Courtney Frerichs Interview

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Courtney Frerichs — February, 2022

Courtney Frerichs is the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and 2017 World Championships Silver Medalist in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. She is the 2021 Prefontaine Classic Diamond League Silver Medalist in her second American Record of 8:57.77, becoming the first U.S. woman to break nine minutes. Courtney was a 2016 Olympian, finishing 11th in the steeplechase. She has finished in second place at the last five U.S. Championships and Olympic Trials from 2016 to 2021 and earned the 2018 IAAF Continental Cup Silver Medal. Her five fastest steeplechase times average 9:02.85. Courtney won the 2016 NCAA championships steeplechase in a collegiate and meet record of 9:24.41. She finished fourth at the 2017 U.S. Cross Country Championships. At the 2015 NCAA Cross Country Championships her fourth place finish led New Mexico to the team title. Frerichs earned seven NCAA Division I All-American honors for the University of Missouri-Kansas City Kangaroos and the New Mexico Lobos. She also won eleven conference championships. As a prep, Courtney was a two-time regional qualifier in gymnastics and all-district in soccer. On limited training she ran 18:12 for cross country 5k as a prep and set the school record in the triple jump. Her personal best times are: 800 meters – 2:06.33; 1,500 meters - 4:07.39; mile - 4:31.0 (road); 3,000 meters - 8:47.90; 3,000 meters steeplechase – 8:57.77 and 5,000 meters – 14:50.06 (outdoors) and 14:48.75 (indoors). Courtney earned a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Master of Community Health Education from New Mexico. She was honored as the 2016 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Scholar Athlete of the Year. Courtney races for the Bowerman Track Club and resides in Portland, Oregon with her husband, Griffin and their cat, ‘Roo.’ She was very kind to spend over an hour on the telephone for this interview.

GCR:	THE BIG PICTURE Since it has been several months since the 2021 track and field season ended, when you look back now, how do you describe a year highlighted by an Olympic Silver Medal and a Diamond League Prefontaine Classic Silver Medal as you became the first U.S. woman to break nine minutes with your 8:57.77 clocking?
CF	It was definitely a dream season for sure. I honestly have so much gratitude that it happened.

GCR:

How exciting was it that day in Tokyo to win the Silver Medal in the 3,000-meter steeplechase and be on the podium for an Olympic Medal ceremony?

It was so surreal. I had been thinking about those Olympic Games for so long as soon as Rio finished. And then we had that extra year. There was a big learning process in dealing with the reality that something I had been thinking about for so long might not happen. It was such a dream come true, not just to be on the podium, but to have taken a risk at the Olympics this time with my racing tactics which was a substantial change from my first Olympic Games.

GCR:

When we spoke in 2017, you told me about when you were a little girl doing gymnastics and how you thought about competing in the Olympics. Since you had a World Championship Silver Medal in your pocket from 2017, how similar and different is the feeling and accomplishment of earning a Silver Medal in the Olympics since you do face the same talented group of athletes?

In all reality, the competition is the same in a sense. I tried to remind myself of that when I was standing on the line at the Olympics. I told myself that I had seen these girls before and had raced them many times and it was no different. But if we take a step outside of our sport it feels like there is this added pressure when it comes to the Olympic Games. The Olympics don’t come around that often, then the Games were delayed, and we didn’t know if they were going to happen. There was this sense that I didn’t want to walk away feeling that I would get it next time. I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity that was right in front of me. There is a lot of pride in an Olympic medal, especially like you said, since I had dreamed about that moment since I was just a child. Standing on the podium at the Olympic Games is something I have always wanted in my career. It is the highlight of my career at the moment.

GCR:

For the past half dozen years, it seems a given that Emma Coburn and you will take two of the three spots on the U.S. team in the steeplechase. How much pressure is there with our system where an athlete must perform at the U.S. Olympic Trials, especially considering Leah Falland tripping over a barrier in the Tokyo Olympic Trials with about two laps to go which ended her Olympic bid?

