Michelle Howell

Orlando

Jan 11

Were you happy with how today went?

I think it was pretty good. I actually feel like it was more people than I thought were going to show up. So, that was kind of cool.

It was a good amount that came because it was small enough to still be able to see everything that was happening and make sure people are on the same page of what is going on. I feel like once the group's over 20 people, it's hard to have a pair of eyes on everybody and make sure people are doing things correctly.

Right. If five people are doing something wrong, you can't talk to all five of them.

Exactly. But I feel like the group today was a good size and it's similar to other group camps i’ve done in the past. Obviously, high schoolers are a little more all over the place, but adults are a bit more responsive to feedback.

Do you feel like it's easier to coach adults rather than high schoolers? You said that we listen better than your middle schoolers and your high schoolers.

100%. I've noticed with coaching adults, they're more interested in getting better, right? Most adults aren’t going out and joining a sport for the first time, just for funsies. They’re advocating and setting time aside to go do things like this. So there's already that next layer of buy-in that sometimes I don't think you get with younger kids because a lot of time they take sports for granted. They have this mindset of like, “I'm just out here doing this and this doesn't have an end date”, whereas as an adult, you already know your time is limited and precious, so to set aside time and go do something, you're already gonna be extra locked in most often. A lot of times too, it costs money to go do stuff! So there's just that next layer of driven-ness.

Basically, it's more intentional.

It's very much more intentional. There are high schoolers who can be like, “I'm gonna do this for the next four years, but because I go to school here - so I don't really take this seriously”. They're not thinking that this is gonna have an end date necessarily.

Do you feel like a lot of students, are just sort of doing it (sports) to pass time, or doing it with the intention of a scholarship.…. but they don’t actually like it, or their parents are making them do it?

Well, I think it's funny you ask that because my coaching staff and I were talking about this the other day, where it feels like a lot of kids don't know what their purpose is. And so they get into sports without having a goal or a vision and kind of just move through the process without understanding what the process even is, or what the outcome is that they want out of it. So they get lost in the sauce and it's easy for them to deviate from the plan because they don't have a vision of what things should even look like.

I don't know if that's a byproduct of the cohort of kids that I’m coaching at Montverde specifically, because a lot of them do come from more well-off backgrounds - So they’re not necessarily getting into sports to pay for college or to get into college right? It's very different from the reason that I stuck in the sport and carved a path for myself with it. I feel like when I was in school I saw running as an avenue to create the life I wanted. So there was always a bit of purpose or intention to do a sport other than just enjoying running. Versus these kids, I'm not really sure if it's that same drive. Maybe that's just a generational thing in general.

How do you approach your student athletes differently? Like I'm sure you'll see a kid who is super driven and wants to go to the Olympics and then another student who is just…there. Because you also don’t want to show favoritism.

Actually - side note - I think the thing I hate the most is if a kid comes and they say things like “oh, I want to go to the Olympics”. I think we live in a society where kids don't understand what that actually means, number one. Number two, I think that parents create these false narratives where they make a kid think that the only way to be successful is to achieve these really high standards and for most of the general population that's not the case. Maybe you're going to high school and you're participating in sports to build a community, to better your communication skills, to better your health in general. I think for some kids that's checking the box that you've accomplished something.

It's not something that you should feel disappointed with at the end of the day, if you don't make it to the district meet, the state meet, or you don't become an Olympian. Creating these false senses of reality for them that their parents feed into is really damaging because they don't understand the actual work effort and time that it takes to be at that level and they think it's going to come much easier than it does. So I think it's like this disconnect between like…. I don't want to call it “delusional”…

But it is, and i do see what you’re saying with a lot of people. Like, delusional about where they are and how good they are. And it's hard to coach that, I'm sure.

It is. And I think part of it comes from social media too because I think kids, especially now see athletics in general, are a way to create wealth or to create a brand identity for themselves.

And they get so caught up in this idea of looking good for the camera versus actually putting in the work. They see people on Instagram and they’re like “well it looks really easy for them to do that”.

