Kevin Sullivan | How To Make World Class Middle Distance Runners... From An Olympian

Hello, and welcome to the Endurance Lab podcast. My name is Dr. Bill Evans, Professor of Exercise Science. And this podcast covers the physiology of some of the best athletes on the planet, as well as talking with their coaches and sports scientists. And on today's podcast, I am joined by both a fantastic coach and fantastic runner, and that is Coach Kevin Sullivan, who holds the Canadian record in both the 1500 and the mile. He's run PRs of 147 and 800, 217 in the 1K, 331 in the 1500, 350 in the mile. And then his 5K was as low as 1319. And he corrected me that his 3K indoor PR was seven minutes and 40 seconds. He has coached two national champions since being at Michigan, where he's been the head coach since 2014. And I would argue is one of the best developmental coaches in the NCAA, particularly for the middle distance events. Welcome to the podcast, Coach Sullivan, how did I do? Yeah, perfect, thanks Bill, appreciate it. Coach Sullivan, so first off, thank you for coming on. I know you're busy, you obviously got cross country, coming up here, the conference meets, and all that stuff. So I really appreciate you taking time to come on. I've been trying to lock you down on the podcast for a while. And you set it yourself, and this is the first question I want to ask you, you seem to be pretty content flying under the radar and just letting your athletes do the talking for you. Can you talk a little bit about your approach to, I guess, putting yourself out there or promoting yourself, even though you've had such a high level success, both in coaching and your own running career. Yeah, no, and I know you were talking about this a little bit offline, I'm just like, I've never been a big self-promote or like, as an athlete, I mean, I probably would have failed miserably in this NIL era of like self-promotion. But I was very much just raised on like, let your results do the talking. And it didn't matter what sport. It was like, you know, I played team sports growing up initially when I was really young and then moved into track. And I don't know, it's just something that my parents always were really like, discusses maybe not the right word, but really like disappointed in like cockiness and like just outward, like. So, you know, it's like, you know, there'd be times, obviously, like you have these like emotional moments where, you know, you just can't help it, like, you know, show, you know, the pride in your performance. But I was, yeah, it was just never, it was just something that was never really instilled in me. It was just like, it was instilled in me to be like, you know, be humble, be gracious in defeat. And no, that kind of always stuck with me, you know. That doesn't mean I don't get excited. It doesn't mean I haven't had my moments where I'm like, I've looked back and they're like, oh shoot, I wish I had quite been that emotional. But, you know, it is what it is. So, yeah, my coaching staff tells me I need to promote myself more, especially when we're recruiting. But, again, I'm like, you can find, you can find the results. You know, if you're a, you know, if you're a high school kid and you're looking at Michigan, it's like, you can look at what we've done. You can find that information. You can, you can see my background. It's on my bio, like, you know, it's, part of this, like, hey, we want, we want athletes that want to be at Michigan because they, they have done their research and they feel like this can be a good fit for them and it's not just me trying to sell them. And so I think there's some value in that too. Like, you know, when you're a high school athlete, like, make sure you know what you're getting into. Like, don't just, don't just look at the flashiest program, like, know a little bit about it before you get on the phone with somebody or you fire off the email. You know, I think there's some value. - Mm-hmm. So what are your recruiting standards? - Like the actual marks, like actual times we're looking for. - Yeah, I mean, it's simple for every year. I mean, it's like the conference is down there. - For the 100th of a mile. - The conference has gotten a whole lot harder in the last, the last two or three years. So our standards, our standards are increasing. Like if we're looking at kids that are want significant, significant dollars in scholarship, then we're probably looking at, you know, at least sub 150, 404, or faster, something into 840s for 3200. Those are good, those are good starting points for like, really high scholarship. You know, walk on spots are becoming a real big premium. So, you know, it's like, you've got to be, you know, pretty much under, you know, under 412, under 410, under 152, and probably under, you know, at least in the nine O's. And that's to have a conversation about a roster spot. That's not a guarantee. That's to have a conversation about the roster spot, especially now that we're in this day of like, we've got hard caps on roster now. And we're a, you know, we are a complete program. We're not just a distance program. So we got sprinters, jumpers, throwers, multi-eventers, and our distance group. So, yeah, the roster spot is becoming, you know, in some cases, for some, for some student athletes, as valuable as the scholarship. - So to that point, when you have an athlete who comes in running, let's say, 409, 410, and they're like, hey, I've got the time standard, I've got the bare minimum, and you know, I wanna give a chance of walking on. What are you looking for in that first conversation? That kind of says, hey, this might be someone that I'd wanna work with. - Yeah, it's maybe not so much the first conversation that we're looking for something, but we're gonna really start doing our background work of, you know, we wanna see, like we wanna actually see this athlete in action. So whether that's, like, we're physically at a competition or, you know, we'll scour and try to find whatever video we can. I wanna see how athletes, how they move, how they compete in high-level competition. What do you do in high-pressure situations? 'Cause there's like, there's a lot of athletes out there that have really good times, but it's like, do you thrive in a championship environment or do you crumble into that pressure? And we see the lot where I've seen, like, you know, perfectly set up race, like, just get in the line and go and, hey, I can knock out a 408, 409, but I go to the state meet and all of a sudden it's a little tactical or there's a few guys around me and all of a sudden, like, I should be a guy that's in the top two or three instead of nine to 10. And if that happens consistently, then that puts some red flags up for us. So it's, you know, it's like, what's the total package there from an athlete? It's not, the time gets you the phone call or the email response or whatever. I mean, we try to respond to everybody, but it might get you on the phone, but how are you as a competitor? How are you, what do you look like as an athlete? What's your training background then to this point? Like, is there upward trajectory that we can look at? And then we get a whole academic side on top of that. So do you fit the academic profile that we're looking for? So all of that's part of that conversation. Yeah, Michigan is not, it's not an academic program for the week, I would say, to say the least, it is very strong school academically, obviously. So I want to come back. You mentioned that you were kind of raised with this mentality of humility and let the times do the talking for itself and whatever, whatever. How do you instill that culture in your team or is it something where you're kind of, you've mentioned there a little more hands off where you're kind of like, hey, you know what? You guys be you, I'll be me and let's just, let's just perform. Yeah, it's a little bit of both, right? Like I think, you know, it's important that you have to let your athletes be their own individual selves, right? Like there's not gonna be another Kevin Sullivan, right? Like the exact version of me. And there's gonna be your son looks, your son looks a lot, he might be, I don't know. He looks like he's got some, he's got a few years to go before we figure out whether he actually has the chops to be a runner or not. A real Kevin Sullivan? Yeah, exactly. It's a go on. You know, but you know, each athlete's a little bit different and what motivates them, what really allows them to kind of unblock their, you know, their competitive nature. And you look across our team and we have, we have all different types of personalities on our team. You know, we have, you know, some that are very outwardly confident. Like Trent McFarland is very outwardly confident, right? Like in almost classes of Penn Relays, we'll, you know, because we can joke about it now. But you know, in the moment, that was just like the, you know, Holy-S moment, like, you know, when, you know, we realized like, hey, this is something that, you know, we might not be able to take this wheel home now. And, you know, I think it was a wake up call for, you know, for everybody of like, hey, there's a, you know, and even my conversation with some of the officials afterwards, who is, you know, listen, I want my