The U.S. system for qualifying is the highest pressure because we have one shot. That is why we do so well at the Games or World Championships because we have already had to go through the learning of how we must be ready for the day. Things happen and there was a lot of talk that ‘Courtney and Emma are locks.’ But I never go into a U.S. Championships with that thought, especially this year with the most competitive women’s steeple field we have ever seen which is so exciting. What a huge step for our event. We never know who is going to show up on the day we race. Like you said, in the steeple especially, things happen, and runners fall, and it can totally jar your entire race. I think back to my preliminary race where I fell six hundred meters in and there was a moment of panic where I thought, ‘My Olympic dream for 2020-21 was over. If I get up and I’m hurt and can’t finish this race, then there is no Olympics because I’m not even running in the finals at the Olympic Trials.’ As nerve wracking as it is to go through the Trials or through U.S. Championships to qualify for the team, I do think it is a great system. That is what we must do on that day, and we are prepared for those major championships because we have been through it in terms of showing up on the day and qualifying.

GCR:

As a quick aside, I ran some steeplechase races in college for Appalachian State and at one of our home meets, on the last lap, I pushed off the water jump barrier. The wood was old, and my spike ripped it. I was in the lead and went completely down into the water. I came up and resumed running and my glasses were somewhere in the water. I ran to the finish and won the race before running back to the water jump to get my glasses and hope no one had stepped on them. Is this a good example of things going wrong in a steeplechase?

Things can happen in any race, but with the added obstacles in the steeplechase you just increase that chance. You just never know. I hope to not experience the wood tearing on the water jump barrier. I did run in one race where the barriers were too high. They hadn’t lowered the barriers from the men’s height to the women’s height at the Oslo Diamond League race. We rah half the race at the men’s height. Then for part of the race the barrier was off the track being adjusted. And how do we manage these circumstances and get the job done?

GCR:

We have spoken about competing for medals, but the other big goal for runners is to run fast times and break barriers. In 2018 you came close to breaking nine minutes as you clocked 9:00.85 in Monaco for an American Record. How much sweeter was it to break your record at the 2021 Prefontaine Classic while competing strong at the front and finishing with a time that started with the digit ‘eight?’

That race at the Prefontaine Classic is one that I am very proud of. My result at the Olympic Games was the result of taking risk and not feeling that the race had to play out a certain way for me to be successful. I took control of what I could, and I did that again at Pre. This was one of the first times in my career that I have been able to do this multiple times in a season. Sometimes I have had these big results and then, suddenly, I would put expectations on myself and resort back to old habits. Going into Pre, my therapist worked with me to remind me that Pre was going to be an independent event from the Olympics and, no matter what happened, it wasn’t going to change what happened in Tokyo. Therefore, I wanted to go and compete. I thought, ‘I’m going to race.’ I thought that was going to be the best way for me to try to break nine minutes. Sometimes we look at the clock too much and start to overthink. I never imagined that, when I finally broke nine minutes, it would be going out as fast as we did and then slowing down and picking it back up. I was so focused on racing that day. I saw myself competing and challenging and totally enjoyed the race. I ended up getting the best version of myself that day by having that approach. Honestly, to be able to be at Hayward Field and in front of an American crowd was very, very special. We don’t get those moments too often. Most of the time when we are racing in large, domestic opportunities they are early in the season or the U.S. Championships. Sometimes the Prefontaine Classic is my race opener for the year. Then at the U.S. Championships, my primary goal is making the team. To be in that kind of field, post-Olympics when runners were very fit, was a very special opportunity. I wanted to take advantage of it. The race was incredible to be able to share that moment especially after we didn’t have fans at the Olympics.

GCR:

You are leading into my next question. After having no crowds at the Olympics, did it provide an extra boost for you and your competitors to have the enthusiastic crowds at the Pre Classic at Hayward Field?

It was amazing. I had tried to put no energy into the fact that there were no crowds at the Olympics. I was there to compete. I had a job to do, and it was going to be the same whether there were people watching or not. When we got to Pre and Hayward, there was this extra energy. I used that energy in the decisive moments. Going into that bell lap, I could feel the crowd. I could hear them and channel them in and it pushes me. I was very happy to come back and race in front of a crowd. The race itself felt like a victory lap that we didn’t get in Tokyo which was cool.

GCR:

You had a mental and physical dip in 2019 and weren’t racing to your potential. What did you do to turn it around and set yourself up for your outstanding 2021 season?

