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August 2022 The Oval Magazine 5Philly Sports, Sub-Fours, and More Gary MartinBy Joe CullenPhoto Credit: Elijah Agurs, @eavzls

Photo Credit: Elijah Agurs, @eavzlsThe Oval Magazine August 20226When Gary Martin rst agreed to do an interview with The Oval, I was excited. As a Pennsylvanian, I’ve been an out-side observer to Martin’s feats for the past couple years, and watching someone represent the Keystone State on the national stage has been a privilege. Moreover, get-ting to chat with Martin and share his story through our platform was a huge opportunity. Then came the “oh, crap” moment. Martin’s appearance as a gangly, bespectacled teenager belies his prodigious talents. He gained fame for soloing his races on Pennsylvania soil, mostly eschewing expertly manufactured and paced races where he could run faster. This culminated in his rst sub-four mile, a 3:57.98 effort at the Philadelphia Catholic League Championships. Sounds all good, right?With those exploits comes a certain amount of media attention, and people far more experienced and capable than I have told Gary’s story. Chris Chavez brought him on for an engaging Citius Mag podcast session, reliving the Archbishop Wood star’s breakout race and what came next for Martin. Dave Devine of DyeStat penned a great longform piece detailing Martin’s origins and quick rise within the sport. Heck, he even got a shoutout on Kyle Merber’s The Lap Count. What angle could I bring to the table that track and eld’s most prominent voices hadn’t already? I pondered, and then maybe slightly panicked, and then pondered some more. The realization I came to wasn’t groundbreaking; this interview with Gary won’t provide some intense per-sonal revelation or the secret sauce to his becoming the 5th fastest high schooler ever. Rather, it’s the product of sitting down for half an hour with a high school senior and discussing (and sometimes mixing) two topics he’s familiar with and passionate about: Philadelphia sports and running. Though Gary might be faster than all but the world’s top milers, he’s still torn up about the end of the Sixers’ season, and more importantly, he’s a reminder that even the fastest of phenoms are human, with their unique pas-sions that make them happy. Edited for clarity

August 2022 The Oval Magazine 7Joe Cullen: How busy and surreal has the past month felt for you? You were a big name in the running world before breaking four, but with breaking four and becoming the cult sensation you are, it brings a new stratosphere of attention. Gary Martin: It’s super cool. Like you said, I think I’d already broken into it, in terms of national attention from nationals and running four flat. I was already there a little bit, obviously it’s more now with the sub-four. I really got more attention, it’s been like a big increase outside of running. Outside of running news, local media and even national media [have given attention] because people recognize the significance of sub-four... It’s definitely been overwhelming and it’s been a lot to manage, but I’m incredibly lucky to be in this position and I’m going to take it all in.JC: You previously mentioned that sub-four is universally known, whereas if someone runs 1:48 in the 800 most people won’t recognize the signicance. Do you think there’s an equivalent of sub-four in any other sport, any stat that people hear and recognize that it’s a landmark achievement? GM: It’s tough, because in other sports, the statistics are With Joe and GaryGN IGNAH

The Oval Magazine August 20228relative to who you’re playing so you can average 30 points per game in high school and it’s not the same as averaging 30 points per game in the NBA. Even averaging 30 points per game in one high school league won’t be the same as averaging 30 in another, so it’s really hard to compare. If you’re looking for the closest comparison, it’d be making an NBA team.JC: Because roster sizes are the same each year. GM: Yeah, it’s very static and obviously you’re not allowed to anymore, but there’s a select few people who went straight to the NBA out of high school. That’s a big deal, so it’s a similar comparison [to running sub-four in high school] because I’d have to imagine the numbers are relatively similar to the amount of people who have gone from high school to the NBA.JC: You mentioned the people going straight to the NBA and, sadly, that doesn’t happen anymore. But with your high school class being really good with Rheinhardt Harrison, Colin Sahlman, and yourself obviously, do you feel like that would be like LeBron’s [2003] draft class? GM: Melo, D-Wade LeBron, obviously Darko Miličič didn’t work out, but it was a very top heavy class.JC: I feel like that’s an apt comparison with your class having three sub-four guys.GM: That’s fun to think about. I never really thought of it that way, but looking at it, it could be. Because it’s not just the three guys who broke four, but there are a ton of really great distance guys, and in the 800 we’ve seen Cade Flatt and Will Sumner. The talent in high school is just on another level right now, and I think it’s going to be fun to see how it translates. There are guys who could make some noise on a national, even international stage, sooner rather than later, in the next few years in college and maybe the 2024 Olympic Trials – we’ll see what happens.JC: Going back, I know you mentioned the national media you’ve received, you certainly haven’t been living the life of an average high school senior. Your average high school

Photo Credit: B Adam, Bucks County Courier TimesAugust 2022 The Oval Magazine 9senior isn’t on a Zoom call for a running publication at 4pm on a Tuesday afternoon. With this newfound attention, has it taken away from your high school experience or has it been mostly positive? GM: It’s been positive. I think I’d be lying if I said, maybe, it wasn’t taking away from it a little bit. If you’re going to dedicate yourself to anything – academics, a sport, a craft – you’re going to have to make some sacrifices... I haven’t had as much free time this school year and I’m skipping my school’s senior week next week to go to Brooks PR and New Balance Nationals. It’s a little disappointing, but when you really put things into perspective, I think I’m just extremely lucky to be doing what I love at such a high level and have this many opportunities. It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make and it’s kind of something you have to expect when you go into a sport like this.JC: One of the big opportunities [you still got to enjoy] was going to prom after Penn Relays. As a big Philly guy how did it feel to be able to win in front of the home crowd?GM: It was absolutely amazing. Some of the local publications picked it up and they knew what I was doing. It was a big deal that I was going to try to break four minutes at Penn Relays. Obviously, I didn’t break four-minutes, but just to have the support of the crowd and hear my name... It’s Franklin Field. It’s an atmosphere that’s hard to describe unless you actually experience it... to have that support around me meant a lot.JC: Continuing on the Philly running questions, the Philadelphia area has a proud tradition. Within the past 10 years, there have been a lot of really good milers emerging from Philly, whether that be Casey Comber, Josh Hoey, or Nick Dahl. How does it feel to kind of continue the legacy of really good mid-distance guys coming from the Philly scene?GM: It’s super cool. I love to represent Philly, but I’m from 45 minutes outside of Philly. But it’s awesome just to represent Philly and I see people out on the trails all the time who say hi to me and recognize me. I’ve run with Philly Runner Track Club guys a few times, and like you said, the area itself has produced a lot of top middle distance guys so it’s cool to be a part of that. JC: With it having been a wild two months for you, it’s prob-ably been nice to have the distraction of being a newfound sub-four miler to distract from how bad the Sixers’ season ended. GM: It’s definitely been nice because I was less focused on the Sixers and more focused on running the mile. It gave me an excuse not to pay attention to the last series of the season and everything that was going on. Obviously I’m still keeping in touch and listening to my Sixers podcast every week and I’m trying to figure out what they’re going to do this oseason.JC: You mention trying to gure out what the 76ers will do. If you were given Daryl Morey’s job, what decisions would you make?GM: The first thing I’d do – I’ve said this before – but I’d definitely fire Doc Rivers, just because even if he’s not all of the issues...JC: The Paul Reed stuff was just…GM: Exactly. Paul Reed looked good in the postseason but couldn’t stay out of foul trouble, and if Doc would have

probably be higher. But they’ve been so bad, in my lifetime as a serious phillies sports fan, the past eight or so years it’s just been a lot of struggles. This year I thought I’d be more invested, but they haven’t been too good, so I still follow them. I’m not like some baseball fans who are super invested in the farm system, but I play baseball simulation games all the time, though it’s a ton of numbers and statistics I’m interested in.JC: Is it the one–I forgot the name of it – but it has a really big Reddit community?GM: Out of the Park Baseball. That’s actually my favorite game, I was just playing it earlier today because it’s so accurate, and there’s so much statistics and analytics. If there were that much data for basketball, I’d probably be playing [a basketball simulation] every day.JC: Then I’m assuming to nish off the rankings, Flyers at the bottom?GM: Yeah, I don’t follow the Flyers too much. They’re definitely four and then maybe the Union a little bit. I’ve gone to Union games in the past. JC: I agree with your Philly sports takes and rankings. Anyways, given that you are a big statistics fan and how passionate you are about sports and especially the Philly sports scene, have you thought about working in the sports actually played him during the regular season, he probably would have more experience and would have known how to better manage it and stayed in games longer... The way he treats the media and he doesn’t have accountability or [many] leadership qualities, so I don’t think he’s the best guy to lead the team. I think they’ve got to re-sign Harden because I don’t think they’re going to get much better from free agency, so I think the best bet is to take the chance that hopefully Harden looks better next year from the hamstring [injury]. Re-sign him and then obviously Tobias Harris’ contract will be o the books and next year they’ll have some flexibility. And hold onto Tyrese Maxey. JC: So obviously you’re a big Sixers guy, but when it comes to the rest of the Philadelphia sports, would you be able to power rank the big four teams [76ers, Eagles, Phillies, and Flyers]?GM: This is an easy one for me. The Sixers are number one by far. I’m very much on Sixers Twitter, I listen to Sixers podcasts, I used to have a Sixers fan page. Then, number two is the Eagles. Football’s easier to follow because there’s one game every week; it’s easy to sit down and watch the games. I’m not as able to name every player as I am with the Sixers but I’m pretty up to date and what’s going on.The Phillies are number three. If they were better, they would The Oval Magazine August 202210

industry? GM: When I was younger my dream was always to be the general manager of a sports team. A lot of kids dream of being in the league themselves, but I was always more realistic and knew I wasn’t going to be a pro basketball player. I saw myself managing the numbers more as I’ve gotten more into running, though I think it’s become more realistic that I could get into coaching which I would really love to do.Coaching is less numbers and analytics than managing itself... I know there definitely are some [numbers] I’d be interested in, as I get more into college and probably take statistics classes and try to apply them to running.JC: There’s some nuance there too. In professional sports and especially football and baseball there’s like a clear divi-sion between the front ofce and the coaches, but in running, especially the college scene, coaches are the ones both offering the scholarships and actually coaching them.GM: It’s cool. Certain coaches have dierent ways of approaching it. It’s the same way in other sports like basketball; it’s certain coaches and certain general managers who are very old school and some who are very analytical and use sabermetrics. With college coaching, I think there’s a lot of guys who lean into more of a new school analytics in terms of recruiting or coaching, and then there are some coaches who are old school. JC: That’s very interesting too because going back a million years to my recruiting process [editor’s note: as a decidedly much worse recruit than Gary], it felt like a very inexact sci-ence. There were some coaches who didn’t even ask what kind of mileage I was doing. Hopefully it’s gotten better, but that leaves a lot of room in running for a guy like you who’s statistically-minded to provide a more progressive approach when it comes to analytics and running. Photo Credit (both): Gary MartinAugust 2022 The Oval Magazine 11GM: I think there are a lot of coaches who are already very analytically heavy in terms of recruiting. But there are a lot of dierent numbers, as you said with mileage and progression and workouts. You can use analytics to make a prediction on who’s going to make a big jump in college and it’s hard, because obviously with any other sport, you need to be able to balance analytics with work ethic and injury history and just the personality. But there’s definitely a place for statistics as well. JC: Bridging the statistical revolution in other sports with running, obviously the Superspike and Dragony revolutions have led to large improvements in times over the past couple years. Does it remind you of the three-point revolution in basketball, in that they’ve both been controversial but also fundamentally changed their sports? GM: I think so, and it’s interesting because I see the similarities and there are some dierences. The three-point revolution changed the way basketball was played, the way coaches strategize the way, and the certain type of player they look for in the NBA. With shoes, its technology benefits anyone who can get their hands on the shoes pretty much.It’d be foolish not to acknowledge that there are benefits to the shoes and that they’re making people run faster but some people pretend like this is the first time we’ve seen technological advancements ever. When you look back in history, the sport’s always been changing–the quality of the track, the quality of spikes – because there’s always been jumps in technological advancement.JC: Another meta question: If you could make any rule or scheduling change in the NBA, what would it be?GM: I’ve seen a lot of people call for this. I don’t think it will ever happen because the NBA’s long season makes far too much money, they never want to actually shorten. I think shortening the season would lead to higher quality of play, because you’ll see less guys having to rest. Guys will also be healthier for the playos and regular season games will matter more, like in the NFL every game matters. I’m not saying make the NBA 17 games, make it maybe like 50 to 60 and you’ll see games will matter more. Fans will be more invested, players will be more invested, and I think it’ll make for an overall higher quality league. But like I said, it’ll