athletes to be at, I want them to be able to be in the moment and be emotional in the moment, right? We don't want to, we don't want to go over the line. And some of my question in that situation was like, what's the line, right? Like, what's, you know, is the, was the line? You okay, I pointed back on my competitor and that was the line. But I'm also like, how is that different than semi-informed coming off across the line and slamming the, slamming the phone down and in the DMR, the DMR, the DMR, the day before. I don't remember yet, right? So it's like, what's the line, what's the differentiation? Why was it okay for one program to, you know, again, what some people, some people consider that taunting, some people consider what trend did taunting. You know, neither one was probably okay, but in the moment, like, how do you control that emotion? And, you know, you know, at the end of the day, I think the call was right to not disqualify us. It's like, I couldn't look back and be like, okay? In a football game or a basketball game, you get it, you know. you get a penalty in a football game with a whole team, the whole team doesn't lose because of that. - And then also they may be, there's some sort of penalty against that, the team in the moment, but it's not you lose, or an athlete gets a basketball player, gets a flag or a foul, and they get knocked out for the game, or the other team gets a few free throws, but you don't disqualify the entire team in that moment. So, again, I'm talking about semantics. But back to the main point, the question is like, Trent obviously has very outwardly confident personality. I have other athletes that are much, maybe more aligned with where I was growing up, where it's like, hey, they come across the line and shake the competitor's hand and go on to the next race. One's not necessarily more right than the other. It's like I was brought up a certain way to that, hey, this is the way I'm gonna behave or react in victory or defeat, and other people are, they see different ways. And you see that across all sports. So, again, to answer the questions, I want my athletes to be themselves, because I think that's what ultimately drives them. Now, if we end up in a situation where it does start to cost us points or championships or wins, then we have, start having maybe harder conversations. And so, we go back to Penn Relays, and for the whole team, that was a learning moment for us, where it's like, hey, there is a line. There are officials that are going to call this, right? And where you may not think it's over the line in the moment, somebody else does. And so, we've got to be able to differentiate, if we're in that gray area, then we're gonna err on the side of being kind of less enthusiastic in the way we celebrate. But again, it's a learning moment, right? And you hope everybody grows and gets better from it, and you learn from your mistakes, you learn what's tolerable and what's not. And like, without anything, you go up to the line and you try not to cross over it. - Yeah, my mom, I use that argument a lot as a kid. It didn't work well for me. But I would say, though, and I'm glad you brought it up. And that wasn't necessarily what I was sitting on, although I wasn't gonna ask about that, because clearly there was a lot of people that were like, oh, there's that and the other thing. And I'm like, you don't, I'm thinking it from a physiological perspective. I'm like, do you realize how much epinephrine is flowing through your veins at the end of a mile? Like irrespective of anything going on cognitively, that is going to influence how you behave. It's gonna influence how you behave irrespective of how you were raised, 'cause you just have all this stress hormone flooding into your system. And what I often think about is compared to team sports is that in a team sport, you can set the tone of the game. If you have a basketball game or a football game that gets chippy and they start taunting and getting whatever, things can get out of hand. People can get injured because now you're starting to headhunt. And you know, it's, that's like a very different situation. We're talking about track and field. Like what's gonna happen? Or are they gonna like push each other in the four by one? Like, surely not, right? And so, you know, I tend to have more of a view of it 'cause I like Marco Langan a lot. And obviously he's been known for his antics. But I think it's good for the sport. Like our sport can be very boring. When they're cutting off of the 10K during the Olympics because they want to show a commercial, a deodorant commercial, it begs the question, like, what would keep them, you know, keeping that up? And I'm not saying that people barking at each other would or not, but I think it does make it more compelling. And it makes it interesting. Like it gives it a story. 'Cause now you're going to watch Nationals and you're like, oh, I want to know how Michigan, how's Trent gonna race Simian? Or, you know, it's like, it's compelling. - No, for sure. I mean, for sure. I mean, it definitely got a lot of attention on Michigan. Right? You'll rightly or wrongly. Like some of it was, some of it was positive. Some was negative. And the commentary we got, we got, we got some people that loved it. They're like, that's the emotion we want to see. This is great for our sport. And we're other people like, this is terrible. It's so disrespectful. It's so unsportsman-like. And so it just goes to show like, everybody's got a different opinion of like, what that line is of, whatever you want to call it, if it's a sportsmanship line or, or not. And I think, and it's different between from sport to sport. It's like, you know, if you watch the, I'm a Detroit Lions fan, right? So you watch the Lions game the other day. And they, you know, they, they pull the packers off side. And every one of them is, is there, you know, - Oh my gosh, yeah. - Doing the Charlie Brown emotes, right? Like, okay, how is, that's, is that fun or is that taunting? - Yeah. - I think it's fun. - And so it gets, it gets looked at differently because it's a different sport. So, yeah, yeah, is it, was it, was it good for the sport? I don't, I don't know at the end of the day. Did it get a lot of eyes on Michigan? - Yeah, got a lot of eyes on us, you know, again, rightly or rightly or wrongly. It's certainly like built up a storyline, I think of, you know, Trent McFarlane and Simeon, you know, 'cause they were gonna meet at Big Tens in a couple of weeks. And then they were gonna meet again at Nationals after that. So, you know, it definitely continued to build the story 'cause they're both big personalities, right? They both won two, two big relays at Penn Relays. And, you know, I think that kind of energy drives them both. So, certainly help feed, kind of fuel that fire going through the rest of the season. - I bet, I'd venture to say if we looked at the ratings and the views, I bet views were up that year for the 1500 and the Big Ten. One, because of the competition, you got, I mean, that was such a deep, sorry, it was such a deep field in general, but also to see those two competing against each other multiple times, I'm a Pittsburgh Steelers fan all I could think about was like, this is like, Steelers, Cleveland fans everywhere are gonna throw their arms up into this, but it's like Steelers Ravens, you know? Like, you always want that rematch. Sometimes we'd play him a third time in the playoffs and that's what it felt like at NCAAs. It was like, they've seen each other once. They've seen each other twice. Now they're gonna see each other again. And, I mean, I think it's fun, it's compelling. So, I wanna switch gears a little and I wanna talk about training because I have to know, I have to know how you're doing it. What you're putting in the eggs in the morning. But, really, what I'm curious about is, take me through a week in the life of a University of Michigan middle-distance runner, 800 mileer, I know that it's gonna pivot a little. So, let's just stay with the mile. And, let's say we're in post-cross country, two weeks post-cross country, prime enough for indoor. What are some things that you're prioritizing throughout the week? - Yeah, I mean, two weeks post-cross country, I mean, it depends a little bit like with the mileers. Like, last year, last year after Cross Trent went and well, he was gonna run BU and then got six. So, we actually just like, we kinda shifted mode a little bit and just were trying to do a little bit of, a little bit of three-case specific work just to get ready for the track. But, more often than not, we come out of nationals and it's Thanksgiving week. So, I'd just tend to give the guys just some down time. I usually, you know, my big recommendation, I don't like taking a lot of time off. I don't believe we're like, hey, we'll just, he just take Thanksgiving and don't do anything. Like, okay, you come off a pretty emotional race at nationals, like, you know, if you need a dare to, just like, hey, just want to shut down and do nothing, that's fine, but then let's get back and start doing some running during that week. And usually I'll try to build in a workout late in the week, we'll just do like a progression run or, you know, really like far lick or something like