When I look back, in my first two years running professionally, I accomplished much more than I expected. I made some positive approaches in my training and racing but hadn’t quite taken the dive into the mental health and mental training that I needed to do. That came to a head in 2019 and again in 2020 when the Games were delayed. Throughout those two years I felt this insane amount of pressure every time I would workout or race. I had to perform for others, and it took away a lot of my joy of running. In the fall of 2021, I had a hamstring injury where I was able to continue to run but couldn’t work out with the team. I stopped workouts for a while. I had been very fortunate to stay healthy during my running career and that gave me confidence. One of the things I have the most confidence in as an athlete is my consistency in training and to not miss days. That was taken away and I felt like I had lost everything. I started having panic attacks in the middle of workouts if they went astray and the workout wasn’t going how I expected. It was representative of the way I panicked at Worlds in 2019 when the race went out as fast as it did. My husband was the first one to bring it up. He was working on his master’s degree in positive coaching at the time. We were doing a workout over Christmas break, and he started to push the pace on me a little. I started to panic, and he helped me get through it. When we finished the workout, we had a hard but open conversation. He told me I had so much potential I was not reaching because I was panicking. He felt that by not approaching these mental barriers I was facing that I was not making the growth physically. Then, if you threw in that I was dealing with this hamstring injury, I was also in pain every time I ran. It became not fun. Last winter we had our winter camp in Flagstaff, and I started listening to what he was saying. I had a hard workout that ended in another panic attack. I broke down to Shalane Flanagan and Jerry Schumacher. I told them that physically my hamstring was not okay and mentally I was struggling and that we needed to do something different. They listened and we took a step back from training. We made the focus getting healthy physically. Shalane recommended a therapist that I connected well with, and we started tackling the mental side of things. It took a lot of challenging work and real diving in on both the physical rehab and the mental work. By this last summer, I started to enjoy running again. I still get nervous. I think most of us do because we want to get the best out of ourselves. I was able to make this shift to challenging myself and putting myself out there to be able to walk away with no regrets rather than playing it safe all the time because of a fear of failure. It is something I must work on constantly. A mistake I made in the past is that I was working with a great sports psychologist early in my career and, as soon as everything was going well, I thought, ‘I’m good now. I don’t need that anymore.’ It’s like when we get an injury, what keeps us healthy once we recover from the injury is all the prehab and continuing to do what helps us get healthy. The same goes for the mind. It’s easy to resort back to old habits. We must remember that running is ups and downs and we aren’t always at the peaks.

GCR:

There is a fine line between racing and competing as there must be a willingness to ignore mental limitations and physical discomfort to go beyond where we have believed we could go. In a recent interview I conducted with Molly Seidel, she talked about being a competitor in the Olympic Trials and Olympics where there was a point when she went for it and thought, ‘If I die, then I die.’ Do you enjoy having that type of attitude where you don’t leave anything out there?

Molly is someone I have so much respect for, and I genuinely enjoy watching her race because of that attitude that says, ‘I’m going to race today. I’m going to test my limits.’ That is what I have absolutely tried hard to work on. Jerry has been throwing me into workouts where I must focus more on being in the present than the end. I might not get to the end of a workout that day, but that’s okay because we are working on finding that limit and finding that line. It took so much practice to figure out how to shift from me being able to run nine flat and thinking that if I did ‘x plus y it equals z’ to realizing there isn’t an equation. It’s about stacking, building year after year, gaining new tools and learning how to use those tools. Sure, there are races that we can call time trials because there may be a purpose of getting an Olympic qualifying time. But, when it comes to those big moments, we want to race. That was a very important shift for me because, for a long time, I always thought it was only possible for my races to play out one certain way. In London at the 2017 World Championships, I ran to my potential on that day. The way that race played out fit my favor as an athlete. It was an evenly paced race where we gradually cut down the pace and that played to my strengths. That was great early in my career. But, if I wanted to stay competitive as my career progressed, I had to learn how to race more than one way.

GCR:

Over your career you have a slew of Silver Medals including the 2021 Olympics, 2017 World Championships, two Olympic Trials, the 2018 IAAF Continental Cup and several USATF Championships. It reminds me of the great marathon racer, Kim Jones, who finished second in World Marathon Majors six times without a win. Does this explain how hard is it to win Gold Medals when there are so many talented athletes all battling for the same goal?

Absolutely. I feel that consistently this summer I was the best version of myself, and someone was better that day. And it wasn’t even the same person every time. It’s exciting because when I’m standing on the line with all these women who have run between 8:55 and 9:05, that’s incredible and I know I’m going to get the best out of myself that day. It doesn’t mean I’m not aspiring to hopefully have a Gold Medal in there one day.