The Oval Magazine August 202212never happen because there’s too much money lost.JC: For sure, especially when you see the games in February and March that feel like slogs because players are tired or load-managing. GM: I was just thinking about how that’s an interesting comparison to running because running is very flexible. All the top athletes aren’t running a race every week, they’re managing their racing schedule and they’re only racing when it really matters. That’s a luxury that other sports don’t have and maybe running could use a more of a league format and it’d be better for the sport. The way it is now at least, I think it helps benefit athletes’ performance overall.JC: Do you think there’s a way for a central governing body to set a more standardized schedule in running without totally robbing athletes of their autonomy in setting their racing schedule? GM: It’s tough, because part of the beauty of track is the flexibility and the individuality, that every athlete can train on their own schedule. If you don’t want to race for a year and you just want to train, you can. At the same time, I think in terms of athletes getting more attention and the sport more recognition, it’ll lead to more money, better opportunities for athletes, and more athletes being able to go pro. I think the best way to do that is having some form of central governing body. I don’t know what the exact answer is, but it’s something I’m excited to see in the future. JC: Moving on to some lighter questions, what’s your favorite place to get a cheesesteak?GM: That’s tough. I’ve gone to quite a few with my parents down in Philly: Jim’s, Pat’s, Dalessandro’s. I mix them up sometimes, I’ve gotten a few dierent ones. I’m pretty sure Pat’s is the one I normally go to. JC: Why hasn’t Wawa done an NIL deal with you? I feel like they’re missing a slam dunk with it. On Chris Chavez’s podcast, you were talking about how you got the quesadilla after going sub-four. I feel like they could even rip off Dunkin’ Donuts’ catchphrase — Gary Martin runs on Wawa. GM: Hey I’m not disagreeing, and if Wawa wants to do an NIL deal, they should reach out to me. I’d definitely be down. Someone went out and got the Gary Martin quesadilla and put it on Twitter, so I was honored that someone actually listened to my food advice.JC: Online, I saw a picture of you wearing a Burger King crown. I know you’ve said you’re a healthy eater, but if you had to rank Burger King, Wendy’s, and McDonald’s, how would you rank them? GM: I feel like a fraud just because it wasn’t my crown. Someone else had gotten it and I had stolen it. So I haven’t eaten at any of them in I think four years. I used to eat them a good bit, so I’d probably go Wendy’s, McDonald’s, then Burger King. I always liked Burger King’s fries so I’d put them up there. Wendy’s was always good–they had good burgers and I liked their baked potatoes.JC: It’s tough to hear your Burger King slander, but to each his own. GM: I’m sorry.JC: Anyways, you’ve mentioned in your interviews before that you used to play basketball and still play some recre-ationally. If you could compare your playing style to any Sixer – past or present – who would it be and why?GM: This comparison has not aged well, but three or four years ago I would always compare myself to Ben Simmons. I feel like I can’t do it anymore, but the play style is somewhat similar. I was never a great shooter. In terms of myself compared to my CYO competitors, I’m probably a better shooter than Ben Simmons compared to the NBA. It’s funny because this comparison is not as good, but three or four years ago I would always compare myself to Ben Simmons.But I was always the tall, slashing ball-handler who can defend a bit and was best in transition. I like to get out and run, draw some fouls, and get to the free throw line even though [I’m] probably not the best free throw shooter. JC: I really appreciate you taking the time to chat with me today. I know it’s been a crazy time for you with running and graduation, but it’s always fun to talk about track and Philly sports.

August 2022 The Oval Magazine 131. Ben Simmons or Carson Wentz?I like Ben Simmons more. I don’t know if that’s gon-na be a popular answer, but I was never I was nev-er a huge Carson Wentz fan. I’m still not a huge Ben Simmons fan but Ben Simmons gave me some good moments, and I still have some sympathy for him. I think he was in a very much misman-aged situation and might not be in the best place right now either. So I’m hoping he gets the help he needs and hopefully gets better people around him.2. Joel Embiid or Allen Iverson? I feel like I’m a product of my era so I’m inclined to say Embiid because I never saw AI and Joel Embiid has given me the most hope out of anyone – except maybe Nick Foles – in Philadelphia sports. He’s been a joy to watch him live and go to games. He’s been the heart of Philly sports fans for this generation.3. Gritty or the Phanatic?Gotta go the Phanatic. It’s the classic choice; he’s been around for a while and I remember go-ing to games when I was a little kid. Somehow from when I was little I’m still on a birthday list, where I get a happy birthday card from the Phanatic.

14Photo Credit: Gregorio Denny

August 2022 The Oval Magazine 15Forged in FireForged in FireEmily Infeld on Redefining CourageEmily Infeld on Redefining CourageBy Sarah Moxham Her face finish at the USATF Outdoor Championship 5K says it all — grit. Emily Infeld has no shortage of it. This year alone, Infeld’s grit and condence have been tested in a crucible of challenges. From recovering from surgery and an onslaught of injuries throughout 2019, to navigating three years of stalking and harassment while main-taining peak performance, Infeld is a testament to the power of will. But as many of us know in this sport, the stat sheet can drastically differ from the day-to-day experience of the athlete putting up the times. After nine years, Infeld announced she was leaving Bowerman Track Club in January, 2022. Infeld trained solo for a great deal of the fall with the company of her husband, Max Randolph.Now, Infeld is being coached by fellow Georgetown Hoya, Jon Green, joining his Verde Track Club training group while working toward her goal of qualifying for her rst U.S World team since 2017. “I’ve just been reminding myself that there’s no one path to get to the same results. Running is really cool because there’s no set system for nding success. Now, being 32, what I can do looks different but who’s to say I can’t be tter than I was in 2017, but it might just look differ-ent,” says Infeld. Her collaboration with Green couldn’t have come at a better time. After spending last summer logging 1500 meter and 5000 meter races on the track, Infeld was speculating a move to the roads. Photo Credit: Gregorio DennyPhoto Credit: Gregorio Denny

The Oval Magazine August 202216“Last summer I was running track races and PR’d in the 1500 and the outdoor 5K, but I still felt like I wasn’t at a level where I could compete for spots on [World or Olympic] teams,” explains Infeld. “I started working with [Jon] thinking I was gearing more toward the marathon…after doing a lot of long stuff at less intensity I felt like I still love the track and want to give it another shot.”Infeld saw progress and set her eyes on making the U.S World’s team in the 10,000 meters. On the day of the USATF Championship race, she ran 31:30.04, placing fourth — nar-rowly missing the third place nish necessary to qualify for the Worlds event. “I ran the best race that I could and it wasn’t enough to make

August 2022 The Oval Magazine 17the team, but it doesn’t take away from where I’m at,” notes Infeld. “In this sport it’s about continu-ing to show up, continuing to put yourself in position to nd suc-cess. You don’t always make the team, but if you keep showing up odds are it will work out in your favor.”While the blow of not qualifying for a World’s team is hard to quantify, the magnitude of Infeld’s perseverance is not. She returned from the 10,000 meter championships with a laser focus on qualifying in the 5K.“I was eyeing the 10K all year as my chance to make the team. When I didn’t make the team I had to revamp… I had to turn my mindset and say I still have another chance with the 5K. I wanted to make that team and make sure I was ready no matter how the race played out,” recalls Infeld. On June 26, Infeld returned to Hayward Field and toed the line. In a close-contact race with fast splits, Infeld closed the nal mile in 4:25 — if it had been an open mile race, it would have been her career rst sub-4:30 mile — to nish in 15:00.9. Infeld’s determination was repaid with a place on her fourth USA team. It’s hard to believe that in the background of all her accomplishments on the track, Infeld was dealing with ongoing harass-ment and stalking, an experience that seems alien to most of us — yet lurks in the shadows of many people’s lives. While Infeld was preparing for her second Olympic games in 2018, Craig Donnelly began to reach out to her repeatedly over Facebook. He then moved to email. Then LinkedIn. Then came the discombobu-lated, threatening phone calls. He even mailed packages to her home. Over the course of three years, Donnelly repeatedly threatened Infeld’s life, along with other harassing statements. He went so far as to rent a home two miles from Infeld’s, even after she was granted a pro-tective order against him. Infeld spent much of her time away from home, too afraid to return. She lived on the edge of the reality she once knew, and the new one being served to her as a result of one man’s decisions, and the inability of the legal system to effectively protect her. “I felt like I was doing everything I was told to do and didn’t know what else I could do. I wish I had a solution, like ‘do this and you’ll feel better.’ I shouldn’t feel unsafe in my home or be told to leave my home for months to feel safe. That’s not realistic. The onus is so much on the victim and it’s not fair. It makes you feel powerless and you shouldn’t,” expresses Infeld. “I was lucky that I had family and places I could go to feel safe, and not everyone has that same experience.”The burden victims bear is not light. In Infeld’s case, it affected her performance at the Olympic trials, adding to the list of factors that impacted that decisive race. “I think last spring was really hard. I had been compartmentalizing it for so long until it got to a point where it felt like it would never be done,” says Infeld. Photo Credit: Gregorio Denny

The Oval Magazine August 202218Photo Credit: Gregorio DennyPhoto Credit: Gregorio DennyAs much as the harassment Infeld faced challenged the very foundations of her life, Infeld is made of tougher skin than most. Infeld showed the same grit she does on the track, drawing empowerment from an otherwise disenfranchising situation. She’s received hundreds of messages from other individuals who have been put in a similar situation, which helped her to feel less overwhelmed and isolated. “I feel really lucky to have all the support I’ve had and I’m in a better space, but I know there’s so much work to be done,” says Infeld. “All I can say is, keep ghting and keep advocating for yourself, don’t feel like you can’t help yourself and don’t give up.”There are many races, stories, heart-breaks and triumphs that can be written about Infeld’s career, and heck, many more can still come. To know that there is more time in your career than you think – it is refreshing when each season culmi-nates to one race or one standard. If you ever begin to doubt that there are no more chances for you to have a breakthrough, go watch her make yet another USA team again. Thank me later.

19Photo Credit: Gregorio DennyPhoto Credit: JL Photography & Design LLC, @designjlpd

Turning On Liberty Turning On Liberty A Look Behind Pittsburgh’s Liberty MileA Look Behind Pittsburgh’s Liberty MileBy Ethan HermannWhen the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania enters the conversation, a few things come to mind: the city’s bridges, its long history as the “Steel City,” its sports teams and sports fans, Andy Warhol, and probably a few other things.What does not immediately come to mind is run-ning. The city’s hilly topography coupled with its grey and rainy climate do not scream out that Pittsburgh as a running mecca, but it is slowly and surely becoming more of one in 2022.The Oval Magazine August 202220

Pittsburgh’s Liberty Mile — which turns heads in both the Pittsburgh area and national running circuit alike — just turned ten years old. The Fleet Feet Liberty Mile ends on Pittsburgh’s Liberty Avenue, and ends with a slight downhill cutting through the heart of Pittsburgh’s Cultural District.The Liberty Mile is Pittsburgh’s answer to a summer race that will August 2022 The Oval Magazine 21bring people out en masse, but that also won’t melt its racers. When asked about why the Liberty Mile was in fact a mile, Run P3R’s CEO Troy Schooley explained it was about recogni-tion and ease for all runners. “In 2012, we wanted to create a new event that would bring a lot of excitement to our running community and be different from the typical weekend 5ks,” Schooley said. “We thought the mile distance was per-fect for showcasing top talent but also an opportunity for participants of all ages and abilities to participate.” Schooley hit the nail on the head — not everyone wants to try their hand at a half marathon or even a 5k. In the summer, spectators won’t want to carve out half of their morning to cheer on a friend or deal with half of the city being closed for the race. A half marathon may not excite noncha-lant members of the community — but a mile? Everyone knows the mile!“The mile is such a classic American dis-tance,” Schooley said. “Even if you aren’t a runner, you understand what it means to run a mile and have a general idea of what a fast mile is.”The impetus came from other popular road races such as the 5th Avenue Mile, but the goal was also to create a party-like atmosphere on the back end. This placed the Liberty Mile squarely on a Friday night. After its rst year was a smashing success, it became known as a premier summer race for professional athletes and amateur athletes alike. To boot, the winner took home $5,000 on both the men’s and women’s side. Not a bad payout for a short race.Schooley admitted the payout is a good incentive to come to Pittsburgh, but the buck doesn’t stop there. “We put a lot of care in our elite athlete program and really focus on giving our athletes a wonderful experience while they are in Pittsburgh,” Schooley explained. “The money is one of the top purses in the country, and cou-pled with the hospitality, it’s one of the best races in the circuit.”After a couple of tweaks and changes to the course, factoring in Pittsburgh trafc and viewer visibility, the Liberty Mile’s now-familiar horseshoe course has come to be a mainstay. Excited spectators can watch the runners take off at the start, and only need to cross one block to get situ-ated at the nish line.From there it’s a waiting game, until little specks slowly become bigger and bigger and you can gure out just who is kicking for home in front. The excitement builds from the nish line, and the cheers get louder and louder as the runners get closer to the end. The rst wave of cheers from the 1200 meter mark ignites a roar among all those watching, as they know rsthand who is in front and that it’s going to be close coming down to the nish. The mile also makes for spectacular drama. There is such little time to create separation, and with the perfectly staggered and equally competi-tive heats, almost every race has a photo nish. The immediate-classic race of 2021 Photo Credit: DowntownPittsburgh.com