right after Thanksgiving, just as kind of the first introduction back. And then we get back to class on the Monday and then we're kind of right back into things. And so for us, it's almost like that kinda end of November, beginning December, we get back to some pretty basic stuff. So, it's kind of straight back into threshold work. Hills for us are gonna be a big thing in that, especially through December, we're trying to stay off the track if I can for the first part of December until the weather changes. So, you know, we'll stick more to like, you know, 200, 300 meter type hills, kind of for a more, kind of specific session if you wanna call it that. But we do a little bit more effort-based work kind of in that first couple of weeks, coming out across country, not worried as much about the stopwatch so much. - How many quality sessions a week are you doing? And how are you prioritizing threshold overview too in an era where everyone is obsessed with double threshold? - Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, we're talking track season. I'm a big believer that at some point, like if you wanna run fast, you've gotta train fast. Like you just, you have to be able to, you have to be able to understand what that feels like. And you have to be able to understand what an extension of that feels like. So, again, this is just my opinion. You can't just do threshold and a bunch of 200s and 300s and that's the format. Now, I know that, I know that works, right? And this is what, my caveat is like, there is more than one way to get a cat, right? And there are multiple recipes that can get you to the same point. I think a lot of the building blocks are the same. If you have the building blocks right, then, you know, some of the specifics can, you know, you can vary that, right? So, we do believe and we do function that, everything we do is gonna be built on a foundation of good aerobic support. And so, the question is, what is the best way to make a decision? tempo, however you want to describe it, is always a part of what we, how we want to, and you know, everybody's got, you know, a different way to describe what they're, what they're doing, but that is always a function of what we do almost weekly through the year. There will be some times where we won't get a threshold session in during a week, but it's, it's pretty consistent throughout the, throughout the year. We don't do a lot of double threshold. We do some during the late part of the summer as we're building the cross country, and we do a little bit during the cross country season, but we, I find it a challenge at Michigan, in particular, to do a lot of double threshold, because my big concern comes out of recovery. With our academic schedules, it becomes really challenging. Like, I've got to have here at, you know, basically ready to go by 6.30 at, yeah, that's warmed up ready to start first rep at 6.30 in the morning. If we're going to do a double threshold, then come back at 3.30 in the afternoon, and then you've got class in between there. And, you know, and I know like, as much as, you know, we can harp on guys about recovery. Let's make sure we get the right amount of sleep the night before. But, you know, it's hard being in a hard academic setting where it's like, hey, I've got, we've got study table after practice, or I've got homework to do, and I'm, you know, I'm doing homework until 10, 11 midnight, and then I got to be ready for a 6.30 end workout, because we're going to work out again at 3.30 in the afternoon. It becomes really challenging. And so I worried from a recovery standpoint more than anything like, it does this, does this really optimize what we're trying to, trying to do. So we've played around with a couple of different ideas. We've done our double thresholds where we've gone Friday night Saturday morning. I love that. I think that is something that people are not talking enough about as an option. And I like it one, because we can, I feel we can get close to the same stimulus that we want, you know, the recovery time is maybe a little bit longer than what your traditional double threshold is going to be, but I know they're going to get recovered. Yeah. So I can build this, I can build this additional volume of threshold, know they're going to get recovered, and fueled, and that, to me, is more important than trying to slide it in, you know, early in the week. Now we have, when we've done them early in the week, when we've had to, but that's a little bit more challenging. I've, this year, a little bit more, if we wanted to get additional thresholds, then we've, we more often have just scheduled three sessions and done, you know, two threshold sessions and then a more specific session. So, you know, again, we get the, maybe the same amount of volume we want to get, we just, we're just adding it, you know, a third session instead of limiting it to two workouts a week. Yeah. So are you typically on a two workout a week schedule, or like in that, let's, because we're, I'm just using this now as an example, because that's what we're headed. So during, during, during cross country, we have been very traditionally two sessions a week. If we're going to do a third, we may tie it into a long run. We would do some far liquor tempo in the, in the middle of a long run. It's almost like a half, a half a session, I would call it. So it, it depends where we are in the, in the training cycle. We have a kind of a bigger training block. Say, and that's kind of like this year. You know, we didn't, we didn't open up our first race until almost the end of September. So we had, we had a pretty big training block where we could do a few more of these kind of long run type workouts. And that would get us a third session in, in for the week. But I'm not, I'm also not married to, like, hey, it has to be two. It has to be three. We don't have to have, we don't have to have a seven day micro cycle. Like, I'm, I'm very open to like, let's fit the, like, let's look at where we're racing and then just fit the training around that. Wherever things fit in the week, they fit in the week. And it's, there's not to be one standard kind of schedule that we go off. Once we get into, into the track season, you know, our 800 guys will be a little bit more consistently three sessions a week. The 1500 guys and the Milders, maybe, you know, five sessions in two weeks. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I like that, especially because obviously you've got racing built in there, which is going to take up one of those or substitute it out. So when you think about, when you think about heading into indoor and you mentioned the 3K as like a, a term, and typically people associate 3K, 3K work with VO2 max velocity. And for all intents and purposes, I think that's fair. I think that's, it's about as close as you can get. VO2 actually tends to correlate best with your mile time, believe it or not. But you can still hit VO2 max at 3K pace. So, so what I was going to ask is, is like, is that something that you're prioritizing? Because I'm imagining normal linear periodization starting wide and less specific like the 3K working on some of your deficit areas and then tapering in down towards some, some specific mile work. So is, is 3K work, is 3K work at, not the center, but a priority at any point in the season for your Milders? And if so, is it, is it now? Yeah. So I don't know if I would say it's, um, I don't know if I'd say it's a prior, prior, I think it's hard to say anything. It's a priority. Because there's so much that goes into being a mile, right? And it's the way I look at it, like there are so many pieces of the puzzle that you have to put together. You, you know, you, again, you have to have this foundation of aerobic work. So your threshold, tempo work, you have to have your VO2 max, you have to have your 800 work, you have to have some like, some, some speed work in there. Actually, we're sprinting as well. And then we have your mile specific work. And so I'm trying to fit all this in. So I would say, I, I'm challenged to say that there's like, that is a specific thing that we do. But it is part of the overall, the overall puzzle. And I would say we probably do more, we would do more of that kind of in that early buildup phase in the indoor season, for sure. But we will sprinkle that in throughout the, throughout the season all the way through the outdoor season as well. So there's always a, at some point, there's always touch points in our, our training of all these different, of all these different things, no matter where we kind of are in the season. But, but we do, I do tend to look at it more from that standpoint of like we kind of work the peripherals and then work more towards specific, you know, when you're looking at kind of that pyramid. Yeah, yeah. So do you train your speed based, more speed oriented? So eight, 15 guys, different than your 5K, 1500 guys. Or do they train together or they slide back forth between, yeah, so we, I would say we train them different, we train them differently. There is crossover amongst all of our, all of our groups. But we typically have four kind of, four kind of distinct training groups. We have our 5K 10K group. We have 1,500 5K group. The students could fit in either