GCR:

It transcends sports as, in the NFL playoffs this year, any of the final eight teams was good enough to go to the Super Bowl as all four games came down to a last-minute field goal or overtime. I think the parallel for you is that with eight to twelve athletes on the line with you in a major competition, many of them are capable of winning.

That is why it becomes important to be good at different racing styles and to have many strengths. If I know my strengths and how to use them is important, but also, when the race plays out differently, to realize, ‘Okay, I can do this too.’ I’m excited with where the women’s steeplechase is now. There are faces that have been around for awhile and a lot of up-and-coming talent too here in the U.S. and globally. It’s been fun to be a part of a rapidly growing event. It’s crazy to think that the 2008 Games were the first time the women’s steeplechase was in the Olympics.

GCR:

TOKYO OLYMPIC GAMES When the Tokyo Olympics were postponed for a year, how did you manage the double-edged sword of the covid-19 disruption of running and life with the good fortune of being able to train for an extra year to recover from injuries and to focus on improved mental preparation?

At first, I took the delay very hard. While I was in one hundred percent agreement that the Games had to be delayed due to the pandemic, this was the first time I had prepared during an entire Olympic cycle. When I made my first Olympic team in 2016, anything I did in the four prior years back to 2012 included running my first steeplechase. For the 2016 Games, we set a goal of trying to make it to the Olympic Trials. Getting to the Olympics wasn’t something I thought about regularly that year. Fast forward and the Rio Olympics end, and there was so much focus on Tokyo. I had made an Olympic team at age twenty-three and what do I need to do to be better? I was a finalist, but I wanted to win a medal. For us to be in the bell lap of a four-year grind and to be told we had another mile to run was hard. Also, we didn’t have the certainty that the Olympics would happen. Not only had I been thinking about Tokyo for so long, but I had also viewed the Tokyo Olympics as my best chance of winning a medal because of where it fell with my age. I allowed myself to grieve the feeling of loss. I realized that we might not have any races in 2020 but I had to approach each day being grateful that I could still run and pursue this dream whether it happened the next year or not. Nike was still supporting me, my teammates wanted to train, and we were still able to go outside and run. So, that pushed me through the spring. My training wasn’t going that well, but I kept pushing forward by continuing to remind myself to be thankful. During the summer of 2020 I was presented with the opportunity to see how I could race in some events other than the steeplechase and that helped me grow as a runner. That played a significant role in the summer of 2021. When I was standing on the line with a 5k PR of 14:55 to my name, I carried much more confidence. I struggled for a while before that with expectations because I felt that my flat race PRs didn’t match my steeplechase times. It was very exciting to put more focus on the 5k in 2020 and to make some lemonade out of lemons. In hindsight, though no one would have ever wished for this to happen, as it has been devastating with the pandemic, I do think that the extra year allowed me to make a lot of growth, physically and mentally. I came into the summer of 2021 a wholly different athlete who was also standing on the starting line with so much gratitude for every opportunity instead of wondering when the next race would be. A lot of athletes, including me, needed to work on being in the now and being more present.

GCR:

Since you have been through many competitions where there were qualifying heats and a final, in Tokyo, how did you feel during your qualifying heat, and did you expend yourself just enough to be ready for the final?

The prelim was where I gained a lot of confidence that I was truly ready to go in these Games. Some of the training I had been doing in Park City and all my training after the Olympic Trials made me feel I had reached a whole new level. But sometimes you don’t know until you get into the competition. We were given a morning session for our qualifying heat, and it was very hot. I found myself feeling very in control. I moved quickly to the front to make sure I finished in one of the top three spots. When I came across the line I thought, ‘Wow, that was pretty easy.’ Some other runners were struggling more than I expected. I gained confidence. I knew I could go to the front and run like that. I came out of the qualifying heat, and I could see Jerry’s mind working. He said, ‘You know that you shouldn’t be afraid to take the lead in the final.’ This was the first time he had presented this to me, and I was still in the middle of my cooldown. I said, ‘Okay, we can talk about this.’ It was shocking because there are so many times we go in with the mindset to tuck in, stay on the rail and expend the least amount of energy possible and then, at a certain point, go. But I wasn’t expecting a plan to tuck in for the first kilometer and then, after that, I was free to do what I wanted. Jerry said, you shouldn’t be afraid to take the lead.’ And I said, ‘That early?’