The Oval Magazine August 202222comes to mind, with Vincent Ciattei out-kicking Craig Engels, Colby Alexander, and Craig Nowak in dramatic fashion to win the men’s race. The same thing happened in 2022, with Ciattei reigning champion over previous winner and former Olympian Ben Blankenship. Ciattei, Blankenship and fellow pro Kasey Knevelbaard all ran 4:04, but Ciattei took home the biggest prize.On the women’s side of racing, the running household name of Nikki Hiltz took down a fast-charging Emily Lipari and they had to ght tooth-and-nail to earn their $5,000 prize as well. Both Hiltz and Lipari ran 4:28, and just like the men’s race, it came down to a matter of inches. Thankfully there is a good purse for all of the podium athletes, and a 15-rack of Pittsburgh Brewing Company’s Iron City Light was quickly placed into the hands of all who earned a spot on the podium.It is a party in downtown Pittsburgh, after all!The focus of the Liberty Mile began as a chance to bring the community together to support running more, and in such a rich sports town such as Pittsburgh, to have a race where the community can focus on and cheer for the fastest runners in the country shows that the fans love amazing competition, no matter the sport.As Schooley explained, P3R has a distinct focus that it adheres to, and it is kept in mind when putting on the Liberty Mile. “P3R’s mission is to inspire any and all to move, and we love that this event makes it so fun to run,” Schooley said proudly.The Liberty Mile has made its way onto many professional and amateur runners’ bucket lists, and that was evident in 2022. With three former US Olympians and both 2022 US Road Mile champions making their way here during the World Championships, the draw to Liberty is real.After another successful year, organizers will lie dormant for a little while, before the planning ramps up to make 2023’s race even better than the last. Photo Credit (Top to Bottom): Kristen Serafini, Fleet Feet, Kristen Serafini

23Photo Credit: Ryan McGinley

The Oval Magazine August 202224QA&Cade Flattby Jack Balick

August 2022 The Oval Magazine 25Coming into this past year’s indoor season, Cade Flatt was among the top high school 800m athletes in the country with a personal best of 1:50.25. But being “among” the best was far from satisfying for Flatt. Over the course of the next eight months Flatt managed to establish himself as the best, dropping his PR all the way down to 1:46.48, making him the top-ranked high school athlete in the event this year and the second-fastest of all time. The Oval sat down with Flatt to discuss this transformative year as well as his experience at the US Outdoor Track and Field Championships, where he gets his confidence from, his relationship with pressure, the recruiting process and much more. The Oval: So you just came off the US Championships. How are you feeling? Did the experience help you to learn any valuable lessons or grow your condence?Cade Flatt: I guess both. In terms of confidence, after the prelim it feels like I belong at that level and that’s why I didn’t do U20s. I knew I could’ve done U20s and could’ve done well and made that team but I got the experience of the real thing at this early of an age when I’m inexperienced so that next time I go I’m gonna be ready. Trials are coming up, I’m gonna be ready and know what to do with racing back to back days, finding ways to recover and talking to dierent athletes and coaches and doing research. I’m happy with the experience but it’s a little bittersweet. In that prelim I felt great, I know I said multiple times, if I wanted that national record I could’ve gotten it, I was just kind of holding back for that semi-final. Then I got to the semi-final and kind of screwed myself over in that first 200 and couldn’t bounce back from it, but I learned a few valuable lessons.TO: Were there any feelings of intimidation having athletes like Donovan Brazier in your opening heat and competing on such a large stage? CF: No, besides Baylor Franklin, Donovan Brazier was the first one to talk to me. So I wasn’t too intimidated by anybody. I feel like I’m at that level where if you go into a race intimidated or scared of anybody, you’ve already lost. And that’s the one thing I noticed at athlete check-in, you could tell just by looking at people who were fearful and who weren’t, who wanted to be there and who didn’t think they belonged there. I felt like I belonged there but there were definitely some pros where I’d be in the same room as them and I could look at them and tell them “You don’t want this as bad as this other g u y.”TO: Was it surreal to look at yourself in that moment and realize you had reached this level?CF: Yeah, 100%. I said to Donovan as he was sitting beside me while we were putting on our spikes — I’m not one to talk to competitors or to be friendly before I race, I’m usually pretty focused, but I had to say something — I was like ‘dude, this Photo Credit: Ryan McGinley

The Oval Magazine August 202226is crazy, I’ve been watching you, being a track kid and you’re the 800 guy and this is my event, I’ve been studying you for like two years.’It’s crazy just sitting besides him while changing into our spikes. If you would’ve told me last July after Brooks PR that I’d be going and racing in the US Champs, I wouldn’t have believed you. Something just flipped this year and just changed everything for me so it’s definitely been surreal. TO: Track seems to be a sport in which athletes usually shy away from trash talk but you seem to defy that norm. Where do you think that personality comes from and what kind of responses have you gotten from your “trash talk?”CF: It’s never been a character or been anything that’s fake. When I say something I mean it. This is just me being real and not being fearful of what other people think. I get a ton of support from it. I get a lot of people looking up to me and a lot of kids saying ‘hey, you’re my inspiration’ and that’s surreal to me. But that’s who I do it for. The haters and the naysayers I really couldn’t care less what you’re saying and whether you like me or not. I’m not in this for you. I’m in this for me. But I think it’s something that gets more hate than it should. I think people should look at me and be motivated. I’m a high school kid that set huge, unreasonable goals that people wouldn’t have believed and I’m going out there and doing it and chasing greatness every single day. I was talking to my parents about the hate and I was like: ‘You look at the all time greats, you got Jordan, you got Muhammed Ali, you got Prefontaine, Conor McGregor — when he was in his prime — and what do they all have in common? They have this outspoken belief where they’re not afraid to back down and they believe in themselves so other people start believing in them, too.’There’s something to that and everybody in athletics wants to be one of those guys but they don’t want to be outspoken because they don’t think they can get there. Well, I think I can get there. I believe in myself and I know I’m in a position where I can say this and mean it and follow through. TO: This has clearly been a huge year for you. Can you talk about what’s been like to experience such rapid improvements in your times and such an increase in your status?CF: Yeah, it’s interesting. In the track world I feel like a celebrity. When I was walking through the athlete area at the trials I heard someone yell “Yo, is that Cade?” And I look over and it’s Grant Holloway. You know what I mean? People like that make me feel like a celebrity but in the real world I’m not out there yet. But yeah, it’s been crazy, people wanting pictures with me and I get a ton of DMs every day. I always try to respond to every DM. I FacetTmed with some kid for like 30 minutes yesterday who just wanted to talk to me. I’m down to do anything like that. Anybody who supports me and believes in me I’m willing to give back and do whatever I can for them. The supporters are who I do it for. TO: In terms of your progression on the track, did you always feel that you were on this tra-jectory to be running so fast at this point? Or was there a point where you made a huge jump?CF: So from sixth grade up to junior year I was number one in my class every year on

August 2022 The Oval Magazine 27MileSplit. Sophomore was the pandemic year, so that doesn’t really count and junior year I was second in my class.Right after Brooks PR last year in July I was at 1:50.25 and I worked really hard. Every ounce of me went into that race and I got fourth. And then in November during preseason something just clicked and I started saying these things and having these big goals. I said “you know what, I’m just gonna go for it” and I started saying “best ever,” “best ever” every rep. “This is what world champs do,” “this is what state champs do,” “this is what national champs do.” I started saying that every rep and then my team started saying that every rep and it just brought something out of me. And then we had our first race indoors and I hit 1:49 and it was like “okay, I’m there” and then every race after that it just kept increasing and this self belief just started unfolding before my eyes.TO: You’ve said in the past your training is very low in mileage. What does that training look like? Do you ever do recovery runs or is it all composed of workouts?CF: No recovery runs. I guess towards the latter part of my season when I had states and New Balance and the US Trials, I did a 10 minute run once a week but it would be super slow and easy. I would only run like a mile. I never did any distance runs during the season. It’s a lot of speed and I’ll lift two days a week. I would mostly get my volume on these 5k based workouts where I’ll do reps at a 5k pace so it would be a slower pace but I’d get my volume up but even then it still wasn’t a lot of volume. My coach’s philosophy, Andrew Johnson, is just to get me to the highest level doing as little as possible and I think he accomplished that. He’s a great guy. TO: What was your recruiting process like?CF: So I actually have a map in my room of the United States and it has a pin on it for every school that contacted me and watching that map fill up was surreal. I think every Power Five school besides a couple hit me up. But yeah the recruiting process was surreal and a blessing. It would be kind of annoying at times when you’re with your friends or you’re doing something and you get these colleges calling you, but it’s a good problem to have. I’d tell my parents “it’s a lot right now, but I’m blessed and there’s kids all over the country that would pray to be in this position. Ole Miss just checked all the boxes for me. They had everything I wanted in a school.TO: How did you get into track? Were your parents runners?CF: So my dad was a football and basketball guy, he’s like 6-foot-7, and my mom didn’t do anything. I was a basketball kid for the longest time. Marshall County, where I’m from, basketball is huge. Kentucky is a basketball state. So I wanted to get in shape for basketball and my mom was like “you need to try track.” My granddad would always say I was light on my feet from the time I was a baby. So I tried track and my first meet I hated it. I did the mile and the high jump. I liked the high jump but I hated the mile. I was gonna run the 800 that night too but the meet got called because it was too late so I didn’t have to run it and I was like “oh, thank God, no 800, whatever that is.” And then the second meet coach put me in the 800 and I was gonna quit if I didn’t like it. So I ran the 800 and won and it was the number one time in the country as a sixth grader so I was like, ‘okay I’ll stick around and see if I can maybe win a few more.’ So that’s kind of how it took o. Photo Credit: Ryan McGinleyPhoto Credit: Ryan McGinley

The Oval Magazine August 202228

August 2022 The Oval Magazine 29Photo Credit: Ryan McGinley

The Oval Magazine August 202230Photo Credit: Matt Vernot, Longwood University

32Photo Credit: Michael Scott

August 2022 The Oval Magazine 33A Deeper Look A Deeper Look At Walking OnAt Walking OnBy Ashley SmithWhen people think of the word “walk-on,” they think of those who are brave, courageous, valiant. But what often goes unsaid is the arduous side of being a walk-on, of giving your unconditional, wholehearted effort and having it appear as if you just… don’t… want… it… enough.Nobody tells you about the emptiness you feel when you must be left behind and experience meets from a screen, or the times when everyone goes around the room and states their event goals, but your response is merely “I’m an alternate.” Or when you get beaten by one too many runners and feel embarrassed to wear the jersey you have on. When you’re told all the clichés in the book about the intrinsic process of growth, that you have an “equally important role,” and are the hardest worker in the room, yet your room is void of medals, rings or trophies. Hitting a best time, but still feeling at the base of the mountain. Testing your patience while waiting and hoping that someday the spotlight will also envelop you. This is the side of being a walk-on that can sometimes make you feel unable to catch a breath above the water. Ashley Smith began her running career at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill by walking on to their cross country and track teams in the fall of 2016. After four years competing for the Tar Heels and battling an injury, Smith graduated during the height of the 2020 Covid Pandemic before transferring to Virginia Tech to continue running and pursue her Master’s degree. She competed for the Hokies for two full years. She began her career as a walk-on, and ended it as the Hokies’ third finisher at the ACC Cross Country championship meet and the NCAA Southeast Regional Meet. Photo Credit: Clare Smith