And it's like - yeah, that person's probably way more talented than you realize and maybe they're putting in a lot more work behind the scenes that you're not understanding is happening. So I think it's just hard to have dialogues with kids that are already delusional, plus their parents, about where they're at as an athlete. I'd say that's the biggest disconnect I see. Also parents that are insistent on their kid going to an Ivy League school and it's like…ok. But also the Ivy League doesn't give out athletic scholarships, which I also think is something that the general population doesn't know.

Really??

Yeah, fun fact. So athletics can help get you in academically because they can put you on like a different wait list essentially, or they'll push you through, but there's no financial aid for athletics.

I mean… maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like people went to my school or other 4 year universities for sports and were getting it paid for. Was that not a thing?

It is at other division one institutions, but specifically not in Ivy League schools.

Oh wow, I didn't know that. That's crazy considering how much money is in those schools. Why though?

It's just something that the Ivy League schools have chosen not to do. That’s it. You kind of see the same, I think in division two and three schools as well. They don't really give out athletic aid, but they'll help you get in academically or look for other scholarships for you. A lot of parents don't know that, so they have this, again, false idea of how their kid is gonna make it great, right?

I think half of my job a lot of the time is being the reality check of, “well, this is actually how the system works”, and then they can choose to listen or not. And we do have people that choose not to listen, and that's fine, it's just that reality's gonna smack them in the face at some point.

I'm sure it's easy to tell, but how can you tell when, someone actually really, wants to be a good runner and who is doing it for the wrong reasons.

Usually you can see it in their work ethic. So there's kids that will stay over time at practice and they really take care of the little things. They're going to bed early, they're on top of their nutrition, they're doing every drill trying to be perfect at what they are doing. Versus some kids just come through and they go through the motions right. They're checking boxes and I think that's the difference between an athlete that really wants it and an athlete that's just kind of there and think they know the process, but they're really just box checkers. They're not trying to achieve the next level and not trying to be excellent at all that they do. I think sometimes it also comes from how they've been brought up or even their personality.

I have kids that are extremely talented and you can see that they're very talented but maybe they're not willing to actually do all that it takes to be excellent at what they do and that’s where the discrepancy is. Like you could run x amount faster but you're never going to actually reach your potential because you can't take care of yourself outside of track. You're not being responsible in terms of your lifestyle to make sure that you are healthy enough to do the things that you need to do. You see it across the board in general right. If you want to be really great at what you do, you have to be on top of it in every single different aspect of your life.

How do you handle it when, you have a runner who really wants to be good, but genuinely, and this might sound terrible… just genuinely aren’t talented at it? Is there a way to get them there or do you eventually have to be like “hey you….. kind of suck at this?” You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah I do.

I think it's hard because you do have to recognize to a certain degree it is genetics right? I'm not going to sit here and say that I've personally run the times I've run, just because I've worked really really hard to get there.

Like that is a certain degree of it. But at the end of the day it is also that genetically I'm more predisposed to be good at what I'm doing and I think sometimes that's hard for kids to recognize. You know this is America, we've been told that you can pull yourself up by the bootstraps to accomplish all that you set your mind to, if you're a hard worker and you do everything right. And even if you do everything right, there's always gonna be somebody that's more talented than you, and I think it's important for kids to realize that from a young age so that they're not disappointed when that happens inevitably. We're all gonna get there at some point. Where you're gonna be at practice and be like, “why the hell is that person so much faster than me if I'm working harder than them, I'm doing all the things right and they're not doing it” - it's just because they're more talented, and it sucks to swallow that pill.

I had a training partner my freshman year of college and I just didn’t understand why they were so much better than me, but they were just more genetically talented. They were simply faster, naturally, and it was annoying to watch them go out and party and do all this stuff and know that I was doing everything I could to get myself set up to do better, and you just can't control that.

I think for people that are less talented, you just have to be okay with knowing that your ceiling of athletic ability might be lower than somebody else's, and understanding that you can only be better than your previous self. That's what you're striving toward, you're not gonna be an Olympian, and that's okay.

Right and I don't think that means you can’t get A LOT better than you are, but I think going back to your first point - everyone thinks they can go to the Olympics, go to a state meet, run a Boston qualifying marathon or a 15 minute 5k - if you work really hard. And if you don't make it, it’s obvious that you didn’t work hard enough or you didn't have the right mindset for it.