one of those first two groups depending on, you know, their, their makeup and 8500 group and a kind of a pure 800 group. So yeah, so our, our 8500 guys will train slightly differently than our 1500 5K guys. Most of their real specific work, we'll try to make sure that that is together on the, on the same day. But obviously with the 5K, with the 1500 5K guys, we do have a little bit more kind of aerobic focus. With the 1500 8 guys, it's more blended, like, you know, our specific session could be 800 or 1500 for them. Because they're, they're pretty proficient in both of them. Yeah, yeah. What is the most threshold volume you'll do in a session? Or the most you've ever done in a single session? The most you've ever done in a single session is maybe maybe 10 miles in a single session. That's pretty rare. I'd normally, normally a single session, I usually cap it eight miles of threshold. If we're doing it, if we're doing a double threshold day, we'll typically, we'll cap it typically between 10 and 10 and 12 miles. And that's for somebody that's been in the program for a few years. For our freshmen, it's, for our freshmen, we take a more, a much more cautious approach, like the freshmen usually, you know, a single, a single day, single threshold day, we may top out at six miles with them, maybe not, maybe not even that. And if we're, you know, we don't do a lot of double threshold with our freshmen, but even then we're going to top, they're going to top out at seven or eight miles in a double threshold day. So I'm going to ask a series of other questions as well. I'm asking direct questions, but hopefully you're not bored to death with these. The other question I was wondering is, do you prefer a session that is very specific to one demand or a blended session? For example, and I have a hunch, but I don't know, the Michigan I would perceive as a blended session, you're going from fast to threshold to fast to threshold to really freaking fast. So I would consider that more of a hybrid session where you're using each element to support the other where the threshold is, yeah, it's, it's allowing recovery, but it's also introducing fatigue. And if done right, in theory, the threshold might be some of the hardest work that you do. It can be at least. So, you know, are you more or a proponent of, 'cause I know that's a historical workout that you guys have been doing for years. - Yeah, yeah. - But, you know, like, which one do you prefer and does it change as you go throughout the year? - So I would say in cross-country, we don't use hybrid sessions a whole lot. Michigan would be that kind of one example where we maybe get away from that. And maybe this is not 100% accurate. I do like to do, I do like to change paces in workouts, but maybe not as drastic as what a Michigan does. - Now, do you mean change paces mid rep or change paces like you're into-- - In cross-country. - In cross-country maybe like, change within the workout itself. So, you know, we may do like, you know, we're broken down. So 600 at, 600 at 10k pace, 405k pace, or something like that. And when we do that, maybe some of that, you know, introductory as we're getting a little just trying to introduce some stuff before we start racing, just to get it feel running a little bit faster. But I do tend to be more, I guess, more traditional in cross-country where it's a lot like, you know, whatever, 10 or 12 by a k or six or seven by a mile. And, you know, a lot of times, you know, starting at pace and hopefully working down, you know, some pretty traditional stuff. But I think, you know, we'll throw in, we'll throw in some of those more hybrid sessions within that. So, again, we don't get stuck into a routine and we do throw, you know, some things that you, you know, you're not gonna ever be in a cross-country race where it's goes from temple pastry to a mile pace. Or, you know, that's, you know, it's an extreme. But it's like, you do get these ebbs and flows in a cross-country race where you have things that break your rhythm or you have periods where, you know, where you are trying to, you know, settle or regroup. And so, I think from a, from a mental standpoint, it also gives you a little bit of a different stimulus mentally than what it just straight up. Like, hey, we're gonna do 10 by a k off, you know, 75 seconds and whatever we're gonna run. Butter a rip. Yeah, it's like, you know, it's not the same, right? It's like, you can kind of crap the same almost every wrap. Yeah, yeah. So then when you get into track, are you, do you get that more? We do much more, we do a lot more hybrid type sessions in track or a lot of things where there's pace variation in it, you know, either within a wrap or within the workout, especially with our 5k and our myelars, we do a lot more than that. There are 800 guys that is much more kind of, kind of very specific to what we're trying, what we're trying to accomplish in a race. But, but yeah, I think it knows the, you know, the 5k group and the 1500 group in particular. Again, because you see more pace variation or you can see more pace variation, I think it's, one, it's good to practice that. And I'm also like, I don't like repeating things a lot. Like I like to get our athletes thinking within a session. Yeah, yeah. So I think, again, I think there's like, you know, there's a certain, there's certain arm mentality that you just have to, you have to be able to learn how to adapt. And so I like to provide challenges where you have to adapt. Yeah, yeah. So then that kind of leads into this question I was thinking about is like, are you using those change in paces as a means of, and the answer may be both, like a physiological stimulus or a, let me phrase this, let me give you an example maybe. So I could see a universe where you might have somebody do four or five by K at threshold and then jump down into some 300, 400, 500, 600 type work at mile pace. Maybe some of the shorter stuff even faster, right? And the idea that, you know, okay, well, I still have a myler, it's an aerobic event. I need to maintain some degree of volume here. So I'm gonna do this threshold, get it out of the way and then we're gonna do some specific myler stuff. But I think some other people might say, well, the added benefit is that you have some pre-fatigue, so to speak, which at 600 meters in a mile, you're going to exhibit, right? I mean, when things get hard, you have to run mile pace while you're fatigued. And from what I've observed, this is something that a lot of coaches will do in different ways. And this is really where I think you can get creative in the type of session that you build. And as you said, it can be a very much, there's more than one way to skin a cat. Is it for you something where you're like, I'm trying to maintain the volume by adding some threshold work into this more specific session with speed endurance? Or is it more that, you know, I actually want to use this as a stimulus so that they have some fatigue in their leg. Does that question make sense? - Yeah, I think it's a little bit dependent, 'cause it can be either one. Like there may be some days where it's like, okay, we want to put a little fatigue in them. One, maybe we haven't touched threshold for a little bit. And so, you know, because threshold's not super-taxing, we could do a little bit at the beginning of workout. And as long as we give enough recovery, we can still do some quality work on the back end of it. So there's that idea, sometimes though, I may even flip it around where it's like, I want the specific work. I want to make sure the specific work is specific. I don't want them to have fatigue in their legs. I want them to be sharp and ready and really make sure that we hit this. And so we may do the specific work on the front end and then put some threshold on the back end of it. Now, I guys hate it when we do it that way. I was going to say, like, as you said that, I've done that to people before. It's not something I often hear about, but I've done that to people before. I've done that myself in fact this week. And you just feel so flat for the threshold. And you're just like, oh my gosh, it is truly worse than the opposite in my opinion. But I think it helps you major in the majors. I mean, is that the thought? - Yeah, no, for sure. And I think even just from my own experience, I know when I was being coached by Coach Warhurst and we would do a lot, we do a lot of tempo and then specific work, especially late in my collegiate career, early in my professional career. We go a lot of like four mile tempo and then hit a whole bunch of 400s. And when it went well, it was great. But there were also times where it's like, you either ran the tempo too hard, or you just, you know, you didn't come in as recovering into the workout. And so you come out of the four miles of tempo and we typically release like four mile straight tempo. And you come out of that and then you're like, "Shit, I gotta work out now." Like I gotta work out. - Was it a real tempo? Like, okay. - Well, no, we probably ran you a bar back then, right? - Yeah, I was gonna say, like we would regularly run 19 minutes or faster for a four mile tempo. - Like, this is when you're in college? - Oh yeah. - Oh my goodness, holy. - What was your, what was your