The Oval Magazine August 202234A friend told me once, “you’ve given a lot to running, but running really hasn’t given a lot back to you.” And for the most part, he was right. Until about a year ago. Here’s one more thing they don’t tell you about being a walk-on – the vast number of changes, palpable sac-rices, and bold risks to reach the same elite level as those around you. The intentional, daily effort required to emphatically strengthen both the physical and mental pieces of the puzzle. Walking on was scary and exhausting and hard, but it was also the most rewarding experience. Running gave so much back to me in my nal year – I felt a thousand tiny wins in the form of best times and championship races. Because of the relentless battles and standing up for myself, I’ll always want to accomplish just a little more, to avenge those painful moments in my athletic career. I often crave the coveted, tangible results – a medal I can hang around my shoulders or a trophy that can rest on my desk. To visibly see that all the days I wondered if it was worth it to keep going were not for nothing. But even though we can all keep hoping and showing up and working hard, all the shiny awards may never land in our hands, or only a modicum of them, and we have to be okay with that. There is so much I am incredibly proud of in my athletic career and I will forever be happy with my experience – this essay is not written to be a dramatic hole of despair. Instead, my limits have been tested, my skin has been thickened, and my heart, lungs and mind are all the tougher for it. But I would be remiss if I didn’t also express the adverse sides of my athletic experience. And there is a promising truth in adages about the value of hard work, but sometimes I can’t help but wish I could have reached the same outcome with a little more talent and a few less hard days. Photo Credit (top to bottom): Christian Jackson, VT Athletics, VT Athletics, Clare SmithPhoto Credit: Carol Chen, @cmchen2318

35Photo Credit: Carol Chen, @cmchen2318

The Oval Magazine August 202236Two Hacker Boys, One Shared Dream... 37 Years ApartTwo Hacker Boys, One Shared Dream... 37 Years ApartOlin and Tim HackerOlin and Tim HackerBy Adam WeyerPhoto Credit: Carol Chen, @cmchen2318

August 2022 The Oval Magazine 37At the 2022 NCAA Championships Olin Hacker won the 5,000 meters in 13:27.73 joining his father, Tim Hacker, as they became the only father-son duo to both win an NCAA title in Cross Country and Track and Field. This isn’t the rst time the Hacker duo has made history. Last year Olin joined his father in breaking the 4-minute mile barrier. They are the 14th ever father-son duo to accomplish this feat. As a parent, Tim never pushed Olin to become a runner. He wanted his kids to have opportunities but to make their own decisions, explaining that running is too hard. Even though they might have a talent in it, you really have to love the journey. “You have to be able to embrace the training and if you don’t like it you’re just not gonna do it and everybody suffers,” Tim explained.Like many other runners, Olin started off as a soccer player. He rst realized he could be successful in running when he won the 3rd-grade mile in gym class. “I was like ‘woah, I’m good at running.’ At that point I knew my dad was a very successful runner and so I was like maybe this is something I’m good at. But at the time I was playing soccer and really really loved soccer,” Olin said. It was ultimately watching his older brothers, Sam and Wilson, succeed that inspired Olin to forge his own name under the Hacker dynasty. “By the end of 8th grade I knew I was ready to stop playing soccer and go out for the cross country and track teams in high school.”Olin followed his father’s footsteps all the way to the University of Wisconsin, but he wrote his own story on the way there. “Once I got to high school and was able to start competing myself, I feel like then it was always my own story. Every race really is your own race, you have your own result along with a team result. Everyone has their own story in running, how they are progressing race to race and year to year. I’ve followed in my father’s footsteps to Wisconsin, but at the same time I’ve obviously had my own progression, had my own successes, my own failures, I feel like I have my own story,” Olin said.In the rst chapter of his college story, Olin started to under-stand that things wouldn’t always go right as he battled injuries and disappointing races, even when training was going well. “In high school I had a very linear progression. Every year I got better than I was the year before. In college for the rst time that didn’t happen,” Olin explained. “In the last year it really feels like everything has come together for me. I feel like I know the balance. Things have just been working.”“Growing up at my parents’ house in our stairwell there’s a picture of my dad winning the 1985 [NCAA] Cross Country Championships and I feel like you see that as a kid and you’re like, ‘wow that’s really cool,’ but you don’t really understand what it takes or what it means. Getting into college I had a greater appreciation of how hard that is and how rare that is,” Olin said. Individually, Olin didn’t even see a title as realistic until running well enough in the past year.“I’ll tell you how to win an NCAA title. Here’s the secret… honestly, it takes a lot of luck,” Olin said as he echoed a concept his father mentioned many times. “Things have to line up for you.” Olin has learned that it takes perseverance, patience, luck, talent, putting in the work, and most importantly believing in yourself and putting yourself in the position to win even when you’re hurting. “In terms of the work it’s not actually anything special, it’s just showing up day in and day out and just doing it,” Olin said. Tim and Olin share their drive, mental preparation, and most noticeably, a similar racing strategy that Olin learned from his father more than anyone else. “I would win races primarily by a kick; there’s not many times where I was out-legging everyone else earlier in the race,” Tim said.“My base on how I approach races is really from my dad. Obviously my high school coach Tom Kaufman, and Nick, Gavin, and Aaron, all my college coaches have taught me a ton. It’s about covering moves and being in the right position. Something [my dad] really impressed upon me for my entire Photo Credit: Carol Chen, @cmchen2318

The Oval Magazine August 202238compared to when he ran at Wisconsin. Olin also had some thoughts on early-season success, saying that “people run fast times in the start and middle of the season because they have really good guys to race. You don’t have to wait for the championship to race some really good competition.”While facilities have changed, updated, or remodeled the team culture and camaraderie remains unchanged. “They’re still the same guys having the same fun and they’re totally behind each other,” Tim explained.Olin focused on positioning in the weeks up to NCAA’s in practice and during the 5,000-meter race after some tactical errors in the NCAA Indoor 3,000 meters and a tumble in the 4xMile at Penn Relays. “I thought about being on Beadlescomb’s shoulder over that last 200, being on Brian Fay’s shoulder, Nico Young’s shoul-der or being in a group of those guys on the outside of that lane.”running career is pop last. If you’re the one to make that last move, normally people can’t hang with that. That’s how he raced and I feel like a lot of the time that’s what I try to emu-late.” Olin’s words reected his father once again.Tim believes that his son is more of a versatile runner. “I’ve seen him win in the last year in the last 80 yards but also seen him take races with 1000m to go and just put the screws to everybody and run away from people,” Tim said.Although Tim has never tried on any super shoes, however, as an avid track and eld fan he has no doubt that he and his competitors would’ve been able to run faster, a fact which makes his 3:34.66 1500-meter personal best all the more impressive.“I have not talked to an athlete or coach that does not think they’re an advantage. Everyone universally says that they’re easier on your body,” Tim said. “It probably would’ve allowed me to train harder and get faster.” “I would love to put my dad in his prime in a pair of the super shoes and see what he could do,” Olin said. The advances that Tim noticed have improved since his golden days in running include nutrition, equipment, phys-ical and massage therapists that keep runners constantly recovering and preventing injuries.“Most distance runners can train at about the same level but it’s [about] how quickly you can recover to get another hard training session in, that’s really the key.”These days, mileage and volume have a higher focus com-pared to the shorter, fast-paced workouts that were popular when Tim was running.“I probably was averaging more in the 70 to 75 [mile range/week] but I would have higher intensity workouts on the track and even easier runs were shorter,” Tim said. Olin believes the top end of the NCAA hasn’t varied much in quality over the last few years, but he has noticed increased depth, which he attributes to the enhanced resources that athletes can access. Tim described the difference in the facilities as night and day After nishing the race in pure awe and excitement, the rst person he went up to on the bottom row of the stand taking photos was his very own mother. “To be able to share that moment right then with her was just really special,” Olin said.“It’s incredible to watch your own kid doing it. It brought me a lot more joy than my own title in fact. You kind of understand, at least I have a better understanding now, what it all takes to get that kind of a title and to get to that result,” Tim said. Tim nds it incredible for Olin to follow in his footsteps, joining him as one of the best runners in the NCAA and becoming one of the fastest father-son duos ever. “It’s a legacy now that no one can take away, there will be pictures in the locker

August 2022 The Oval Magazine 39room. Maybe his will go up next to mine”As an expert in the sport, Tim has had to balance on the line between coach and parent throughout his running career. Olin, described by Tim as an information seeker, will typically ask his dad if he has any questions. Tim explained that he tries “not to give advice except when asked; sometimes I give it anyways, [but] I don’t want to overstep the bounds of the coach or undermine him in any way. I can help with big picture stuff – not getting in the way of the coach but actually assisting the coach.”Olin has recently announced his commitment to run for the Northern Arizona Elite team, based out of Flagstaff, AZ. Of his professional team search, Hacker said that he would “denitely love to train with some former teammates; I do love that Badger connection.” He tried to be systematic with his decision, though, and “really nd where is the best t for [him] and where [he was] going to be able to succeed.” Hacker compared it to reliving the experiene of choosing a college, explaining that it was an exciting process. Olin is a physically young runner with the ability to be com-petitive for many more years in the sport. Not to mention he has the ability to train a lot harder according to Tim.“The sky’s the limit. I don’t see why he can’t make a world championship team. I think, if the timing is right (and you always need a little bit of luck), he could make an Olympic team.” During his running career, Tim had the opportunity to run across Africa, Europe, Japan, South America, and his favorite, New Zealand, an opportunity he hopes Olin can experience during his professional career.Tim emphasized that patience is key in reaching your full potential in running. “The biggest lesson any young runner should understand is that, nothing in running happens quickly and patience is really the key when it’s really dark,” Tim said. “High school runners run four years and they think it’s a long time. It’s really not. You’d have to run another four or ve years before you really understand how good you’re going to be.”As a last note, Olin gave some advice for people who may be going through a rough patch in running. “There was a point where I was considering if I wanted to continue running or not, if this was the right thing for me. It was really an easy decision. I knew I wanted to keep run-ning. I didn’t want to give up and it was because I just loved it,” Olin said. “If you love running and you’re enjoying it, just keep pursuing it and success will come. That’s my advice.”Photo Credit (All three): Carol Chen, @cmchen2318

40Photos Courtesy of Victoria Garrick

August 2022  The Oval Magazine41The Hidden Opponent The Hidden Opponent Victoria Garrick Victoria Garrick By Sarah MoxhamFounded  in  2019,  The  HiddenOpponent is the fullest extension ofVictoria Garrick’s work as a mentalhealth advocate.A former  D1 athlete at  Universityof  Southern  California,  TED  Talkspeaker, podcast host, and the founderof The Hidden Opponent, Garrick’s rapsheet runs the gamut of mental healthadvocacy. She’s 25.The path to creating The HiddenOpponent began when Garrick walkedon to  the USC  Women’s  Volleyballteam in 2015. During her time as afour-year starter on the team, Garrickstruggled with performance anxiety,depression, and body image issues.“Being able to get set up with a sportspsychologist at USC was life-chang-ing for me. I was extremely gratefulthat  I  was  at  a  university  that  wasable to provide me that support whenI needed it,” Garrick shares.When TED came to USC’s campus in2017, Garrick tried out, was selected,and was able to share her story.Athletes  and  Mental  Health:  TheHidden Opponent | Victoria Garrick |TEDxUSC“After  my  TED  Talk,  I  wasn’t  surewhat the response would be,” recallsGarrick. “I knew it was a rising issuein sport and I didn’t see many peopletalking about it at the time. My inten-tion was just to reach other studentathletes  and  let  them  know  theyweren’t alone.”Garrick’s  TED  Talk  was  picked  upPhotos Courtesy of Victoria GarrickPhoto Courtesy of Victoria Garrick

The Oval Magazine August 202242throughout the sports world and she was met with requests to speak on campuses around the country to share her mes-sage with their student athletes. It was through these engagements that The Hidden Opponent was born. Named after her TED Talk, The Hidden Opponent raises awareness about student-athlete mental health and works to combat the mental health stigma so common to sports culture.Now, the Hidden Opponent now boasts over 400 student-ath-lete ambassadors across 200 campuses nationwide. “I had no idea what The Hidden Opponent would grow to, but it’s been amazing to see [its] success,” notes Garrick.Unfortunately, as much as the conversations around mental health continue to change, effective resources are still hard to come by. Student-athletes are disproportionately affected by this — over ve NCAA athletes have died by suicide since March. These victims join the nearly 46,000 Americans who died by suicide in 2020 alone. In light of the striking number of suicide victims across the NCAA, Garrick is more motivated than ever to create change in the collegiate student-athlete community. “It’s heartbreaking… it feels personal because our goal is to prevent it,” Garrick shares. “But we come back to the athletes we have in our communities that we know we have made an impact on, and that keeps us going.”While The Hidden Opponent has made great strides in facilitating conversations around mental health among stu-dent-athletes, Garrick recognizes that accessibility to mental health resources on college campuses needs to be improved. “We encourage people to seek help, then there’s no help for them,” says Garrick. “We’re hoping to grow and have more resources available and reach our full potential in supporting this cause. We’ve done a lot with very little so right now we are seeking out more support from people who believe in our mission.” So, as conversations around mental health increase, more resources crop up, ready to pull down the veil that so often separates individuals in need from effective care. The Hidden Opponent is one of them. Photos Courtesy of Victoria Garrick