Yeah, and I think that's why I personally really hate when parents or kids say that, because it is such a small percentage of the population that become Olympians. I think there's so many other goals that you could strive for, but that's the flashy one. It's understanding that it’s not a reality for most people and that's all right. Can you be a district champion? Cool. Can you PR in the next year? Awesome. Can you PR over the next five years? Can you get a little bit better each year? Those are the kinds of goals that I think are appropriate and still aspirational.

In order to really love the sport and have this as a lifelong thing, you have to enjoy the process. You have to be somebody that's okay with not having these huge jumps in achievement and being okay with just chipping away and chipping away. Whether it's year to year or month to month, that's how you have to approach running.

How's pregnancy?

It's actually not that bad. I thought it would be a lot worse, honestly.

How is running different now?

Before I got pregnant, I had already come to terms with the idea that I might not be running at the level I would like to. And I think that came with the idea of being alright with being pregnant, because for a long time I didn't want to become pregnant. I didn't want to have a family because I didn't want to sacrifice my body in that way. It really freaked me out. To me it feels like a parasite. I thought about that before pregnancy. I still feel that way. But I think it's coming to terms with understanding that I'm at a point in my athletic career where I'm not trying to PR necessarily. Like, I would like to. I'd like to still run fast. I would like to do certain things. But I don't feel the drive in the same way. I don't necessarily want to live the lifestyle that I was two or three years ago to make that happen. So I think it's just becoming more okay with not being an elite athlete and just enjoying running for what it is. It's allowed me to be pregnant and okay with not running as much.

Do you feel like you've accepted it well or are you still grappling with this new reality for the next few months

Yeah I think so. I think that if I hadn't gotten to that point mentally before I got pregnant that would be very different right now. I think I'd be a lot more frustrated.

I feel like I got it out of my system in the past year where I took some time off and got back into the sport. Got really close to a PR in the mile. I was really happy with my training and how it was going. I felt really confident that if I was in the right race setting I could probably run close to like 4:35 to 4:30 range. Which would have been a PR but the opportunity just didn't present itself and I think that being okay with that and not trying to press for that goal or force it to happen was good.

In the past I've been someone that has tried to force things when I feel like I'm in a pressure cooker and there's this constraint of time. I think coming to terms that it's okay to not be that person anymore, or not have to be that person, has allowed me to enter pregnancy and not feel like “I need to”, I don't need to work out twice a day. I don't need to run 40 miles a week. I don't need to cross train three times a week or live the same way that I used to.

I feel like pregnancy is just weird for anyone, but I’m sure especially for athletes. The main thing that really becomes hard when you're pregnant is moving and having full autonomy of your body. So as an athlete, that’s just hard from an identity sense when so much of who you are is your sport.

Do you feel like you've seen your friends from track who have gotten pregnant, go through that?

Seeing a couple of my friends that have gotten pregnant that were elite athletes, I quickly realized I didn't wanna be like them. They tried to train really hard through their pregnancies to be able to come back really quickly afterwards. And one of them ended up in a boot. She got a stress fracture. And seeing that, I was like, I don't want to be pregnant and feel awful and also walking around in a boot.

So I think coming into the pregnancy, I wanted to be able to be active but not feel pressure to have to make this big comeback. I've already gone through that phase in my life where I've had to make comebacks. And you do everything you can control to make it happen. At this point in my life, I'm not willing to go aqua jog in the pool for an hour every day. I'm not willing to be on the bike for an hour and a half every day to get in the cross training and just maintain myself aerobically.

I'm enjoying what I enjoy. I do what I feel like. Running is not a huge part of the equation anymore in the same way that it was prior to pregnancy. But it's also just recognizing my body and responding to what the baby is liking and not liking. Right now, he's cool with sprints. So I'm sprinting, but I'm not doing longer runs right now.

And when you have the baby, you're going to be able to take time off, right? Because you're having it during the summer season.

I am. I'm having it during the summer, so I plan to take probably the majority of my maternity leave, which I believe is 12 weeks, which would put me kind of coming back hopefully by the time the school year starts.

You still have to take maternity leave during the summer?