GCR:

Can you take us through your race preparation including your nutrition the day before and day of the race, if you had a good night’s sleep, your pre-race routine and your race strategy that may have had multiple possibilities or options?

Going into that final, one of the biggest things, in terms of nutrition, was hydration because it was so hot. Every run we did in Tokyo caused us to lose a lot of fluids because there were some serious heat conditions. Additionally, I became very ill in Hawaii before we came to Tokyo. I came down with a very bad stomach virus. We were spending many of those early days in Tokyo trying to get me back to a good place nutritionally. There was a massive focus on making sure I was hydrating properly and eating safe foods because I had been so sick. The prelim race was also a relief because I felt good. It was nerve-wracking because training had gone so well and then I got sick in Hawaii. I got through my last steeple workout in Hawaii, but it didn’t feel as good as I wanted because I was fighting the sickness. It was my first time staying in the Olympic Village as I didn’t stay there in 2016. So that was a new experience. Thankfully, the food was very good in the dining hall and there were many options. I was able to stick with my staples of pasta and red sauce. Normally, I would have a salad, but I didn’t because of what had happened in Hawaii. I had some cooked vegetables. I brought along some oatmeal and nut butter. I did bring my Fruit Loops that I like to eat the morning of my races to keep my consistent routine and have food that I’m comfortable eating. I often do that when I’m racing internationally because we never know what the food will be in some of these foreign countries. The night before, I slept well considering the magnitude of the upcoming race. I will say that the sleep I had during the time leading up to the race was the least amount of sleep I have had leading into races because of the energy that comes with the Olympic Village. There are thousands of athletes and competitions are starting at various times. When we had a track and field morning session race, we were getting on a bus at sis thirty in the morning. Inevitably, someone in the suite was getting up at four thirty in the morning. I equated it back to me freshman year in college and living in the dorm. It was one of those things where there wasn’t anything we could do about it, so we just had to embrace it and not let it take away from the Olympic experience. And it was very fun.

GCR:	Who were your Olympic Village suite mates?
CF	I was roommates with Ellie Purrier which was super fun. Tara Davis was in my suite and the heptathlete, Annie Kunz, was also. We had a blast. There was so much positive energy going around in the room. We were having fun and getting excited to turn on the television and watch competitions. It was a fun group.

GCR:

Did you and Emma Coburn talk about working together in the final if you had that opportunity?

I never discussed race plans with Emma because we both know that we want to put ourselves in the front. We also both know that, if we are both up there, it provides a lot of comfort. We both have this mindset that ‘if she’s there, I can be there too.’ It’s unspoken in a sense. If Emma goes with someone, then I feel I can go too. Even though we don’t train together and don’t talk about it, we have camaraderie and a feeling of comfort to be able to look at someone we respect. We gain confidence that we each can do it too.

GCR:

As the race played out, you stayed behind a few runners until the halfway point and then pushed the pace from the front, which was the strategy Jerry had spoken about. As you opened a ten-meter lead with two laps to go and then the bell lap, with another twenty-five meters back to third place, how were you feeling, and did you see your competitors on the stadium big screen?

When I look back at the race, Jerry had said to not waste energy the first kilometer no matter what happens. After that I was to trust my instincts of what to do. Looking back at the whole season, I had been practicing for this moment in many of my races. With a mile to go I would make my way to the front and be decisive. And that’s what I wanted. I told myself, ‘I’m going to make a move to the front. I’m going to be decisive. I’m not going to half do it.’ I decided to make it hard and to almost dare the other runners to go with me. I remember looking up with six hundred meters to go and that was when it first registered that the field was spread out at that point. I was so surprised that I was still up front. I felt very good and honestly thought, ‘I’m going to win Olympic Gold today.’ I got to four hundred meters to go and realized Peruth was catching me. I thought, ‘It’s the bell lap – energy forward.’ I was very thankful Jerry had also given me the advice ‘You may take the lead. You may make this race very hard, and they may go with you the entire time. You may get to six hundred meters and you have six runners right behind you trying to pass you with three hundred meters to go.’ He said, ‘You cannot assume it’s over if someone goes by you at that point in the last lap.’ We don’t know how they are feeling or if that was their final move. So, I knew I had to focus on what was in front of me.