43Photo Credit: Kinley Petrick

The Oval Magazine August 202244Three Mindsets to Move your Three Mindsets to Move your Program Forward Program Forward By Doug PetrickThe season just ended...so where do you go from here? Athletes, you’ll probably take some time off, write down your goals for the upcoming season, and then transition into the next training cycle. Coaches, you’ll probably chart a similar course. Take a short break to reboot, write down team goals for the upcoming season, and then shift into planning mode for the next train-ing cycle.As a coach of high school distance runners, I’ve found that self-reection is not only necessary, but personally rewarding. So as each season concludes, I sift through the best practices that helped our program improve. Then I write down three mindsets that best support those practices. The mindsets serve a compass to keep our program from veering off course. These big-picture themes will ease your mind when the season gets chaotic. Coaches and athletes, here are three mindsets to welcome for the upcoming season that are sure to improve your distance running program.Your Environment is a StrengthYour Environment is a StrengthThink creatively to work within training limitations.Whether it’s cross country, indoor track & eld, or spring track & eld season, every team has a unique training envi-ronment. (I’m a high school coach who happens to coach all three seasons.) The environment can be related to your physical location for practice, weather conditions, or the size of your team. As a result, all these factors guide the structure of practice sessions - workouts, group management, and culture. For coaches, an adaptive approach helps you work with the restrictions of your specic environment. Consider your winter training facility. Do you have access to a temperature-controlled indoor track? Do you have ample space for runners, sprinters, and throwers to access anything they need? Are weather conditions conducive to year-round outdoor training? In Southwest Pennsylvania, during winter months, the answer to those questions is no, no, and no. Temperatures drop, and rain changes to ice. When outdoor footing is unsafe, the hallways inside the school become our training ground. Sure, it’s not an indoor track, but we’re lucky to have an indoor training spot that is dry, warm, and at. Utilize the spaces you do have, and sneak in ways to deepen athlete-to-athlete and coach-to-athlete connections. In the building hallways, we have two main routes available, and each one spans past lockers and classrooms. Both the coun-seling loop (182-meters) and theatre loop (335-meters) twist and turn through the high school building. During the bulk of our winter season, our distance running programs emphasize quality over quantity during our Tuesday and Thursday workouts. We prioritize high velocity reps with lots of walking for recovery during speed development at the start of practice. Alternate extreme ends of the pace scale to

August 2022 The Oval Magazine 45teach new athletes how to dial into different gears. Seasoned runners sharpen form with simple coaching cues over short distances. With shorter seg-ments, athletes focus on mechanics in small pieces to prepare for that day’s inside workout. As a bonus, I get to chat individually with athletes between efforts. I provide feed-back on form, talk about training, or simply check in to see how their week is coming along. These moments do wonders for building trust in the athlete-coach relationship.One of our year-round training tenets is chunking a daily workout into multiple pieces. Even though the specics for any individual work-out and athlete may look different, the framework for practice appears the same.For context, any Tuesday/Thursday workout typically has ve pieces: warm-up/speed development, part one emphasis, part two emphasis, part three emphasis, and cool down. This approach works with the limitations of the physical space. It complements our indoor hallway locations, since cycling a large group of distance runners into smaller clusters becomes more manage-able. Due to the winding hallway corridors, additional recovery time is allocated in between each workout chunk. In turn, this provides time for athletes to process the purpose for each upcoming segment. Athletes check in with me as each sub-sequent part is wrapped up, and I eld questions and concerns as needed.Athletes connect within peer groups through chunked workouts. The athlete clusters naturally emerge, even without being formally assigned, during the rst few reps of the practice session. Within each pack, runners self-assign roles, as they will take turns leading the assignment and/or calling out time on the y, helping to keep everyone focused. Often, a vet-eran within the group emerges to provide support to newer athletes- a simple word of encouragement or workout tip when the time is right. There’s a beauty in working towards a common goal as a group.Some of the strongest athlete-to-athlete connections are made during “breathers,” the short breaks provided in between workout chunks. For a “breather,” as an athlete pack nishes, they are sent by me to walk down a ight of stairs, complete a walk/jog/skip series of movements, return back up the stairs, and then see me to hear short instructions on the next part of the workout. This downtime creates a safe space for runners to decompress before the next piece of the workout. Teammate small talk strengthens bonds that transcend training. Whether their conversation is about the latest Netix series, an upcoming test, or the post-workout Chipotle burrito stop… it builds the team culture. Athlete condence increases within the social group, which helps individuals navigate the approaching segment of the workout. Competitive Opportunities Increase GrowthUtilize feedback to develop your athletes. When is the right time for an athlete to race? Ask a dozen coaches, and you will probably get a dozen different answers. I’d argue that the right time is RIGHT NOW for your athletes. As long as an athlete isn’t coming off of an injury, waiting until you are “race ready” is irrational. Training prepares athletes for competitions. Competitions provide feedback. Feedback guides the athlete and coach to the next logical step in training. It’s a very cyclical process.In the spring, I enjoy seeing what our ath-letes have — from a tness point of view — during our rst scrimmage. It’s typically two and half weeks after day one of prac-tice. Depending on the experience level of the athlete, they may complete one or two events for the day. But no matter how the athletes perform, it’s comforting to know everyone WILL improve throughout the season. A scrimmage provides a simple benchmark for athletes and coaches. It’s a starting point for both stakeholders to begin the journey into the season.Obviously, a race provides numerical, time-based data. But the race data I’m Photo Credit: Doug Petrick

The Oval Magazine August 202246thinking of isn’t time, place, or splits. I’m thinking more holistically…sights, sounds, and feel. Close your eyes and visualize a distance race being played out on the track. Was it a fast start race? Did the strong kicker win? Did the eld split halfway through the race? Were the athletes responsive to the clerk and starter’s pre-race instructions? Was there labored breathing in the lead pack? Was a key move made as the bell lap was rung? Anyone get boxed in? Was it a physical race? Did any athletes get emotional before the starter red the pistol?In order to reach your potential as a distance runner, all of these questions are important. And as a coach, there is a skill related to each question that can be addressed at practice with your athletes. Structure practices that emphasize getting acclimated to a fast start, working on a nishing kick, anticipating the eld separating, etc. Surprises happen in races, but as a coach you can reduce the shock-factor from what you do at practice. Words to your athlete during practice can help anticipate what could happen so they have a plan in place when disaster strikes. Talking with your athletes at practice improves post-race conversations. Workshop those skills at competitions, and utilize the feedback loop to keep athletes improving. Independence Accelerates the Learning ProcessStructure situations for athletes to become self-reliant.Within our high school program, most distance athletes compete during each of the three sports seasons. But as a coach, is it necessary to physically meet up with your athletes every day of the year? Well… it depends on your perspective. During the winter/indoor track & eld season, we provide training struc-ture throughout the winter months, as a detailed weekly plan is sent out each Sunday. We see distance run ners 2-3 days a week in person from November through February. As a result, they perform the other days’ training sessions on their own. This routine continues throughout the entire indoor sports season, until we reach the Indoor State Championships. Once the weather improves, and we enter the spring track & eld cycle, the entire team meets six days a week through-out the season. When the state championship con-cludes, (Memorial Day weekend), athletes have some much-needed downtime. After the break, we reconvene with one pre-season cross country info meeting in June. During the meeting, we dis-tribute a detailed summer training packet that outlines three tiered levels of training for approximately the next twelve weeks. We discuss individual and team goals, the fall competition schedule, and answer general ques-tions related to the training. Athletes are on their own, with structure from the packet, until the optional cross country sessions kick off in July. During summer, July is the only month we meet in-person: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. For variety, these sessions occur at local trails off-campus. For context, each of the three days has a theme. Tuesday is a run-by-feel session, Wednesday is a decompression run, and Thursday is a potentiation run. The other days of the week have structure from the training packet, and are on your own through mid-August. Once ofcial practice begins mid-August, we tran-sition to six days a week through the start of November.Could we meet more often throughout the year? Absolutely. Are there other successful high school distance pro-grams that meet much more frequently Photo Credit: Doug Petrick

August 2022 The Oval Magazine 47during the winter and summer months? Of course. But there’s a benet when a coach relinquishes a little control. If your goal is to have your athletes mature as young adults, as well as runners, let your athletes take the reins once in a while. You can achieve buy-in from your team when you provide opportunities for empowerment. We all want athletes who lead others, make intelligent deci-sions, and holds themselves accountable - without a coach around. But there are key windows of time when the coach must be a constant presence. This is not a novel concept, simply plan your year with intention. For example, during our July in-person sessions, coaches are tasked with teaching athletes to complete a run-by-feel workout, perform a recov-ery run, and execute a run with surges.Learning is achieved in small doses, and by default running-by-feel workouts are emphasized during the summer. This plan allows newer athletes to get familiar with what may be a new concept. Veteran runners get a chance to sharpen this skill. Both groups can do this before the ofcial season begin, when the stakes aren’t quite as high. And it’s no coincidence that as we shifted our summer training to this format a few years ago, our attendance for July workouts has steadily increased.The training system is a little more nuanced for track than what runners see during cross country; there’s a learning curve. By intention, my approach as a coach is more exible. Everyone has a different rate of understanding and process-ing with training. Practice should be a safe space where athletes can take a risk, try a new approach, and challenge themselves. I try to create an atmosphere at practice in which athletes are comfortable with asking lots of questions and communicating. How do you do that? Patience. Someone shows up a little late to practice…talk to the athlete and try to understand. A younger athlete doesn’t understand the workout…ask questions and explain a different way. Be kind and forgiving. From observation, it typically takes an athlete a full year of High School training to understand how all the pieces t together. A freshman may not understand the correlation between what we did in September and how it supports what we’re doing in December. And that’s com-pletely normal. Once an athlete cycles through our program, the connections become clear. They slowly start to see the overlap week-to-week, month-to-month, season-to-season. As they become students of the sport, it allows me to devote more of my time to newer athletes on the team who aren’t quite there yet.If you strive to grow as a coach or athlete, it’s critical to pro-cess the ups and downs of the previous season. Knowing what did and did not work for your situation better streamlines the process. And as you enter a new season, these subtle shifts in approach move the needle forward in a small but positive way. As you ease into your next training cycle, which mindset resonates with you most? Doug Petrick coaches (Cross Country, Indoor Track & Field, Spring Track & Field) and teaches Physics at Upper St. Clair High School in South Western Pennsylvania. He enjoys spending time with his wife and three young children. In his spare time, he runs, writes, reads, and listens to podcasts. Connect with him at @DougPetrick1 on Twitter or @dpetrick76 on Instagram.Photo Credit: Doug Petrick

The Oval Magazine August 202248

August 2022 The Oval Magazine 49

50Photo Credit: Matt LeBlanc

August 2022 The Oval Magazine 51Running for Reproductive RightsRunning for Reproductive RightsFighting for Change through Track – One Donut at a TimeFighting for Change through Track – One Donut at a Timeby Carley CrainDonuts, track, and reproductive rights — an unlikely trio. But, with the right to abortion under attack across the United States, Val Moyer and Matt LeBlanc felt the need to take action. Four donuts, one mile, and over $500 raised for The New Hampshire (NH) Reproductive Freedom Fund on a brisk afternoon in Dover, New Hampshire — just about the neces-sary amount of money it costs to fund one abortion — which is a representation of how expensive abortion is in the United States.“Sometimes I think running fundraisers don’t go towards the more controversial issues, like they are focused more on the turnout or being apolitical,” explained Moyer. After the Politico leak that suggested the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade, the duo of Moyer and LeBlanc went to work — and came up with the idea of creating a lighthearted community running event during a historic low point for many Americans. “With such a devastating decision and it being so heavy, we wanted to do something that was a fun activity, one that would celebrate people ghting back while also raising money for a very important cause,” said LeBlanc.A handful of gooey, frosted donuts with the combination of a few laps around the track made for a unique way to spread awareness about an issue that hits close to home for many –—abortion. In collaboration with the NH Reproductive Freedom Fund, Moyer and LeBlanc hosted an event that brings two different communities together — politics and running.“Donut mess with reproductive rights” was an event that not only combatted typical stereotypes about running but also Photo Credit: Matt LeBlanc