Yeah, kind of. Our work schedule is kind of weird. I’m a 12-month employee with Montverde even though we don't really have work hours in the same way in the summer and it ends up being a four-hour day type situation. So usually in the summer I'll work on prepping stuff for the coming cross-country season, figuring out a schedule. We have some kids that will practice so I'll meet up with them sometimes, but I'm going to leave that to our associate head coach to kind of manage that

How long have you been with Montverde now?

I’ve been there since 2022.

I feel like you've been there longer. Well were you coaching there already while you were still running professionally?

Yes. So part of the deal when I took the job initially was that I wanted to be able to run. My start time is technically 10 a.m. But when I first got there I would show up to campus usually around 7 to 7:30AM. I would do my track workout, get my lift in and get that all done before 10 a.m. It's pretty flexible which is part of the appeal of the gig to begin with.

Before that I was at IMG. Our schedule was very flexible in a lot of ways but it was also very demanding in other ways, especially when you have to do summer camp in summers for literally eight, ten weeks straight. It becomes very exhausting really quickly and it really impacts the way that I could train and I just didn't feel very valued when we were there either from a financial standpoint or a growth standpoint.

So it was pretty easy to make the decision to switch to allow myself to train for another year if I wanted to, but also just have a better cohort of people around me as a support environment.

And how long were you at IMG for?

I was there for two full track seasons but I technically started halfway through their indoor season in 2021.

So there's been like a three-year overlap of you both running professionally and also coaching?

Well in Florida, yes. When I first started running professionally I started coaching right away. I was at a boarding school in Virginia called Episcopal High School - It's the oldest high school in the state, fun fact. It mainly caters to kids whose parents work in the DC metro area. It's full boarding, so there's no day students. That means everybody has to be on campus 24-7.

They were great. It was a flexible schedule where I would train there in the mornings. We would start practice anywhere from like 8 to 10 o’clock and then I would coach the high school kids in the afternoon starting at like 4 o'clock.

Okay, so you've always done both?

I have, yeah. I think there's some people that go into professional running and they only want to run and that's cool. I knew coming out of college that I wanted another outlet where I wasn't just hyper-focused on my own personal running 24-7. I've always enjoyed coaching and helping kids and even when I was younger I thought that I would coach part-time at some point in my life. Obviously it's very different now where it is my full career. I didn't think it was going to be my career but it's just something that I've fallen into and it's worked out really well for me. I enjoy it.

You said some people only focus on running. Does that just depend on the person? Does it pay well enough that they can just focus on that? It doesn't sound like you coached as a necessity - It sounds like you wanted to do it, but do most people have that option?

I think it just depends. So the world of track and field, a lot of people don't realize, it's not a revenue generating sport. It's not like football or basketball. There's no unionization of the sport and there's no standard like “if you turn pro you're going to make x amount of money of that kind of thing”. It's very individual and a lot of the contracts that you sign are actually closer to being “Name Image and Likeness contracts”, which we see now that are being very popularized in the NCAA and at the high school level.

So really what you're signing as a professional athlete is a brand deal where you are representing said brand. Those contracts can range anywhere from as little as a thousand dollars a year to if, you’re the Usain Bolt of the world, you might be making closer to a million.

Usually the way the contracts are also written though, is that you might have a set kind of yearly stipend and then there are bonus structures included, which Nike for example is pretty notorious for. So sometimes they'll sign athletes on for maybe $5,000 a year and that's your set stipend. But if you hit X, Y, and Z bonus structure, whether that's winning a certain race or running a certain time, that's really where you make your money. And that could be, you know, 100K, it could be 50K, it could be a thousand dollars every time you win a race. It just kind of depends on how you've coordinated that contract or how your agent has done that.

Initially, when I started running professionally, I signed with District Track Club. I went with them because Max got into law school at Georgetown, and they were developing a group that was specifically 800 meter runners. They offered me, I think it was like $200 a month of a food stipend, free training, track access, gym access, and those add up pretty quickly. Unfortunately, I was in a situation where I wasn't quite a big name coming out of college. It was kind of like a-

You're a big name to me.

Thank you.

So I was kind of an underdog, right? I did have a better offer from Atlanta Track Club at the time. They were offering me, I think it was like $30K a year to go run with them, but obviously I wanted to be with Max, so I took the offer with DTC.