GCR:

How tough was that last lap when Peruth Chemutai caught you on the back stretch and then you had to push hard to hold off Hyvin Kiveng by half a second to hold the Silver Medal position?

With 250 meters to go, I felt Peruth coming around me. I hadn’t put any thought into what was happening behind me. I was thinking about what was in front of me and staying on her as best as I could. By doing that, I was wasting energy by looking back or thinking about what was behind me. I knew I had to push everything forward. I’ll tell you, that last two hundred meters was so hard. I was rigging so much, and my last water jump was so bad. I just kept thinking, ‘Get to the finish line and you’re going to win a medal.’ I crossed the line and was obviously so over the moon ecstatic with the result. I was also so proud of myself for taking the risk and putting myself out there.

GCR:	In competitions at the world-class level, only three can medal and the next couple of athletes are often so close. How important was achieving that Olympic podium finish?
CF	Regardless, if I walked away with a medal, I knew I would have no regrets and be so proud of that fact. I would have been disappointed to not win a medal and to come up short. I talk about this all the time, that there is a different kind of disappointment when you know you have done everything you can to be successful compared to having a solid result and always wondering if there was more.

GCR:

That leads into my next question. Often in Championship races, the pace will slow, allow eight to ten athletes to stay in the mix, and then the best kickers with the most speed are in the medals. How much do you like the alternative where you push the pace or someone else does and, in the end, you are all in the medals and are competing to see who earns which medal?

The latter plays to my strength as a runner. That is what led us to the decision of making the race hard. I look at my season and at the end the Diamond League final ended up as a kicker’s race. I worked very hard on my finishing speed and have been able to learn how to kick with the best. But those hard, gutsy types of races are where I can truly test myself and my capabilities. We were fortunate in the last couple of championships to have someone make the race hard, whether it was Beatrice, Norah or someone else. We weren’t confident with the field in the Games that was going to happen, so I was very happy that my coaches, Jerry, Shalane and Pascal, gave me the confidence that I could be the one to do it. I want to learn how to carry that mindset moving forward. I cannot be afraid to take the race and make it what I need to, so I am successful.

GCR:

What can you tell us about having Evan Jager as a teammate and positive attributes in his training or racing that have helped you?

I have a great mentor to be able to look to. I could see it play out and work well in Evan Jager with how he raced in 2016 at the Rio Olympics. I watched that rac e and it stuck with me for five years. I had just become teammates with him in 2016 and had a small glimpse of his training leading into those Olympic Games. What stood out to me was how confidently he went to the front and made that race what he needed it to be that day. I left not only wanting a Silver Medal but wanting to have that confidence in my career. I wanted to be able to be so confident as an athlete that I could take a race and be what I needed to be. It was cool to see that five years prior in Rio and apply it to my own race in Tokyo.

GCR:

TRAINING Since you have been competing at a World Class level for many years, what tweaks did you do in recent years and 2021 with your total mileage, strength intervals and speed intervals to allow you to race comfortably at a faster pace?

Since 2017 I have increased my general running volume quite a bit. In college I had gone up to the upper sixty miles a week to seventy miles and a touch over seventy miles a week. When I first started working with Jerry, since there was such an increase in the volume and intensity of the hard workouts, we did not change my mileage at all. It stayed at sixty-five to seventy miles a week when I went to the Bowerman Track Club. There was a lot of growth that needed to happen in terms of workout volume and learning to embrace speed days. Jerry has been patient with me as it has been a learning process. The biggest shift from those first few years has been tackling little things. In year two I was running eighty miles a week and, in year three, eighty-five miles a week. I was comfortable in that range and stayed there for the most part. In 2018 I truly learned to embrace working on my weaknesses and that has been a big shift. Sometimes it is so easy to identify your strengths and to hold onto them and make the strengths even better. But a runner will see more growth if we take that attitude toward weaknesses. I hadn’t done true speedwork in college and it was very intimidating how fast some of my teammates were running. I had never even broken sixty seconds for four hundred meters. In 2018 I set a goal of breaking sixty seconds for the four hundred. We would do hard reps. When I saw improvement and growth in an area where I considered myself to be weak, it was very exciting and gave me increased confidence. I was growing as an athlete. My growth as a 5k runner has come in the last year-and-a-half or so. I shifted that mindset where I would say, ‘I’m just not a flat runner. I’m not good at it.’ I started thinking that I could get better. The steeplechase is still running. I knew I could be good at flat races. Jerry has been challenging me for the last year or so and throwing me in to train with Elise Cranny and Karissa Schweizer and some of these hard 5k workouts. I’m not always able to stay with them because they are phenomenal athletes. But sometimes I can. It has helped me improve so much as an overall runner. I think that has led to so much of my growth too in the steeplechase. I love the technical aspect of the steeplechase. I love that I can bring some of my gymnastics background into the event. Since I have become more confident as an overall runner, it is leading to more confidence in all my racing.