The Oval Magazine August 202252suggested a different way to view track and eld. Moyer and LeBlanc framed track as more than just a place for athletes to run fast, using the sport as an avenue for people to run for something bigger than themselves. “I think that men need to step up and be a voice because there aren’t as many,’’ said LeBlanc on men’s roles in reproductive justice. “Abortion still impacts men and is a basic human right. It’s healthcare. We can’t go backward. Women have already had enough oppression put on them and rights taken away from them.”LeBlanc and Moyer are both avid runners with the Rainbow City Run club, which is a community-focused group in New Hampshire that encourages inclusivity through running. Moyer and LeBlanc feel that running typically favors abled cisgender individuals and strive to make running a safe place for everyone.The decision to host at a local high school track came from the thought of accessibility for all. For runners who may be in wheelchairs or are impaired in other ways, a track offers a at terrain that typically is easier to navigate. Runners were given the choice to run, walk, or jog — whatever felt the best for them. After all, the four-lap race wasn’t about winning a medal or receiving a monetary prize. The money raised is crucial, as abortions in New Hampshire are rarely paid for by insurance plans, forcing patients to pay on their own. Smaller and more local abortion organiza-tions, like the NH Reproductive Freedom Fund, directly help patients access the services they need. Moyer and LeBlanc also knew raising money for a local orga-nization would be more benecial in the long run. “These organizations are more local and are going to people right in the moment across New Hampshire,” said LeBlanc.“To me, abortion is the bare minimum and is something we have to keep ghting for. The 6-week abor-tion ban was scary for many reasons and I know that it will affect marginalized people more drastically,” said Moyer. “As a runner in col-lege, I wasn’t getting my period regularly. Like no way that was happening and that really hit home in a Photo Credit: Matt LeBlanc

August 2022 The Oval Magazine 53different way because I wouldn’t know in 6 weeks. I would go like 3-to-4 months without a period and thought I was ne.”Moyer’s experience is not uncommon as many runners with female anatomy experience missed or delayed menstruation.In the case of unex-pected pregnancy, runners who are accustomed to irregu-lar menstruation might not become aware of their pregnancy until it is too late for them to make a decision. This concern is exacerbated in states where abortion is restricted as early as six weeks. “I feel very connected to my body through running, and over the years I think it is a great way to nd your physical limits and push yourself to do more than what you think you can do and feel great in your own body,” said Moyer. “These laws are really scary and bad in a lot of ways, but they really go against that connection and control over your own body.”“Donut mess with reproductive rights” is not the rst time abortion has been mentioned in the running community, but these conversations have previously been met with silence. In 2020, Olympic gold medalist Brianna McNeal shared her abortion experience with The New York Times after being banned from competing for a missed drug test. McNeal’s punishment was not adjusted and her story was met with the same silence that has come to represent the stigma around abortions.Moyer and LeBlanc seek to protect not only women’s right to choose, but also their right to privacy — a right McNeal did not get to have. But with silence comes activism, as athletes like Moyer and LeBlanc show that runners are not afraid to use the track as an avenue for change. Photo Credit: Matt LeBlancPhoto Credit: Matt LeBlancPhoto Credit: Matt LeBlanc

54Photo Credit: Toledo Athletics

August 2022 The Oval Magazine 55Inside the ComebackInside the ComebackBy Marisha ThompsonHave you ever experienced that “thing” that makes you feel like you are on Cloud 9? Or that “thing” that makes a bad day turn into a good day or just makes you feel free? Well, my “thing” is running. I could dis-cuss for hours why I love running, but here are just a few things:The sound of spikes hitting the track on an early workout, the smell of a poly-urethane track on a hot summer day, the feeling of pushing yourself mentally and physically every day, and, most importantly, my favorite feeling after a hard workout or long run getting to go to a coffee shop with your teammates.If you know me, you know that I am not the type of person to speak about how I am feeling or express my emotions. I am the type of person that keeps it in, that shuts down when things get personal. So sharing my story is not only hard, it’s also scary. But it is something that I hope may help someone else or at the least help someone know that they are not alone and that these feelings are temporary. When I was deep in my injury and recovery process I found myself searching the internet to try to I started training as a competitive runner for indoor and outdoor track my junior year after cross country ended. I found that I t into the training well and things started to click. That cross coun-try season, I ended up placing 2nd in the U20 Ontario provincial race and represented Team Ontario at nation-als.That summer I placed 1st in the provincial steeplechase race and 7th at nationals in the steeplechase.My senior year is when I started believing that I could have a future in the sport. I placed 3rd at provincials and got the opportunity to represent Ontario at Nationals. During this time I also committed to running Division I track and eld and cross country at a University in the southern part of Florida.Fast-forwarding to August 2020, I moved my life to Florida to start my next journey. I was running well, I was condent, and I was ecstatic to be run-ning in college in America. What could go wrong? In cross country season I ran well, but I left feeling like there was something left in me. So I began to train harder and harder, increasing mile after mile until one day I just broke. At the beginning of the indoor season, I was condent in my performance and running, but I had this lingering quad pain. But, because of how determined I was to win aconference championship, I never stopped. I ran through the pain until it was too late. I found myself hopping to the conference start line and having to be carried off the track. What I thought was just a quad strain ended up being a lot worse – a femur fracture.This is where things started to take a nd someone else’s story that I couldrelate to, just to make me feel like I was not alone.As a child, I was always active. I was that child that would always get in trou-ble in grade school for never being able to sit still. But running was not always my “thing.” I grew up playing a variety of sports but I excelled the most at gure skating and hockey. I gure-skated for 10 years and played hockey for ve years as a goaltender. I grew up with the idea that running was punishment. If we lost a game or we did not perform well, we would run lapsas punishment. I never would have imagined that ve years later this pun-ishment would become a passion... It was not until my junior year of high school that everything changed when a coach reached out to me from one of the local running club teams and told me that I had potential. At this point, all this coach had seen me run was at the local high school events. But for me, this was all that I needed to hear.I decided to change the so-called pun-ishment of running into my passion and running quickly turned into something that I wanted and got to do every day.

The Oval Magazine August 202256turn. I went from being a runner to having to hop around on crutches for the next few months. During this time I found myself trying to do everything I could to keep my tness. Whether that was doing two or three core workouts a day, crutching around two-to-four miles a day just to keep up my aerobic system, and nding myself being very cautious about what I would eat. I know that sounds silly, but at the moment I was determined to keep my tness.During this time I decided that the school was not right for me to transfer to The University of Toledo. This was the best decision in my life. During the summer I was allowed to start to run again and my routine started to come back. I was happy. I moved to Toledo and everything was great for the rst few weeks. But then I had that lingering quad pain again. And this time it was in the hip too. I saw a doctor and found out that I had a torn labrum and needed surgery.This is where things started to get darker. I was crushed that I had another injury and that I needed surgery to x it. The months leading up to the surgery were an up and down battle. Some days I had hope and was motivated to get as strong as possible before the surgery, whereas other days I felt defeated and like there was no reason to keepghting. This up and down started to spiral into some disor-dered eating patterns and some depressive episodes. I found myself once again trying to nd any way to keep mytness. I began watching what I ate, doing lots of core work-outs, and even got to the point that I would sneak in cross-train workouts to try to keep my tness.I had the surgery on December 8th, 2021, and honestly thought that things were better. I was motivated to work hard in physical training and the cross-training I was ALLOWED to do. But what I quickly learned I was motivated by other things. Which later progressed to double cross-train sessions, double lifting sessions, and a core routine that cycled through every day.I was very lucky at that time that I had a coach and training room staff step in and recognize that I was doing too much too fast. The reigns were tightened and we reset a training plan that was reasonable and sustainable.The next few months went well and I progressed from cross-training to running on land and eventually running 30 to 40 to 50 minutes. It was not until I started running constantly that everything started to spiral again. It progressed from wanting to eat as clean as possible to t the “unrealistic image in my head” to feeling completely lost and losing my passion for the sport. I spent the next month questioning If I was meant to be a runner, maybe I was meant to get injured as a sign that I should quit. That there was no light at the end of the tunnel. I would wake up, get ready to run, then sit on my front step, repeating in my head “ I am not meant to be a runner.” I was solely convinced that all of the injuries and setbacks were a sign for me to step away from that sport.Throughout the whole injury/surgery process I am grateful to my university sports medicine staff who gave me all the resources I needed like a therapist, nutritionist, doctor, and most importantly the support. But at the time I was not all in. I was along for the ride, but not driving. I went to these appointments just to say I went to them and took nothing out of them.This is why I found myself always circling back to the same Photo Credit: FAU AthleticsPhoto Credit: Toledo AthleticsPhoto Credit: Marisha Thompson

August 2022 The Oval Magazine 57problems.But, for me, this low point in my life was all I needed. It was kind of a breakthrough moment.Even though my brain was telling me to quit, it sparked something else. Something that I did not know that I had. Being at this point made me realize that I don’t want to quit. Eventhough I had these thoughts that I was not meant to be a runner. Every time I thought more about quitting or retiring from the sport, it would make me ill. Deep down inside underneath all the layers of hurt, confusion, and sadness was still that girl who had goals, determination and con-dence. I just needed to take a step back to realize it. And I needed to be all-in.I realized to be that girl that has goals and is determined and condent, I had to do the work. I had to start opening up and work through some of the things that were holding me back. With the combination of support from my coaches, teammates, and training room staff. I began to nd my passion for the sport again but this time with a different perspective.Throughout my whole injury process, I have yet to mention what kept me going. WHO kept me going. It is not every day that you have a coach that cares more about you as a personthan as an athlete. I am very thankful that I have a coach here at the University of Toledo that supported me through this whole process and did not give up on me. Who did not care ifI ever stepped on the track again, but truly just cared about me and making sure I was enjoying what I was doing.It can be hard being an athlete in the NCAA and being brought in to have that one job to compete and represent that school. And having that stripped away can be heartbreaking and leave you feeling lost and worthless. Like, you are not doing your job. But having a coach who supports you in any situa-tion is truly life-saving.There were many moments that I found myself deep in my thoughts frustrated with myself that I was not able to run, that I was brought here to run and I could not do that, that I wasnow a waste of space on the team. But I had a coach that would tell me on repeat (probably at least twice a week) that I am more than an athlete: I am rst a person. That shecared about me as a person. Having that person thatwas reminding me that there was more to life than this sport and that did not give up on me when I was injured is what truly kept me going.In light of sharing my experience, I hope others who may have similar experiences remember there is light at the end of the tunnel. Whether it is what you thought it was, thereis light. That thing will get better and sometimes it just takes time.That you are not dened by your sport, that people do care, and that your body does not dene you. Just keep ghting and don’t give up. If you are an athlete, reach out (even if itseems scary or hard). Because people do care and there are resources to help you.Photo Credit: Marisha Thompson

58Photo Credit: Mount St. Mary’s University

August 2022 The Oval Magazine 59The Oval OfficeThe Oval OfficeBy Colin KellyMy name is Colin Kelly. I am originally from Scranton, Pennsylvania. I graduated from Mount St. Mary’s University where I was a part of the men’s cross country and track and eld team. When I was in high school, I was not the best runner in the area. I had my fair share of top nishes in dual meets and was able to make it to states three times, but never was able to throw down a good time to get noticed by any colleges. I knew that I wanted to keep running in college and I had the dream to run for a school that was in Division I. I was blessed with the opportunity to walk-on to Saint Francis University’s cross country and track and eld team. I knew that I had a lot of work to do coming in with PRs of 2:08 in the 800m, 4:45 in the 1600m, and 17:20.95 in the 5k. My goals were nothing crazy to some athletes, but I thought that someday I would be able to go sub-1:57 and 4:25 in the mile. Just after one year with an amazing GA (graduate assistant), I saw crazy improvements. I had PRs of 1:54.84 and 4:36 in the mile. I could not believe the progress that I had made in just one year. My GA was giving everything that he had, and I could not be more grateful for him. It was clear from that point on that with the right coaching and the right mindset I could do anything that I put my mind to. Fast forward three years at Saint Francis, My PRs were 1:53.3, 4:16.9 in the mile, and 25:08 in the 8k. I was ready to have an amazing outdoor season when the unthinkable happened and the world went on shut-down mode. I was left in a very weird situation at Saint Francis and thought it was time to make a move somewhere else. After some thinking and talking with my family, I was blessed with the opportunity to go to Mount St. Mary’s University. I knew that the coaching staff was exactly what I needed in my running career and also my college career. Knowing that I had the right support system and the best coaching staff, I knew that I could hit the goals that I made just when I was a freshman when I rst talked to my GA. We talked about having crazy goals that were attainable but not in the near future. We set the crazy goals of going sub 1:52, sub 4:20, becoming an individual conference champ and becoming a regional qualier. When we rst talked about this, we all laughed. There was no way that these goals were going to be hit, but we wanted to put it in my head for the future and to strive for something Photo Credit: Mount St. Mary’s Athletics