When I first started, before I got my deal with Under Armour, I was walking dogs, I was coaching, I was doing private coaching, and then I was also working at Outdoor Voices in Georgetown. My days were pretty hectic, and I'd actually say that's pretty common for most people that are trying to make it as professional runners, even ones that are closer to the top, that are making USA finals and going to Olympic trials.

It's just really, really hard to find a brand sponsor that's going to give you everything you need to live without having to take on an additional part-time role somewhere.

Making sure I’m understanding - So it's not like the NBA, where players have a contract and are being paid specifically by the NBA? For example, like Sydney Mclaughlin - New Balance is paying for her life? Not a US track and field organization

Yes, exactly. There's no NCAA track who is sending her money, unless she wins something. So there's USATF, which is, kind of like our governing body for the United States but the way they distribute funding is kind of a messed up system if you think about it. The people they’re funding are already people that are at the very top, like Sydney McLaughlin who's very set. She might get five thousand dollars a year from USATF but she doesn't need that money.

Unfortunately that's how the sport has kind of evolved where you now have a very small cohort of people who already have the higher end deals in terms of contracts. That are now also given those extra bonuses from agencies like USATF.

There's a couple non-profit type stuff that try to help out a little bit, but again it's skewed towards people that are kind of already financially well off and it's not necessarily a fair distribution even across different event fields.

Throwers, jumpers, traditionally don't get contracts because they're not really selling shoes in the general population of hobby joggers or runners, right? So if you are a distance runner, you're more likely to get a contract because you're going to have a better social media presence to then push running shoes to the general population. So the people who are just doing the throws, it's harder for them to get a contract. It's very, very hard for them to get a contract.

So how do they survive? Do they just have to get another job?

They have to get another job. Sometimes they have a spouse or a partner that will support them. Sometimes it's reaching out to local businesses to help support them. Track and field is not for the faint of heart when it comes to trying to pursue it post-collegedly, Which I think is also shitty because if you are someone that went to a big NCAA school.…..It’s like a slap in the face for people that have gone to these very prestigious athletic colleges that have everything catered to them. They have meal plans, they have athletic trainers, they don't have to think about anything, they're cared for. Then they're just thrust into like the real world of post-collegiate athletics and all those amenities just don’t exist unless you're able to really get a good brand contract.

And even then you still have to kind of scrape by and figure out like where am I gonna get physical therapy? Where am I gonna go get a massage? Where am I gonna go get dry needling? How am I gonna take care of myself nutritionally? I think a lot of people aren't prepared to take that on or realize - how much work it is to get that stuff handled. I think I was fortunate to go to a pretty small Division I school where I had to figure out some of that stuff before running post-collegially and I think it was good for me. Versus like, some of my friends that came from better institutions and the real world was a slap in the face for them.

For sure. I don't think people realize what an advantage it is, in any craft, to be taken care of so you can just focus on that. It is such a privilege and a blessing.

It's a luxury and I think it's hard to get that within track and field unless you are a big name coming out of college where you are already guaranteed to have a brand deal and a team environment kind of set up for you. My first probably seven months or so running professionally it was a scraping by process until we ended up signing as a group to Under Armour and then having more things that were taken care of for us which was really nice.

I enjoyed the group a lot, especially the first year and a half of being there and then things kind of changed in terms of the number of people that we had on the team. We went from being a pretty small group of eight of us when I started. Then we mushroomed to like 14, and it just quickly became a situation where it felt as though our coach wasn't giving people individualized attention. I happened to be coming off an injury at the point in time so I felt like I was the workhorse of the group where I was just there helping out with training. I was pacing every workout and doing that kind of stuff but I wasn't getting individual attention that some of my teammates were getting. So I kind of felt gypped. I kind of felt undervalued.

I mean take me through that entire process, because you started running professionally right out of college and you went to the Olympic trials and now you’re life is a bit different

Yeah, so when I was with the group in 2020, I got hurt pretty bad, which was initially supposed to be the Olympic trials year.

We were at training camp actually at IMG in Bradenton and I felt a sharp pain in my hip during a workout. Went to go see a chiropractor right away. He thought it was just that my back out of alignment or my hips were displaced a little bit.