five-kit at the time? Was it in that workout? - I only ran one five-kit, I only ran one five. No, I ran two five-k's when I was in college and there was nothing in press. I don't think I broke, I think I broke 14-20. - So you were pretty much, I mean, I was, I thought I was like, that's maybe, you know, I was, you know, I was the lower than eighth and NCAA cross-country all four years. So, I mean, I had a pretty big aerobic engine. - There's that confidence, I knew it was in there. We just had a bear, we just had to pull it out of you. - Yeah, it's like the little T. - The little T known stat, you know, I've got all these mile stats and national champions from the track, but I was a pretty good cross-country guy in my day. - They tend to be and what you're describing sounds a lot like Trent. Like, I think a lot of people just assume that he's a good miler, oh, they know he's a good miler. But he's been, he's been slowly cooking. - Yeah, no, I mean, I mean, you can look at it, like his success in the mile is directly correlated to how much better he's gotten in cross-country. I mean, it's like, I am a 100% believer in like, if you want to be a great miler, you better be able to hold your chops in cross-country. Like, you just, you have to be. And all our best, all our best millers that have come through here have been great on the grass. You know, myself, Nate Brennan, Nick Willis, Alan Webb, like, I mean, they're great at, but, you know, - Just throwing some names out there. - I mean, but, you know, you look at their, look at the result, I mean, Nate Brennan was an 800 guy coming out of high school and that guy ended up, I think, like, three time all American in cross-country. At least two, but maybe, maybe three. The only year he really struggled was his freshman year. And that was a 146 guy coming out of high school didn't have a lot of cross-country background. It's like, and then as soon as he took to that, I mean, his 1500 mile got exponentially better. And Trent was the same way. Now, he, you know, he registered his freshman year in cross-country, you ran about 26 minutes at nutty comb that year in the B race. But he won the big 10 outdoors, his freshman year and the 1500 and then jumped on the cross-country bandwagon after that. And, you know, goes from winning big 10s to making an NCAA final the next year to finish the second of the year after that. So, cheers. Yeah, I like to think that cross-country, I think oftentimes we get so infatuated with times, right, especially in track, obviously, but it bleeds a little in a cross-country and the one thing I tend to look at with cross-country runners is it seems to me to be an index of grit because you are going to be forced to deal with a lot of variance that you're not going to see on the track. I mean, for all intents and purposes, a track is a test tube. Yeah, you got a little rain, you got a little wind, but you're running in a circle that is flat, the same circle with the same bends and the same curvature. I mean, everything is the same, especially indoor. I mean, indoor is a test tube, and unless you're at BU. But my point is that in cross-country, there's a lot more undulation and variation, and one of the things that we know is that when you run up a hill, you increase oxygen consumption more, right, and then it comes back down, and there's a delay there, and your ability to increase and then come back down and increase and settle in again without things drifting up and getting ugly, to me is like, I mean, there's a term for it. It's literally called physiological resilience, right? It's your ability to sustain a workload at any given point in a race. And I think that is something that the mile isn't necessarily, doesn't demand, but it certainly helps you during the training for the mile, right? And I think they did a study, 83% of the 1500 is aerobic. So the majority of it is aerobic, and I bet if I measured Trent McFarland's VO2 max and I calculated it out, and I did all my numbers, I would almost guarantee it's going to come out to whatever, like 14 or 15 miles per hour, whatever his estimated, I think it's 15 miles per hour, whatever his estimated mile time is, like, there's an equation we can use, and I guarantee it's dang close. And I think people don't realize that cross-country is, it works all things, and I often, I feel that some people de-prioritize it because they're like, "Well, I'm a mileer," and the athletes I'm saying. Yeah, sure. But it's, you know, it's a really important piece of the recipe. So, okay, last few questions here, thank you so much for entertaining my questions. Okay, what is your, if you're willing to share? What is your favorite session for 800 runners and miles separately, favorite 800 session to give, favorite mileer session to give? So, and it could be one that you did. Yeah, I'm going to say it's tricky because if my guys will tell you this, I don't, like, I don't repeat a lot of workouts. What? I don't-- I don't like repeating workouts. I think it's, I think it's, you know, I think for an athlete, it's really challenging on repeating a workout, especially when you've knocked one out of the park and then you've got to repeat it, and the comparison factor can really mess with you. I mean, it can be great if you have another, another good one, but there's no way to put yourself in the same exact situation that you were the last time you did that workout. Indoor trough. So, yeah, and so I, I'm very hesitant, I, I don't, it doesn't mean I don't repeat workouts, but I'm rarely like repeat workouts, I don't necessarily repeat them on the, the same, the same time we did them in a previous season. You sense the irony when you have a workout called the Michigan, right? Well, that's the one where, that's the one where we, you know, it's pretty standard, but even, even that I've gotten away, I don't do it as much as I used to, like we only, we only did one Michigan this fall, and normally we do two or three, but we, we cranked our first one and I was like, you know what, we're, we're good, we figured out we can do, we can do that one, we're, we don't necessarily do it again. Now, maybe we do it next week before preliminary, or before regionals, I don't know, but yeah, I think like with our 800 guys, you know, I like, I like doing broken 800s as we're getting close to like really, really getting ready to kind of hit something. So whether that's 500, 300, 600, 200, you know, that would be kind of the first, the first set of the workout, which typically will go like, you know, 500, 300 or a 600, 200, 400, 400. You know, I don't, I haven't done 400, 400 a lot, I like doing a little, I like, I like the idea of going a little bit deeper on the, on the first rep, again, getting kind of the extension of like, the, especially like, you know, we got guys trying to run 144, 145. So, you know, coming through in 50, 51 and being able to, like, yeah, again, really understanding what you need to do in the next, the next 200, right? Like you can't, you can't afford to back off too much in that, in that 200, you're not going to, you're not going to accelerate on the back end of it. So getting them to 500, 600, really feeling what they're going to feel like at that, at that point. So I do 500, 300 or 600, 200, you know, take a big set rest and then we usually come back a little bit to 200, 300, you know, pretty, pretty quick off short rest. And that may be the, that may be the session right there. Yeah, yeah. And I like that. You're making my, you're making my heart pound as I think about running a 600 all out, you know, coming through, coming through 350, thinking to yourself, like, oh no, it only gets worse. Yeah. Yeah, on the, um, yeah, on the 1500 side of things, um, mile side, like, I don't know, we've had a few, a few different ones. Um, the one that guys have really like, we've done it, we've done it a few times last few years, we did three by 800, uh, three by 800 with like six, six ish minutes rest somewhere in there. And, and we usually started off right around like two flat on the first, the first one. So you're like two flat, and then usually like, you know, 155 ish, 155, 156. And then, you know, the last time we did it, we closed in like 148, uh, holy, that's so he is, they say all you know, um, so you know, that was, that's definitely been when we've, we've hit that a couple of, a couple of times, um, that's a little bit less volume than I like to do. But we're going so intense on the back end of that that, you know, we keep it, keep the overall volume like, cause usually with my, usually with my 1500 guys, I'd like to get, you know, three to four K of volume in a, in a mile specific session, um, three to four K, three to four K. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So a couple of days a little less than two miles to two and a half miles. I was going to, I was going to ask you this, you know, earlier, if, if you're Canadian roots, sometimes when you were like, oh, we do one K's or mile repeats, I'm like, you should make them do 1500s. Yeah. Yeah, they have to respect the metric system. Yeah. No, we don't do 15. No, I can, I can, I can easily switch between imperial and metric, but, um, but yeah, 1500, 1500, that's just, that's just, that's just the odd, I don't, I never did it. It's just inconvenient. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, um, but I, but I do like, um, you know, especially when we get into kind of championship season, doing like, you know, we maybe do something like, um, you know, a split to 1200 split 1000 split 800, you know, on the, on the track side of things with our, with our, with our myelars with that, you know, say like 800 400 and the 1200, where we're, you know, kind of right at race effort and then, and then a, you know, working on kind of closing big acceleration, uh, in the second, the second part of that, right, that's that shorter rep. Um, I like doing, I like doing stuff like that, um, um, or this building through session, you want to get a little bit bigger volume, like then blending at 3K, 1500 session together, and we get a little bit more volume in, in that way. Mm-hmm. Yeah. This is awesome. I'm thoroughly enjoying this. I'm getting excited. I'm, I have a ADHD and if you haven't noticed from this conversation, you will, but one of the things that I get excited about is switching workouts because now it's getting towards track and I was all excited about the 5K and now I'm like, God, dude, I just, I just want to get through my 5K or 8K race and I want to do something fast. Um, as you're describing these, I'm impulsively like, I'm going to go put my spikes on and run the hard 600. And then I think as I got 200 meters into that rep in my head, I realized, I don't want to do that. Um, so that's the one I, if I, if I had to go back and do it over again, I would not want to do 800 meter sessions and those are, so, okay, this is the last series of questions. It's, it's really two questions in one and then I have one final one. So, uh, this question is basically, uh, do you use any technologies in, or physiological metrics in your, in your programming? So for example, are you measuring VO2 maxes, are you measuring lactates? I know you have Jeff Burns, great biomechanist, I don't know if he's still there, but great biomechanist. I think it was a postdoc. He was doing some, some studies on, on the spring characteristics of, of Michigan men. So, you know, are you using any of these tools during your sessions? So not, um, not to extend that we could, um, so Jeff, Jeff is great. He's out actually in Colorado Springs. He, uh, works with US OPC now, um, of course he does. Um, but we actually, um, so one of my, one of my former teammates, um, is a professor in biomedical engineering and in our school of kinesiology and he runs a lab in, uh, Ken Cosloff. I don't know that name. I should though, but go on. Yeah, so he runs a lab in, uh, in the basement of our facility. So we have a biomechanist in physiology lab in the basement of our facility. Of course they put them in the basement. Yeah, I know it was great. Well, it's funny. We built our facility almost 10 years ago and, and part of the project was we were going to have this, um, this partnership with the kinesiology department and have a lab in the basement. And then with, like with anything, we ran out of money, right? And so the first thing that got cut was this lab got cut. And so it wasn't until maybe three years ago that was, that between kinesiology and athletics, they finally got kind of funding back to put this lab in. So now we've got, uh, a lab downstairs where we're going to be. we can we can do all the testing that we kind of need. So like last year we did we did some VO2 max testing and we didn't really utilize it much. It's not a metric that I really that interests me that much honestly. I'll forgive you. This year we again we made it so optional for everybody but you know we have a we have a couple guys that have their own you know their own lactate meters and we have a bunch that do not and so what we what we did was we went and did some lactate threshold testing down the down the basement where one thing most of our guys have is they have some sort of wearable right and so they have they have either a garmin or a chorus or something you know they have their measuring heart rate and whatnot and so I was like well we don't necessarily have the capacity to go out and you know have 25 guys and prick their finger in the middle of every threshold session but if we can do some lactate threshold testing where we find we just have the range of heart rates then you know we at least have a starting point for you guys that are that want to go off of a watch where we can kind of monitor heart rate so especially when we're doing our you know our thresholds um we can dial in a little we can dial in a little little bit better um yeah see it's not going to be exact um like with anything but um it's giving us a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of room for our athletes to take some ownership of their training right they can give me a little bit of feedback just not necessarily just a verbal how do I feel it's like we can actually like okay I'm like I'm within this range or I'm outside of this range one one way the other and then we can adjust on the on the fly for my guys that have like tape meters we have used them a little bit where I let them use them in a few sessions um but I'll be honest like I also believe that you should have a feel for what threshold feels like yeah you should know and I'm like yeah and I'll go back to like again I'm in I'm in I have an engineering degree so like I love the science side of things like but I'm like I competed from the time I was 12 years old until I was 35 and in my entire career I did one VO2 max test because when I was oh I can't remember I was in the 80s some some no someone dig this that is awesome yeah I have to find it some point but um but I but that's it we did everything off of feel um like you know and that again that took some that took some trial and error like I said there was a point in my collegiate career where we ran tempo stuff and I know this now I ran it too hard but I know because of the way I felt coming out of it yeah you're especially on how like you're supposed to feel um and so again I go back to my guys like I don't want you to live by your watch or your chorus or or your heart rate strap or what your hoop tells you like that's that can be a good guideline for you but I want you to be able to feel this too and I'm also going back to like there's going to come and point in the race in a race where you're either you either have it or you don't have like you you can't look at your watch and be like I'm running too fast like I'm going to I'm red line it um so again I know for you know for the die hard like oh we've got to prick our finger every every other wrap person out there they're like oh man these guys are not doing it right but um again we're shifting a little we're shifting a little bit more in that direction and the great thing I would say that we have here with the lab downstairs um the lab the lab technician that runs it has about a dozen of students and so we're kind of in discussions of like hey can we do some more consistent lactate threshold testing in the middle of our workouts where we got yeah we've got students out there that are that are that are doing this it's not like it's not going to be me out there are my assistant coach or my athletes running over and trying to do it themselves in the middle of workout week we want to structure it so it like it really worked for our best yeah yeah yeah and so yeah so you know in in the meantime it's like we use a range of like um you know I dial things back like you know from say like um you know we use v.tables a little bit but I find that to be a little too fast on the threshold the end of things and so we usually dial back like 10 or 15 seconds a mile from from what somebody somebody's Jack Daniel's v dot would be um yeah and kind of use that as a kind of a starting range and then go off a feel like really tell like just tell me how you're feeling or when we do it on the track at this list in the respiration rate and you can you can get a lot from respiration rate of just like you can see whether an athlete is running too hard or not so you know there's a there's a little bit of this art to it as well right where if you don't have all the either you don't have the tools or you don't have the means to use the tools as consistently as you would like there's other ways where we can get to a pretty close approximation so I had a few thoughts that I'm going to share on that you that occurred to me number one is the best way to meet or approximate someone's lactate threshold if you don't have anything you just do a 25 minute tempo and you take their average pace and maybe take a few seconds off of it almost like nine out of 10 times that approximates it because that is the system that you use and um the other thing is it's variable day to day so it's not even like it's you know it's it's not entirely reliable like I do mine on the same treadmill on the same time of day with the same meal and the same lactate sensor and the same temperature everything is the same it's a lot it's a literal lab um and so for me it makes sense and I would say you could take it twice in the middle and at the end in the middle to get a red light green light and at the end to get a data point and I often find that it's it's more helpful to use it and