The Oval Magazine August 202260better. Many people thought I was making a huge mistake by moving over to Mount St. Mary’s for only two years. In just two years of being at Mount St. Mary’s I achieved goals that I never knew that I was capable of doing. I would nish my collegiate career with 3 All-East appearances for indoor and outdoor track, 2 all-conference performances in cross country, a 1500m PR of 3:53, 5k PR of 15:24, 4 all-confer-ence performances in track and eld with 2 of them being individual wins in the 800m. My last race was the 800m at the IC4A meet and I nally went 1:49.61 winning the invite. I could not have been happier, until I found out that I just missed out on making the East-Regional race. I knew that this year was fast, but I never knew it would be sub 1:49 fast. At the end of the day I was upset for not being able to make it to the next level, but little did I know my journey was not over.I am blessed to say that I get to live out another dream of mine which is to be a professional runner. I accepted a contract with the Pittsburgh Track Club. I will be able to be a full-time runner as well as a content creator for Track World News. I could not believe that I would be able to be doing something that I love full-time. It is also nice to do what I am doing coming from the area that I am from. You do not hear of a lot of people making it as far as graduating college from my school let alone becoming a professional athlete. I look back at the journey that I had and where I started and could not be more thankful for the people that stayed in my life and the new people that I found along the way. I shocked myself with what I can do with the right people to push me and keep me accountable. It only shows that if you nd the right support system and work hard, you really can do any-thing you want!Photo Credit (L to R): Mount St. Mary’s Athletics, St. Francis Athletics, Mount St. Mary’s Athletics

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The Oval Magazine August 202262got a job in town. The first thing they tell you when you’re in school for education is to not take on the extra things your first year, it’ll [already] be hard enough. My school said that I could be the head coach of track and cross country. I said, “Sure, it’s a good school, I’ll take it.” We started o with a pretty good team — the team had been decent before I got there — and then year after year, our top guy got better, and as our top guy got better, the team underneath did as well. And then I got married and my wife and I had to move to Pennsylvania. Coaching was kind of my thing, at that point I had done it for six years. We kept having to move though, because we had the five-year [medical] residency in Pennsylvania, and then we had to move to Dallas for a year. JC: How did RunCCG form then? CC: With a little kid at home, I wasn’t going to teach that year, so I thought I’ll just try to grow this side business. I’ve been coaching people on the side, like five at a time, so let’s take a year to really grow this. We tried to grow it, but when you have less results to post about, it’s harder to run and manage. Then there was the spring of 2020 and COVID. It was almost a perfect storm because one of the harder things for athletes is, “How do you do this [online coaching] and stay on your high school team?” At this point, no one had a coach or a team, no one had practice or meets. One thing that really grew it was, Coach [Tim] Goldsack [RunCCG co-founder] coached a couple people online that did the marathon, I coached a couple people online, and we got them to the Olympic Trials and had one win at the Indianapolis Marathon. QAChris Catton Coach of Run CCG Coach of Run CCGby Joe Cullen&Telling the tale of the recent boom in high school distance running would be impossible without mentioning RunCCG, an online coaching company formed by Chris Catton and Tim Goldsack. The two have coached large swaths of elite high school runners, and in doing so, helped make online coaching services more prominent through their use of social media. We sat down with Coach Catton to discuss his background as a runner and coach (fun fact: he coached Craig Engels in HS!), his coaching philosophies, and the future of RunCCG! Edited for clarityJoe Cullen: How did you get started with coaching?Chris Catton: I went to Wake Forest. My dad is a football and baseball coach so I wanted to be a teacher and then I just got a job — I graduated during the financial crisis of 2008 — so I

August 2022 The Oval Magazine 63Then, we set up this thing where we’re going to coach these high-schoolers, but a lot of them were juniors and in other sports, they’d have to put film out, they needed some sort of results. We thought, “We’re going to train these people and we’re going to have them run time trials and we’re going to have their friends rabbit them. We’re going to get videos of it and we’re going to have them send it to coaches and we’re going to post about it.”JC: You had a strong career at Wake Forest, dipping under 1:50 on multiple occasions. How did your successes and failures as a college athlete influence your coaching philosophy?CC: I used to give this speech when I spoke at camps. To take one thing from my college experience, you can complain about a coach, which I’m sure I did a million times. You can complain about your meets, or the heat you’re in, or whatever.The one thing you can do is control so many variables yourself. You can eat right, not party all the time, roll and take ice baths and see the trainer. There’s plenty that you can do on your own to control your success. I’d say about 99% of the people who are complaining about how they’re doing aren’t doing those things, so I always felt like it was hypocritical at some point for me to complain.JC: So you’ve coached Craig Engels’ team, then at Mount Carmel [in Pennsylvania] before you transi-tioned to RunCCG. How would you compare the experience of coaching teams and coaching in person com-pared to RunCCG, where a lot of your interactions are through calls or texts?CC: One positive thing is that when I coached teams, our track teams were big, and there was a lot of management. You had to make sure everyone was entered in their events and organized. That made the management aspect of coaching a lot of people online easier. Relationship building was big, and I think that goes as much being a teacher as being a high school coach. As a teacher and coach, you need to identify kids’ strengths and weaknesses. That communication [in person] is big.One advantage, however, is that every person I coach is motivated. When I coached high school, not every person was motivated or necessarily even wanted to be good. That doesn’t make them a bad person or a bad person to have on a team. It’s just that track wasn’t their passion.If you’re going to contact us [at RunCCG] and hire a coach, you’re really motivated. That might not mean that they’re the best runners — there might be better runners, someone who’s less motivated but beats them — but it’s easier to coach these motivated people. I never really think about whether someone is actually doing the training. JC: Exactly, it’s self-selection. If you’re going out of your way to work with RunCCG and spending all this time immersed in running social media and culture, then you’re going to be gung-ho about running and living up to your potential. CC: I totally agree. The other thing is, I definitely feel more pressure to help people reach their goals and accomplish certain things. They’re hiring a coach, so you know they’re easier to work with, but there’s also more expectations out of the coach. When a kid says, “Hey, I want to break nine minutes in the 3200,” or “I want to make Foot Locker Nationals,” it definitely puts more of an urgency to achieve that. JC: Another aspect you’ve alluded to that I’m kind of curious about is the relationship with your athletes’ high school coaches. How do you manage those relationships?CC: That’s the question that comes up most on our Instagram lives. The big thing, when I was a high school coach, we didn’t have a pole vault coach.

The Oval Magazine August 202264So we always had pole vaulters who would go to this one warehouse where a coach had a bunch of mats and he taught a bunch of pole vaulters. He was doing a great job and our pole vaulters came back and got better and were motivated enough to do the outside work, so I was totally happy and my ego wasn’t injured or anything. With us, though, our number one rule is, it has to work with a high school coach... Everything has to be above water, so we ask the athletes to make the arrangement with their coaches, like “Am I allowed to do this or not?”And if they are allowed, then it’s full head of steam, we’ll take it on and help them get as fast as they can be. But we also have the idea in mind that this athlete is on a team. They might have a conference meet coming up, and the team might need to win the conference meet, so they might need to run four events and that’s great. So you’re just going to keep in mind that you’re not just coaching to get as fast as they can, but you’re also coaching someone who’s on a team and that coach is letting you coach someone on their team. You have to understand that there are sacrifices that come with it, and I think that’s a good thing. You gotta learn how to work within a team and do things for other people. JC: You’ve mentioned Coach Goldsack and your partnership with him. In terms of RunCCG, how do you guys split up the coaching responsibilities?CC: That’s a good question. Tim lives in Houston and he was the coach at South Alabama, so he takes a lot of the people in Texas, he takes everyone in Alabama. It took us a while to get to this point; we figured it’d be best for us to coach everyone ourselves in one state, so that we weren’t competing against each other... And I think you get a better familiarity with how things work in a state. For example, I take the kids in Pennsylvania, and I could just get a good idea of, “Hey, that kid’s from a strong district,” or “Hey, that kid who emailed is from a school with a really good program.”But now it’s easier because we just take a region or state, and Coach Goldsack is a super hard worker, he’s really diligent — he does most of our social media stu. I guess I’m more on the creative team, I’m like, I thought of this idea when I was walking the dog or I thought of this when I was running. He rolls up his sleeves and does a lot of the social media, which outside of results and building relationships, is the most important. He’s really good with the marketing aspect of it and helps us show o all the hard work the kids do. JC: Speaking on that creative side, what are you most excited for in RunCCG’s future? CC: You don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket. We definitely have to keep broadening our horizons, we’d like to do a cross-country camp next summer. That’s new for us — we wanted COVID to settle down before we got committed to that, but I guess it never really settled down so it didn’t really matter. We’re going to get involved with having our own meet or being in charge of a meet in the winter, so trying to bring some more things to the table. JC: I know we touched on coaching philosophy at the beginning of the interview. I wanted to come back to that — what do you think is the biggest backbone of your coaching philosophy?CC: My biggest talent is identifying where someone is starting. We get people across the board; it’s not necessarily

August 2022 The Oval Magazine 65relative to how fast they are. You can have someone who’s run a lot, somebody who’s raced a lot, somebody who’s run very little, somebody with a bunch of injuries, somebody with very little experience running at all. I think the biggest talent for me would just be identifying where to start because you can have all these grandiose ideas about where you want to get somebody.But if you try to skip steps and don’t start at the right place, it’s going to be very diicult to get where you want to go. Sometimes, you want to show o and throw all this fancy training at them, but you have to understand where each person is starting from; it just makes it a lot easier to build. The big-gest foun-dation of that is consisten-cy, not trying to wow your-self or wow them with one workout or one week or one number of mileage. To just keep building them throughout the year, another thing we do is just train throughout the whole year. We’ll have people doing more workouts than other people during the summer. More peo-ple are doing that now, but we’ll do tempo runs and fartleks throughout the whole summer. JC: One last question to cap it off: If you had one piece of advice for a younger high school or college athlete who hopes to get into coaching one day, what would it be? CC: The biggest thing is identifying what kind of coaching you want to do. If you want to be involved with college coaching — some of my best friends are college coaches — it’s never too early to build important relationships.It’s a good thing to do when you’re in high school and one of the top kids in your state, just be polite to other coaches and tell them congratulations on how their kids ran. To ask other coaches questions–not saying, “My coach makes me do this, what should I do?” But asking, “What do you guys do for stretching and rolling?” When I was in college, I would talk to Coach [Bob] Braman at Florida State to ask dierent questions about running and coaching. He remembered that like 15 years later. Be a good person on your team, be a good teammate, be a good addition to your team while you’re in college if you want to be a college coach. Don’t be a distraction, don’t be a liability, be the person at practice who can be counted on at meets and to conduct yourself well. Also understand that it’s not going to have an immediate financial return and don’t get frustrated. Most of the people I know who started o as volunteers in Division 1 — the ones who really committed knowing it is going to be tough for two years — they’ve all gotten their chance. Another piece of advice that I would give coaches is you can’t be afraid to take the wheel when it’s your turn. Your first job might not be the job you dreamed of, whether you’re a high school coach or a college coach. Let’s say your first job is in a random conference, you have to treat it like it’s the World Championships or Olympics. You really have to be where your feet are and have a bunch of passion for what you’re doing at that time. Everybody has big ambitions about where they want to get to, but if you’re not doing your job, it’s going to be tough for that to happen.