So news was breaking that there's this virus and things were going to shut down. My team and I were sitting in our condo in Bradenton, Florida wondering what's gonna happen? Are they gonna cancel the trials? All of us are already so deep into training trying to make this happen. But we hopped on a flight the next day. We were the only people on the flight. We got back to DC, which was very different than Florida because we went on full lockdown.

So we had curfews, you couldn't go outside. We didn't have access to training. I'd say it was like a period of a month or so where I was super stressed because I had this injury and I didn't know what it was. I couldn't see the proper doctors I needed to because of COVID. And at that point the Olympics still hadn't been canceled yet.

It got to the point where Max and I had gone for a run. I was supposed to do a brand thing for Under Armour - I literally could not do it. My hip was at the point where I was hobbling around walking. So I had to stop mid doing this assignment for them and broke down. I realized there was something really wrong.

I ended up going to the doctor. They told me it was a labral tear. Usually with labral tears you have to have surgery. That's the main way to fix it and at that point the trials still hadn't been canceled. So in my head I'm like, this is my athletic goal in the sport, to go to the Olympic trials and now I'm in the year where it could happen and I can't do it. And it was really tough mentally grappling with that. That I was so close to reaching that and now all of a sudden, it's gone.

Well, I mean, they did end up getting postponed.

They did, they did, which was great.

I mean I’m sure you were thrilled.

It was a weird emotion of being really thrilled and excited that it got postponed a year, but then also the realization of, I still have to deal with this injury and figure out how to navigate it and get ready for the following year. And there's no guarantee that after fixing this, I'll be back to form to be able to actually complete the following year.

I ended up going to a doctor, and he was great. He offered a couple different options.

Surgery was option number one. Longest time in terms of recovery, but the highest success rate. Option two was PRP, which is plasma-rich platelets. It's injecting your own platelets back into the injury site. Third option was stem cells, which was very, very expensive. Again, probably the higher rate of the two when it comes to the injections. The PRP was like 80% chance it works, 20% chance that we do it and nothing happens.

I ended up going through three rounds of PRP. Each time you do it, you get the injection. You can't do anything for two weeks. The following two weeks, you can start doing a little bit of physical therapy. And then you go back and they assess, do we need to do another round or not?

Why didn't you just wanna do surgery if it was the highest success rate?

I didn't want to do surgery because I had a couple people I knew that had done surgery and usually it's six months to return to play. And I already knew the new date of the Olympic trials. If I had done surgery and it was six months until I could actually do any type of running, I would have been far enough into the training cycle that there was no coming back.

I wouldn't have made the window to be able to compete with trials. So it wasn't really an option for me if I wanted the trials to happen. So it was either PRP or stem cells, and I'm really happy with how the PRP worked out. I've never had issues with this hip again.

So it was a long process. I had crutches I was hobbling around on. But it was also COVID. So everything was shut down anyways, which, you know, you get through it. And then the return from that was just a slow, gradual ramping up and things ended up working out where I was able to string together a pretty good season and PR in my first meet, plus I got the job at IMG. So I was training down there, I ended up going to the trials and that was great. So we would hit that goal of actually qualifying and getting in.

Unfortunately, I had a lot of personal stuff that happened the month leading into the trial, so it was a pretty rough week or so in Eugene for me. I just didn't really want to be there and I mentally felt pretty fatigued. So it wasn't what I would have liked my trials experience to have been, but it was my goal and I was happy to have been able to make it happen.

Right, I mean just being able to go is incredible, but I’m sure you were stressed having to basically redo your initial prep, a second time.

Im sure everyone that goes to the trials, has that hope that they are going to move forward. Do you feel a level of satisfaction that you went? Or was it just more so disappointment that it didn't go the way that you hoped? Or was it mixed?

I'd say it was mixed. I think going in, I knew that it would be really hard to make it into the final, just in general. There's no guarantee you're going to make the final. I was happy that I was one of the only ones from my team that had qualified and was able to go. I was also one of the few Under Armour representatives there that had made it and was actually competing.

I think it was disappointing that I felt as though the month leading into the trials I just mentally was not there and not ready to compete in the way that I had hoped I would be. So I think I was disappointed in my own preparation going into it and how I managed the situation versus, being disappointed about actually racing people. I don't think there's anything I could have done on the day that would have changed the way the race played out unfortunately, but I gave my best effort that I could at the time which is all you can ask for.

