustrating at times, like let me just go for an easy
• 1:27:10
  run. But it's always, yeah, there's
• 1:27:14
  always some more some devious behind it.
• 1:27:17
  So, but it's good. It's it's super important.
• 1:27:20
  And I think that's kind of some of the secret sauce.
• 1:27:23
  And I'm keen to understand the place that the altar G has in
• 1:27:26
  your training load. Like it's not a permanent
• 1:27:28
  fixture. Yeah, it has like time and place
• 1:27:32
  throughout the season, but it's it's one of like Ben's like mad
• 1:27:37
  scientists type of things that he's come up with.
• 1:27:42
  That is genius. It's like it's like overspeed
• 1:27:46
  training is what I would call it.
• 1:27:49
  It's like getting used to your body moving at these paces
• 1:27:52
  without like having necessarily like the impact or like the
• 1:27:56
  recovery needs of actually doing it hard on the track.
• 1:27:59
  So it's a, it's a super cool. Thing And I think it's it's been
• 1:28:04
  a big reason why. We've left a lot.
• 1:28:06
  I think it could be something which in like 5 or 10 years time
• 1:28:09
  people are looking back and thinking why wasn't everyone
• 1:28:11
  doing that? Yeah, no, totally.
• 1:28:14
  I mean, it's obviously, I think it's showing that it, it does
• 1:28:17
  something there. There's no denying that.
• 1:28:21
  And yeah, it's just like it's making use of something that
• 1:28:26
  seems to be super like, I don't know, have one use, but we've
• 1:28:31
  already found multiple uses for for altered DA rather than just
• 1:28:36
  like coming back from injury. I won't ask you to reveal all
• 1:28:38
  the secrets that's. No, I can't.
• 1:28:41
  Now that you're sealed. Do you have to do any double
• 1:28:45
  threshold or use of lactate reasons?
• 1:28:48
  Nope, I did one workout, one like workout with Grant Fisher
• 1:28:53
  when we were at like the faith, KP, Aegon sub four thing.
• 1:28:58
  And like I we did, we like tested our lactate after the
• 1:29:05
  first one and after I saw mine and then I saw grants, I'd stop
• 1:29:09
  doing it and I'm never touching threshold again.
• 1:29:11
  So I don't want to see a lactate reader in for the rest of my
• 1:29:15
  life. Well if it makes you feel any
• 1:29:16
  better you may have seen it. I remember seeing one of Jake
• 1:29:19
  Whiteman's videos and he was testing his lactate on like what
• 1:29:22
  was supposed to be a tempo run and it was like sky high.
• 1:29:27
  Yeah, some people like, I don't know, I, I think some things
• 1:29:31
  just have to be effort based, like to forget the science.
• 1:29:35
  Just run. Yeah, fair enough.
• 1:29:38
  And what's your current shoe rotation?
• 1:29:41
  I know we mentioned a couple of pairs earlier.
• 1:29:43
  Yeah, Training wise, it's like structure 26 St. fly.
• 1:29:52
  I used the the Romero's for kind of just some easy running as
• 1:29:56
  well. And then the they're not the the
• 1:30:05
  peg plus there's a kind of like a new version like prototype of
• 1:30:12
  those that is money probably one of my favorite shoes right now.
• 1:30:16
  So it's kind of my 4 shoe rotation.
• 1:30:19
  When, when might someone like myself be able to get my hands
• 1:30:22
  on that? A while away.
• 1:30:24
  I think, I think it's pretty far down the road.
• 1:30:29
  It's hard to say I've I haven't seen another pair of them from
• 1:30:33
  anyone else, so we'll see. Exciting.
• 1:30:37
  Yeah, actually, I reckon I could wrap it up here.
• 1:30:40
  I've taken enough of your time. We have a segment on like our
• 1:30:44
  usual weekly show called Double Trouble where we might do a bit
• 1:30:47
  of a hot take or something that's not necessarily going to
• 1:30:50
  get us in trouble, but maybe it might be a class clash of
• 1:30:53
  opinions. I wouldn't do.
• 1:30:56
  The Co host is Irish Guy spoke to Andrew Kostka in the other
• 1:30:59
  week and and he said maybe the long run is better overrated
• 1:31:04
  for. An.
• 1:31:04
  Example I my I don't know if this might be not also a hot
• 1:31:12
  take, but I think the the worst session of the week is the easy
• 1:31:17
  run. Easy running is like all time
• 1:31:20
  like worst thing in my opinion. Like if I have to, if I get like
• 1:31:24
  assigned like a like a easy hour run, I would actually, I would
• 1:31:30
  way rather do like a workout. I feel like I'm at the point in
• 1:31:34
  my career where like I've done enough easy running, like
• 1:31:38
  there's nothing I don't like gain anything from easy run.
• 1:31:42
  And so I'm like, I'd, I'd rather cut it out and.
• 1:31:48
  It's like if I could do a a week where?
• 1:31:51
  Cole and I've actually talked about this before, if you could
• 1:31:54
  do. About like testing a week where
• 1:31:56
  you. Don't do any easy running and
• 1:31:58
  you just do like 4 workouts a week like every other day and
• 1:32:02
  then you like maybe swim the days in between or something.
• 1:32:05
  I wonder if you could get away with that because him and I both
• 1:32:08
  hate easy running. Like that's definitely my,
• 1:32:13
  that's like the bane of my existence, I would say.
• 1:32:15
  So that's that's kind of my hot take.
• 1:32:18
  Yeah, I'll pay it. That's fine by me all.
• 1:32:20
  Right. Good, good man.
• 1:32:22
  And I think with the, I don't know how much influence you have
• 1:32:26
  on the server edits, but all the like, the music and stuff, I'm
• 1:32:30
  really into it. So I don't know.
• 1:32:32
  Do you have a kind of a song that you'd like to put over the
• 1:32:35
  Instagram post for this episode, putting you on the spot there?
• 1:32:39
  Yeah, I really like the song called Deja Vu.
• 1:32:44
  It's like a kind of like a underground like house remix of
• 1:32:49
  like a Olivia Rodrigo song. I used it in like an Instagram
• 1:32:53
  post like not too long ago. But that's like that's kind of
• 1:32:56
  been my big obsession recently. So yeah, that could be a.
• 1:33:00
  That could be a good one. All right, I'll take it out.
• 1:33:03
  Well, listen, thanks so much for your time.
• 1:33:05
  I'm sure all the listeners will have got so much from that and I
• 1:33:08
  appreciate you coming to talk to me and sharing your insights and
• 1:33:12
  knowledge. Best of luck for next year and
• 1:33:14
  beyond. Yeah, I appreciate you having me
• 1:33:17
  on. This has been great.
• 1:33:18
  And yeah, maybe I'll see you for the Australian circuit or back
• 1:33:24
  in Bury. One or the other, Well, you can
• 1:33:26
  come to Perth, we'll do an, we'll do a warm weather holding
• 1:33:29
  camp in Perth and then you can head over to Melbourne and race.
• 1:33:33
  Genius. Let's do it.
• 1:33:35
  All right. Thanks mate all.
• 1:33:37
  Right. Thanks, man.
• 1:33:37
  Yeah, have a good one. The.