66Photo Credit: University of Tampa Athletics

On March 13th, 2021, the University of Tampa opened up their outdoor season on their home track with the Tampa Tri Meet. As the meet reached the men’s 800 meter race, the athletes jogged to the start line and found their places according to their hip numbers. Among the array of red (University of Tampa), green (St. Leo’s University), and white (Florida Southern College) jer-seys, one athlete in particular stood out as “the man to watch.” Donning the green and white jersey of St. Leo’s and wearing hip number 1, Shane Bracken stood on the line with a 1:51 personal best in the 800 and a 3:44 personal best and DII All-American honors in the 1500 meter run.Two spots to Bracken’s right, wearing the bright red jersey of the University of Tampa and hip number 3, stood Shane Cohen. Cohen’s collegiate accolades were a bit different from his namesake. While Bracken had spent the past two years adjusting to track at the college level and earning his reputation, Cohen had spent the previous fall and winter on the Tampa Women’s Basketball practice squad, convinced he had run the nal race of his career two months ago as a high school senior. “Because of my times in high school I was getting [recruit-ment] letters, but I really didn’t want to run [in college],” recalls Cohen. “I wanted to play basketball, but when you’re 5’7” it’s kind of tough to get the looks that you think you deserve. So I ended up choosing Tampa for academics… not that many people know I didn’t come here to run.”Having given up on his pursuit of college athletics, Cohen arrived in Tampa as a freshman with a fundamental piece of his identity missing. No longer an athlete, there were no more practices to look forward to, games/meets to prepare for, or teammates to socialize with. The freedom he anticipated looked a lot different now up close and far less attractive for that matter.“My fall semester I wasn’t doing anything,” recalls Cohen “and I really missed being on a team. So one day I was playing basketball inside with one of my closest friends and the women’s basketball coach asked us if we wanted to be practice players.”“She told us ‘a lot of our guys will do this for just the year and then if they’re good enough they can move to the men’s team.’ So we were like ‘okay sure’ and then they also gave us a bunch of gear so I was like ‘oh this is so sick.’”Now with a temporary ll to the emptiness that came without playing sports, Cohen spent the winter practicing with the women’s team, hoping to eventually make it to the men’s roster. But when the “call up” nally came, Cohen realized a spot on the men’s team wouldn’t yield the same dynamic as sports in high school once did. At the college level, athletes who don’t come in as star recruits often don’t receive the attention and appreciation they might deserve. August 2022 The Oval Magazine 67Walk-on to All-AmericanWalk-on to All-American Shane CohenShane CohenBy Jack BalickPhoto Credit: University of Tampa AthleticsPhoto Credit: Shane Cohen

The Oval Magazine August 202268Aware of this, Cohen decided the experience wasn’t worth his time. After stepping away from basketball, Cohen found himself in the same predicament he had begun the school year in. But thanks to a classmate of his, a more permanent solution awaited him upon his departure. “One of the kids on the [track] team was in my class,” recalls Cohen “and I was wearing my bag from [New Balance] Nationals and he was a really outgoing kid so we started talking.”“He was like ‘oh what’d you run’ and I was like ‘1:58 [in the 800m] and 49 [in the 400m]’ and he was like ‘oh, you’re good. You should come out for the team.’ And at the time I wanted to play basketball but when that didn’t work out I texted him and I was like ‘hey, can this happen’ and that’s how I got in contact with my coach.”“It’s literally because of him that I run track. I probably wouldn’t have wanted to but he was a super cool kid. If it wasn’t for him and his personality and him being on the team, I prob-ably wouldn’t have even talked about running again.”With the help of his classmate, Cohen reached out to Coach Vaknin via email to ask if he could possibly have a spot on the team to which he received the response “Ok, 800m time trial 01/31/20. Be ready.” “He’s very direct and to the point,” Cohen says, laughing. But at the time of receiving the email, Cohen wasn’t laughing at all. With only a month to train, he would have to get in shape to hit the walk-on standard (a 2:04 800) after having not run for almost an entire year. Cohen began his training the next day, gradually reacustoming his body to the practice it had once so familiarly known. “I was only doing mileage.” Cohen recalls. “I was doing like 6-7 miles a day which for me was like massive because in high school I didn’t run that much.”But when January 31st nally came, a few unexpected turns still awaited him. “I remember [Coach Vaknin] was like ‘a few of the boys are going to pace you through,’” recalls Cohen “and I was like ‘alright that’s ne’ but when the day came he was like ‘oh sorry, the guys are having a workout today so you’re gonna have to run it alone’ and my PR was only a 1:58 in high school so I was like ‘I don’t know if I can run a 2:04 alone.’”“So I asked him if I could do the 400m instead and he was like ‘whatever you have to do to make the team, this is your one chance.’”“So I’m about to do the 400m but then I realized that all the sprinters were doing the 200m time trial so I was like ‘oh can I just do the 200m then just so I can get into a race?’“So I end up doing the 200m and beating all the sprinters, which is funny considering I wasn’t doing any sprint work at all, and the coach was like ‘alright you made the team.” Photo Credit: University of Tampa Athletics

August 2022 The Oval Magazine 69Finally making the team – in what perhaps might have been the most twisted, complicated way to do so – Cohen was back on the track… and then Covid hit. “I was the new guy,” recalls Shane “I only had a month to really meet everyone, and I wasn’t that good yet so when Covid hit I was still a little iffy about the whole track thing.”Nevertheless, Cohen returned in the fall for cross country, eager to give running another shot. Being instructed by his coach to just use cross country as a base, there were still no major strides being made in Cohen’s running career, but unbeknownst to him, the benet of a fall spent building mileage would give way to a breakthrough almost too epic to nd believable. A breakthrough that would come as early as his season opener on the track.As Cohen stood on the line of the Tampa Tri Meet he recalled the simple instructions his coach had given him prior to the race: “Don’t go with Bracken.”“Shane Bracken was probably one the best runners in our Conference,” recalls Cohen, “and he was running the 8 that day.”“So my coach came over to me and was like ‘listen, don’t go with Bracken, he’s trying to break 1:50’ and I was like ‘alright’ but then the cocky side of me was like ‘I’m gonna beat him.’”“For me it’s like when I line up next to you it’s me versus who-ever. I don’t really care what you’ve run, you’re just another runner. All my teammates were like ‘Yeah, okay man’ but I just kept saying ‘No, I’m gonna beat him.”Resolved in his deance to his coach’s advice, Cohen shot off the line upon the starter’s gun and latched on to Bracken’s back. “He took it out in like 52 or 53 [for the rst 400] and for me that’s obviously ying,” recalls Cohen, “but then at 600m I was still with him and then at 700m I’m still with him and then I was able to make a move and break him.”Crossing the line in rst place with a time of 1:49.19, Cohen had set a new school record, earned a ticket to the DII National meet and absolutely shocked every spectator within Tampa’s Pepin Stadium. From coaches, to teammates to friends, no one could believe the result. How did a kid with a 1:58 800m PR from high school and without even a full year of collegiate track expe-rience, just break the 1:50 barrier in the 800m as a season opener. Logic seemed to have lapsed for those 109 seconds, allowing Cohen to defy the otherwise impossible. But as the story would tell, this was no uke. Cohen had actu-ally reached an entirely new level of running – and skipped multiple levels in the process – bringing him from a hopeful tryout to the number one ranked athlete in the country in the 800m for NCAA DII, a position that would hold for 5 weeks. A new standard had been set for Cohen. Running 800s above the 1:50 mark was now disappointing and making the national meet wasn’t a question anymore, placing became the new concern.When the national meet nal rolled around, Cohen managed to edge himself into the nal with a tactical 1:52.15 in the pre-lims, leading him to the rst All-American honors of his career. Photo Credit: University of Tampa Athletics

The Oval Magazine August 202270You could call that 2021 season a lot of things. A break-through? Certainly! Cohen had seemingly become the personication of “overnight success,” changing his status in the track world in the course of less than two minutes. A success? Considering All-American status wasn’t even on the goals sheet at the start of the season, success would be an understatement. Exciting? Underdog stories win the hearts of millions for a reason, it doesn’t get much more exciting than an unexpected explosion to the top of one’s sport. That season could’ve been called a lot of things, but the one thing it was not was the peak. As Cohen toed the line for the Tampa Distance Classic the following spring, expectations were high. There would be no rabbit in the form of Shane Bracken for Cohen to latch on to, but with a full year of experience, maybe a solo sub-1:50 was possible.From the sound of the gun Cohen was on his own. Not a single athlete was within shouting distance as he came through 400m in 51.13 and the gap only continued to grow. When Cohen nally crossed the nish line the clock read 1:48.50, once again leaving the spectators of the race in awe of what they had just watched.Another 1:48 (this time dropping his PR again by a quarter of a second) in the prelims of the National Meet led Cohen to his second All-American honors of his career, this time improving his place from 9th the previous year to 6th. Cohen’s progression as a runner would make any knowl-edgeable track fan’s head hurt. Only under the rarest circumstances can an athlete improve so drastically, espe-cially after coming so close to never stepping foot on a track again after high school. Cohen’s story is not about a genetically perfect individual who rose the ranks of track in dominant fashion. It’s about the improbable success of an athlete that would have otherwise never occurred without the heart and sticktoitiveness that Cohen displayed. Photo Credit: University of Tampa AthleticsPhoto Credit: University of Tampa Athletics

71Photo Credit: Jimmy Quinn

The Oval Magazine August 202272Through it All Through it All By Madison TrippettSince the end of track season my freshman year of high school, I have experienced a total of 12 stress reactions. A stress reaction is a type of bone injury that is essentially a low-grade stress fracture. Over the last six years, I have had four stress reactions in my right tibia, two in my left tibia, and three in each femur. I am now a rising junior on the cross country and track teams at the University of Richmond, and would be lying if I told you that the last six years haven’t been lled with struggle, heartbreak, and immense amounts of let down. As a runner, one of the worst pains is being shut down in the middle of a training block that has left you feeling tter and faster than ever before. In an instant, everything you’ve worked for seemingly slips from your grasp and feels as if it were all for nothing. Injury is every runner’s (myself included) worst nightmare. Now you may be wondering, “Madison, 12 injuries of the same nature is a lot, there must be an underlying issue?” To which I say: yes, there most certainly is. Early on in my running career I fell victim to Relative Energy Deciency in Sport, or RED-S, due to disordered eating and underfueling. My disordered eating habits began after my rst season of high school track and ironically, my rst stress reaction. As a freshman in high school running real mileage for the rst time, I didn’t know the rst thing about proper running shoes. Inadequate footwear along with adjusting to high-school level training led to the development of my rst stress reaction. After receiving the MRI results, my doctor instructed me to take four to six weeks off running. Even though my track season had ended, I knew that cross country would be right around the corner and missing out on essential summer training terried me. But what terried me even more was the possibility of my body changing. Early high school is an essential time in the development of the female body. This often comes with a bit of an adjustment period that can temporarily affect young girls’ performance. Instead of accepting this as a natural process that I could work through, I decided that I needed to stop it. I was scared that if my body developed or became larger than it was, I would never be fast. My insistence on not letting my body change started off rela-tively harmlessly. At rst, I simply attempted to eat healthier. At night I would choose to eat some fruit for dessert instead of the ice cream we had in the freezer. However, this attempt to eat healthier quickly became an obsession. By the fall of my junior year, I would only eat foods in which I deemed to be “clean.”I refused to go to restaurants with my friends or my family. I would not let anyone else cook for me. I would even bring my own food just for myself to holiday gather-ings and would refuse to touch anything that anyone else had prepared. I had to be in complete control of every single thing that I was eating. Mealtimes would bring anxiety, food was the only thing I could ever think about, and the guilt of consuming anything that I considered to be “unhealthy” was immeasurable. After my rst femoral stress reaction that brought a dev-astating end to my junior year track season, my parents decided it was time to see some specialists. This is when I was rst told that I had Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) which had caused RED-S, the loss of my period for over two years, and low bone density to the point of osteopenia. At that moment I knew that I had to make a change, not only for my running, but for the person behind the runner. From that day forward I made it my mission to start fuelling properly and slowly break free of my food fears.

August 2022 The Oval Magazine 73Something no one ever talks about however, is that even after healing your relationship with food, getting your period back, and restoring your bone density to normal levels, the damage caused by years of under-fueling doesn’t just go away. I just nished my sophomore year of college and am still struggling with stress reactions. My most recent was a fem-oral neck reaction that took away almost all of my past cross country season. Although this was number 12, and I had been through this numerous times at that point, I am here to tell you that it never gets any easier. You may develop the knowledge and skills to better cross-train and rehab in order to get back to running as ef-ciently and as t as possible, but you never become numb to the heartbreak of having to hang up your trainers. I have wanted to quit so many times. One of my big-gest challenges has been knowing that I am doing all of the right things to keep my body healthy and strong, yet it still breaks beneath me. It often feels as if I may never outlive my past, and will for-ever be stuck in the cycle of nally making progress just to be knocked back down off my feet. I refuse to give up, though. I refuse to give up because of the voice in the back of my head that asks, “What if you catch a break?” And there it is, the chance of one day getting to prove what I am capable of with no limitations is what truly keeps me going. Now before I sign off, I want to ensure that my message isn’t getting misconstrued. Injury sucks… I won’t deny that. But it’s also an opportunity to grow as an athlete in ways that get lost in the everyday foot to pavement. Every break I’ve had to take from running has only made me value it more. There is not a day that I don’t take my rst step and take a moment to appreciate the ability to run without pain. I’ve been on many starting lines where I’ve had fewer miles under me than the entirety of the eld, but that has never gotten in the way of my excitement to lay it all on the line. If anything, it has only made me more eager to make the most of any and every opportunity given to me. There is no denying that this sport is physical but there is a very important piece that is passion, and nothing builds passion like working through and coming back from injury. Photo Credit: Jimmy QuinnPhoto Credit: Christian Gravius