So you do feel like you gave your best effort at the time?

I think I gave my best effort for that time in terms of how I was mentally because at that point I really didn't even want to be there. Which, it’s sad to reach your childhood dream and feel like you don’t actually want to be here. My dad ended up having what he thought was a seizure. It ended up being an episode of Bells Palsy, but none of my family was there. Since it was covid, and tickets were insanely expensive I had no friends that could really come. So I'm by myself in Eugene, stressed out because this is happening with my dad. My relationship with my husband at the time was also a little rocky because we were trying to figure out where to move and if we were going to relocate to Florida or New York and

Freaking max

Yeah I know. I was also in the process of debating like do I want to leave the pro team I've been a part of now for a couple years or not. So there was a lot of unresolved turmoil. The trip at least solidified my decision to leave the team I had been with so it was actually good to at least come to that clarity from the situation. I ended up switching to a coach, Dustin Spanbauer, which has been fantastic and him and I are really great friends and coworkers now. I’ve learned so much from him. The whole experience it was just kind of like a culmination point of I think figuring out what the next steps of life were.

How was that transition?

Honestly, it was great. I was part of a pro group where I really enjoyed the people, but I don't think the training was necessarily catered to me, which was okay the first couple of years, but then as you realize that your time in the sport is so limited, you wanna have a coach that's more invested in you as an individual and really catering workouts to make you be able to reach the best you can and have success in your event. I just didn't feel like I was getting that from him. I felt like there were certain things that we just weren't touching on that as a background as a 400 meter runner, I needed to be able to maintain my speed, but also work on the endurance side of stuff.

So working with Dustin was a great pivot because he was literally just on top of everything, understanding me as a person, understanding my background, really catering workouts to set me up for success, to be able to do the things I wanted to do. The first year, I ended up PR'ing in the mile by like four seconds, which was a pretty big jump.

And then I PR'ed in the 1500. I ended up rolling my ankle fairly badly and having this freak accident where I broke my tibia. Just bizarre, couldn't control it kind of thing. So that was really disappointing. Made a little bit of a comeback, but I think working with him taught me a lot in terms of actually coaching and understanding the sport better in terms of being able to coach other people better. So there was a lot that I gained from that situation that I don't think I would have gotten from staying with the pro group.

So when you left that pro group, did that deal with Under Armour also leave?

Toward the end of that timeframe of 2021, when my contract was up, I had come to the conclusion that I didn't really wanna re-sign with them regardless because they didn't have the shoe technology that other brands had available. So I opted to sign with Track Smith instead. I could wear whatever shoe I wanted and not have to deal with worrying about if my Under Armour shoes are gonna be up to snuff. They didn't end up coming out with super shoes until the end of 2022. I think it was a bit of a unfair disadvantage to be at the trials and be the only person that didn't have super shoes in my race. Which was also sucky at the time, a little bit of a point of contention, but.

Didn't you try to debate it? I thought you asked them to wear something else and they were going to let you.

Yeah. So initially Under Armour, during the trials, had told us a couple of weeks out that you could wear whatever super shoes you wanted, as long as the branding was blotted out.

And I had bought myself a pair of Nikes and got the logo removed with puff paint. A week before the trials, they were like, yeah, “if you wear a non Under Armour shoe, we're gonna revoke your travel stipend and you're gonna have to pay us back”. I mean, I understand in retrospect why they did it, but at the time it just felt really unfair that I'm the only person in the field that doesn't have the same technology and there is very clearly an advantage.

Of course. Especially when you’re running a shorter distance where people are winning by like 0.05 of a second, every tiny thing matters.

Yeah, I just felt like I didn't want to have that thought in the back of my head of, are my shoes gonna hold me back from being able to perform at like the highest level. So it was just kind of a no brainer to sign with TrackSmith. I felt like their value system aligned with mine a little bit better in terms of their vision of what an athlete should be and how they go about their business.

Yeah, how long have you been with them now? You're still with them, right?

I'm not with them anymore. I didn't resign my contract this past cycle. So I stopped running for them officially at the end of 2023.I just didn't see myself actually competing at the high level that I thought I would.