peach uliness said this as a red light as a like hey we're going too hard as opposed to green light which made me think about the ventilation thing you brought up that is 100% true we call that hyper ventilation and basically you can map out the relationship between ventilation and workload and at some point it starts becoming non-linear and there's actually two break points so it's pretty flat it increases and then it really shoots up and we call these ventilatory threshold points well one of the ventilatory threshold points approximates your lactate threshold so if you have that coaching eye you're 100% right you're quite literally listening and hearing what that ventilation rate sounds like and the other thing that you mentioned is you can see it I mean you can see it with their arms start getting a little funky they start lengthening the stride they look a little the plaudiomos look at what does wash their face or you'll wash their face expression right you can tell in some way you can tell when somebody's starting to either get distressed or you know they're concerned that they're getting to that point right and and so yeah you know there's that part or it's just like just communicate right like at the end of the day it's like we're trying to build relationships with our athletes and the ones we have the best relationships with are the ones that we coach the best yeah so yeah if you're if you're okay knowing like hey I'm not going to be upset if we have to run 10 seconds per mile slower because that's where your threshold is on the on the day then just then just talk to you about it like we're looking for consistency and training we're not necessarily looking to like be as fast as we can every day every day out to the last question I was going to ask is how you feel like things have changed throughout your career as a runner and now as a coach but the second thing I had to ask is does Camden law actually not wear a watch and actually just blow up every workout like is he he when I had him on the podcast he said he was basically aloof he's like I don't know man I just go yeah he doesn't have a he doesn't have a wrist watch I mean he drives me nuts right I mean and I'm and I'm not a big like I'm not so funny yeah I'm like it's just have the basics just like get it get a time X ironman put it on your wrist so you can at least time a time of rep but no he I mean he holds a stopwatch and it's like he grabs like his old jank he's like a yeah it's like sprint and that's what he uses to to to time himself oh my god but he only uses that workouts like you go up for a run it's like it's a good thing he knows how long there are different loops are because otherwise he'd have no idea you know how far how how fast he was running but yeah that's what I mean it goes just I mean it just goes to show it's like you know not everything has to be dialed in exact to you know the milling me or the mill a second right it's like sometimes he can go out on a day and he it's like when he feels good he runs a little bit faster when he feels sluggish he runs a little bit slower and that kind of goes back to like you know when I was in school that's how we treat that's how we treated a lot of what we did it's like days when we felt good we're you know we'd be clipping along and you know unless you were down and you know they used to have quarter mile marks down in Gallup Parkers there's a bike path that runs along the river and you could get a pace check in there off you off your time X you measure the quarter mile are you back to the track and we do a lap on the track to get a pace check and that's how we do how how fast how fast were you running on easy days back then well we we ran pretty quick back in my day like we were pretty much like by by a third mile in we were at least six minute pace it was usually like kind of 645 650 in six minute pace or faster the rest of the rest of the way in it was it was it a pretty quiet run or are you guys chit chat well I was a pretty quiet runner but I'm an introvert so like we would have guys in school that would you know they go for a run and they would not say any they're purposely not saying anything to say how long it would take before I said something so but something I mean if you're feeling if you're feeling good it got chatty is you know if you weren't feeling good then you were just hanging on yeah for any easy run. So then to finish that question, is there one other thing that comes to mind that you're like, man, this is way different? Like we did this so much different that you're kind of like, man, I want to do a little bit more of that. We want to do more of. Yeah, something that like 20, 30 years ago, we did this all the time and then I just feel like it's gone in the sport and it'll come back and always does. But is there anything that comes to mind like that? No, it's a good question. Yeah, because you see the ebb and flow and the changes in training and then everything kind of comes back to, you know, again, I would say like the building blocks are the building blocks. Like those I don't think have ever really, have ever really changed, right? You know, maybe the emphasis on certain things have changed over the years. Like, you know, I know back in mind, it used to do a lot more hill work than we do that we do now. And I'd like, I know even when, even coach Warhurst now to this day still does, he does a ton more hill work than what I put in my programming. And yeah, I always go back and forth of like, hey, do have I, have I cut too much of this out? Because I always, I always thrived on hill work myself. But there's, there's part of me, I think just as like, you know, this is maybe my insecurity as a as a coach is like, well, you gotta be ready. We gotta be ready. And it's like this hill works not getting us ready. We gotta do something to track to show us we're ready. And so I got to catch my, I got to catch myself and still be like, you know, it's a, it's a good building block. It's a good effort based workout where, you know, again, even from a mentality of like, you know, of trying to get athletes to not always think about their watch. Where it's like, let's just, let's just run on effort and whatever the effort is today on this hill is, that's, that's the effort. Go run mile effort. And if it's 55 seconds up this terrain of your hill, it's 55, it's 50 seconds, it's 50, it's 50 seconds, but that's what you got on the, that's what you got in the day. And the, the work is still going to be the work. You know, and so I think sometimes I worry like, oh, I've got to build their confidence by doing this workout on the track on this day. And then, you know, you can, you could shift away from like, hey, these are things that have really worked. Like, I ran, I ran 331 and 350 and all these other times. And by doing this work 30 years ago, there's no reason why that can't get these guys doing the same thing with their super shoes and by car, and all this, all the other, all the other tools that they have in their toolbox that we didn't have. You know, so yeah, for sure. Yeah. So this, the last question, and I, man, I had the, I wanted to ask you how this changes for the females on your team, like the, the males versus the females and the men versus the women. Um, I was going to ask, I mean, I know you're, you're working a little bit more with the men, obviously, but, you know, I was, I was going to ask that my last question, and you can choose to answer the female, or the male versus female question or not, but my last question is outside of a gold medal world record, a national championship, whatever, what do you want to be known for in the sport? How do you want to be remembered? So you can answer one or both or neither of those. Yeah, it's, you know, I've never really thought about legacy. Like, I, I mean, I, you know, I, I feel like I was super fortunate as an athlete. Like, I was really good from a young age, um, and I have a lot of accolades and a lot of records and, um, still have a lot of records to this day, you know, which is crazy. And no one's going to take the accolades away from me or whatever anybody thinks of them, whether they are impressed by them or not, doesn't really bother me. Um, and it's the same thing with coaching, like, I didn't get into it being like, I have to, I have to accomplish, you know, this many big 10 champions or all Americans or national champions. It's like, I, I originally got into, so I originally got into coaching when I was still competing. My, my first wife was, was coach, Illinois and Florida state. And I just jumped on as a volunteer and I, and I started getting really excited just like watching kids, so calm kids, but watching these student athletes, like come in with these dreams and goals and you watch a coach or you, you know, you become a coach or you have a little bit of, uh, influence on helping them move through this pathway and accomplish something that they just put on a piece of paper or put in the back of their mind four or five years ago. And it's like, that's still really exciting to me. Like, and it doesn't matter whether it's, you know, treatment, falling in, treatment, falling in, and Brennan Herger and Cam Law and John O'Reilly and Henry Dixon who are like, you know, some of the best of the best or it's the other four 10 guy that gets to 402. And, and that's their, that's their, that's their ceiling. Um, and they're still excited by that. Um, yeah. Yeah. So I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't walk away being like, I don't, I don't aspire to have my name on a wall, anything like that. I just, I just, I just, I just come to, I just come to work and I want to, I want athletes just all of my whole goal is for athletes to get the most out of themselves. And it's probably what frustrates me the most as a coach is when I see talent athletes that don't give everything. And so if anything, I just, I just want to be remembered as a coach that like, push their athletes to be the best that they could be. Um, and whatever their success is, their success is like, again, I, I love sharing in the national championships. I love sharing in Penn Relays victories and big 10 championships, but, um, you know, I've had some pretty joyful moments of, you know, the unknown athlete having a big breakthrough. And that gives me, that gives me as much pleasure as anything. So it doesn't, doesn't matter to me how many of those accolades I have at the end of the day. Um, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully the athletes leave here and just appreciate that I, you know, I gave them the best version myself at that time period in my life. Then I've done a good job. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one, one guy that comes to mine as Miles, you know, seeing obviously, he's super talented in high school. I mean, I think what it was high school PR was like 46, 47 and 46 point in the quarter. Yeah. Yeah. He's like 151. Super fast. Yeah. So it's, and then I think he got banged up a little and then seeing him come back and compete at the highest stage was like, it was pretty, it was pretty fun to watch. Um, that was just like one person that came to mind. Yeah. No, he's a, he's a great one because he's won. He's just like, he's a great person. Like you just started med school at Howard this, this, uh, different summer. Yeah. Yeah. He's, uh, he's training with the Under Armour group out in Baltimore now as well as he's going to try and do both of these. Um, but yeah, you know, he's obviously like really heralded high school, high school kid. Um, we're super excited to get him and, you know, um, makes, makes NCAAs as a true freshman. And then sophomore year has this like horrific injury that, you know, basically we just, we had to rebuild, you know, both we just had to rebuild his body. And then we had to almost teach him how to run again. And that, that was like a two and a half three year project. Um, we're, you know, I think there were times where both of us were like, man, are we going to be able to really see like the true potential. And then finally, when it all started coming together in his fifth year, you know, and there's awesome. Yeah, just awesome. And he's like, that's what you, you know, for, and again, it's just at the end of the day, he's a better person than he is an athlete and he's a great athlete. Um, and you want to see good things happen to good people. And so it was like the amount of people when he broke the collegiate record indoors in the 600 big 10s, like the amount of people that were in tears on the sideline from our team, just like, I mean, it was amazing. It just shows you like, you know, the impact he had on the people around him. And that also is more important than any of the athletic accolades. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, from everything I can tell from the culture and from the culture of your team and talking with the athletes that you have, I've had the privilege of talking with a lot of them. You know, I don't know what you're doing. And I think I do, based on talking with you now, but the culture of your team is among the strongest that I've seen. Like there is a sense of confidence and rapport and competitive friendly competitiveness where, you know, these guys want to beat each other. I think, um, I think Herger and Dixon had some funny banter where they're like, yo, I'm going to be the fastest freshman ever or whatever. And, uh, you know, that kind of environment, it, it breeds success. And it definitely shows. And so I'm really excited to see how you guys perform an indoor as you head into outdoor. You've got a super deep team in the middle. I mean, you lost miles, obviously, but you have so many returners where it's like, holy moly, you guys are going to be fast. So yeah, we're super excited. Yeah, we're really fortunate. Like, you know, Miles is the only one we, you know, that we lose, um, out of that, out of that group. And that whole group is back next year as well. I know. It's like, oh my gosh. And, you know, it's not lost. I mean, like, we're super, we're really fortunate, right? Like that. It's a special group of athletes that don't, you know, groups like that don't come around all the time. Well, I want to give you your, your flowers, though, because when you recruited them, they weren't that. I mean, Camden Law was literally chasing his teammates during 200 meter reps. Uh, Henry was what a 410 mile error. I don't know, trends times. I know he was fast, obviously. Uh, I don't know, Herger is John Araleys. I don't know their times off the top of my head, but like a lot of of these guys who's developed. So yeah, I mean, sit there and be like, all those guys, all those guys were, you know, again, they're maybe not your true developmental, but they're, I mean, they were, they were were definitely all on that kind of more in the development spectrum, you know, they weren't running so foreign high school. Yeah, Cam was 151. Basically didn't run as whole senior year, you know, for a number of, number of issues. You know, Jono, Jono was 153 in high school. He's 146. Now, you know, Henry is 410, 151 by the end of his senior year, but when we, when we signed him, you know, and, you know, we were like 413, 413-ish in 152, 153, Tram was 413, 151, but he won a couple state meets, you know, Herger was the most heralded out of the group. He'd run, you know, 407 in his senior year and 149, I believe. You know, that's potential. You see that, that's. Well, the thing about Herger, I know I'm going long, but the thing about Herger is a little bit under the radar, you know, Juan, he's in Michigan, Michigan, which when you look at him, Michigan has great athletes, but a lot of times they don't kind of blossom until their senior year, a lot of times. So we see him a lot and we see what we think is potential. You could definitely see like, he moved really well, super smooth, but he was like, his high school Northville at the time, was like, had one of the best four by eights in the country. Like, they won new balance either as junior or senior or maybe, maybe both years, but, you know, he was always, he was anchoring those relays every year and you could just see like, when you got a baton on his hand, and he was chasing us, like different, different athlete. And that's the thing where it's like those intangibles where, you know, yeah, the times, the times got him on our radar and we started calling him, but it was like the intangibles where we're like, we need to have this guy here because one, he looks like he looks and everything is coaches tall, so he's a great team guy. And both as a, does a person, but when he, when he competes, he just tries to win. So it doesn't matter whether it's a four 15 race or a four or five race, he's trying to, he's going to try and win that race. And that's what we, that's what we want to see is like, do you, do you love to win? Not just, not just run fast because I love the times people can run fast, but can you win? Gives me chills. I was never that fast, but I was always a sit and kick or as, as hubi, as I think I'm going to call him from now on, as you Baker likes to say, sit and fade at this point in my career. We sit and fade. But anyways, coach, this has been a blast. Thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate it, Justin Ranaldi said in himself, he's like, I just take everything that I like from other people and I apply it. It's cool to see because your athletes are benefiting and the culture is great. So thanks for all you're doing for the sport genuinely. It's, it's truly awesome to see and I really appreciate you coming on the pod. Is there anything you want to leave with the people with before I let you go? Nothing, nothing, nothing in particular, just, you know, like I said, we're super fortunate. We, we recognize that and, you know, hopefully we can just keep putting up some good exciting performances for everybody and just keep the tradition going because we got a good, we got a great tradition. I'm proud to be a part of it and it's exciting to be a Michigan Wolverine for sure. Yeah, to say the least. Well, thank you guys for listening. If you haven't done so already, subscribe to our podcast. Leave us a five star review. Leave us some comments as well if you guys find it helpful. And one more thing, if you ever have questions that you want to stay answer on the podcast, you can email me them or you can drop them to my DMs, Dr. underscore Evans underscore running on Instagram. Thanks for listening and we hope to see you back.