I didn't feel like I wanted to take away a stipend from somebody else who might actually be trying to compete because there are a limited number of athletes that they take per year. I already knew that wanted to do my own thing this past year. I wrote my own training for the first time and was just enjoying the process. Like, I could train hard when I wanted to and I could create the week however I wanted to. I didn't feel like I had to have a set schedule. And I think it reignited my passion for the sport in a way that I really enjoyed. And I don't think that in 2023, I felt that way.

I had felt like I needed to make this grandiose comeback after having my freak ankle incident. And I just had forced it so much that I wasn't having fun. I was having panic attacks and anxiety going into races which I've never had before. Just this idea of like, I need to make this happen, and I didn't need to. 2024 for me was a matter of like taking a step back mentally and just re-approaching the sport and getting back to why I liked it in the first place.

So end of 2023 was officially when you stopped running professionally. Are you at peace with it?

I think now I am. For a while in 2023 I think part of that pressure I was feeling, was from knowing that my ceiling was higher and I felt like I could achieve more in the sport. I was really frustrated that I hadn't after having such a bad experience at the trials.

Then, coming back, being in peak shape and having that freak accident happen where everything got derailed. Just - feeling like I needed to make a comeback and run really fast and do all these things and I think now I'm finally at peace in terms of just being happy with how my career went overall.

There's things that obviously we would all go back in time and change if we could, but I can't and I need to be okay with that. I think that it's something that all athletes are going to always feel - You're always going to want to be able to do more. At a certain point you just have to recognize that maybe that wasn't the path for you or maybe things worked out the way they did for a reason. There's still things that I would like to pursue now that are different goals within the sport.

Also, having more of my friends that have also hit retirement age and being able to talk with them about it. It's normalizing having those feelings, versus being one of those people that burn themselves out in the sport and they go until they can't and I never wanted to be that person.

I was getting to that point where I was hating every race. I didn't like training and I've never been that way before. I didn't want to drag myself into the ground and be someone that had to retire from a sport because of an injury or because things just weren't happening the way I wanted them to. I had turned into that person and I didn't like it, so taking a step back of my own accord was good for me. Then being able to come back into 2024 with a fresh start and not having any pressure. There was no expectation and things went better than they did in 2023 when I was still “a professional”. So I feel at peace resting on my laurels now

Anything specific next besides pushing out a baby?

Well initially before I got pregnant I thought I was gonna do a half marathon. Those were the two routes. I either get pregnant or I start training for a half marathon. And then I got pregnant the same week I started training for a half marathon. I still think at some point I'm open to the idea of doing a half. I don't think I want to do a full. I know myself well enough that if I actually committed to running a marathon I would be a psycho and wanna train to make sure it was actually fast. I just don't know if I'm ready for that buy-in yet. Especially if we're gonna have a kid in the next year. I wanna be able to be present and not feel stressed about training. So, maybe in the next year, after having a kid, I would be open to the idea of training for a half again, maybe doing the Gate River Run. That was fun when I did it last year.

I think mostly it's just figuring out new ways to challenge myself. I think it'd be really cool to learn how to, like, long jump.

I’d love to learn how to do that just for the heck of it. I see the pit when I'm on the track and I get this impulsive urge to just.. jump in it.

Yeah, I did it as a kid and I liked it. I was helping rake the sandpit one day and I was doing that thing where you step on the end of the rake and, you know, you catch it.. that kind of thing. and I hit myself in the face. May or may not have had a mild concussion. I had this huge black and blue spot in my forehead and I looked like the thing from The Goonies.

That's so funny.

Yeah, it was pretty bad. I wasn't allowed to high jump or long jump anymore though, so I think it'd be cool to relearn that as an adult. Maybe, try to dabble in Master's track and field, but I don't have any strong running goals, necessarily, other than just get back and get fit.

You have a lot of books on this wall. Imagine right now that this room is burning down. You can pick one.

Um, it's gotta be the hobbit.

I've never read that in my life.

Oh, it's a really good book.

Fair enough.

Yeah. Good journey of, like, self-discovery and learning how to push your boundaries. Through the lens of a Hobbit.

janan chu