GCR:

This discussion reminds me of a couple of workouts I used to do to grow the mindset of a competitor versus a racer. On the roads I did a workout of a minute fast alternating with a minute slow. Then I increased the difficulty by running a minute fast, fifteen seconds slow, a fifteen second sprint, another fifteen seconds slow and a second fifteen second sprint before I did the slow recovery minute jog. This taught me to sprint even when I was tired. Anther one is changing from doing repeat three hundred meters at an even pace of forty-five seconds with one hundred-meter segments in fifteen seconds each, to cut down from sixteen to fifteen and fourteen seconds. Do you have any special training sessions that make you extra tough so you can both control a race and respond to others’ strong moves?

We did work like that where we I did three hundred meters with the segments in eighteen, seventeen and sixteen seconds or faster in seventeen, sixteen and fifteen second cutdowns. We learned to progressively shift and get stronger. We did a lot of what we call ‘tails.’ We run a hard eight hundred meters, do a short thirty second jog and do a fast 200-meter tail that is faster. Something we worked on specifically for the steeplechase was running fast 300-meter repeats at the end of a workout. I could be running a combination of kilometers and six-hundreds, and then finish with a couple three-of three-hundreds over barriers. It’s all about that finishing speed. That helped me in the Diamond League final. In hindsight, I should have pushed from the front. But it became a tactical race and I committed to that. With three hundred meters to go I thought, ‘Okay, I’ve been here before. I know how to sprint at this point.’ I found myself passing people and in contention for top two. Those workouts are important. I’ll take that fast, grinding race all day long but sometimes it will come down to a kick and, like you said, I need to be tough in the end when I’m tired.

GCR:

I watched recent interviews with you and heard you talking about setting a goal to break 8:50 in the steeplechase. It made me think of when I interviewed the great 1990s U.S. distance runner, Todd Williams, a few years ago, and he discussed how he and his coach would structure his training to aim for a one-second improvement per lap in his 10,000-meter race time each year. Have you and your coaches discussed this and what will it take to be able to race one second faster per lap at 8:50 pace with the same comfort level as 8:57 pace this past year?

We haven’t talked about it in those terms or technicalities. The way Jerry and I look at it is, how do we get ready to break 8:50 and that is a very ‘out there’ goal. That is where my mind is at, and I know it may not happen. But that’s okay because I know that goal will keep pushing me to be better and to challenge myself. At the end of the day, what I want out of myself is to see how good I can be. But we both agree that we look at how does that happen? It is by making myself a better 5k runner? That has been the big focus lately. How do I become a better 5k runner? How do I achieve laps of seventy seconds becoming very comfortable in a 5k? Then, hopefully, that will translate over to the steeple well. Those paces match up quite well.

GCR:

Since you were a multi-sport athlete in high school who also played soccer and did gymnastics, do you ever kick around the soccer ball or do some floor exercises as a pleasant diversion to take a break and have some fun?

Not anymore. I used to when I was in college. My college coach would allow me to go back into the gym when I was on my breaks from running. I loved those days, and I had a list of skills I would like to see is I could still do. I wanted to see if I hadn’t lost too much. Could I still do my ‘Giants?’ Could I do a standing back tuck? Once I signed with Nike and running became my career, I decided that I would hang up the grips for good. That was hard but, unfortunately, it was the responsible thing to do.

GCR:

LOOKING AHEAD AND WRAPUP After the 2017 Worlds where you earned a Silver Medal, there wasn’t a global championship the next year. How different is it after scoring an Olympic Silver Medal to have the 2022 World Championships around the corner and exciting for it to be in the United States and at Hayward Field for the first time?

I love it. The off year in 2018 was fun and I enjoyed targeting fast times. But my absolute love is championship racing. I love getting ready for championships. I think it’s cool that we are in the middle of this unprecedented five straight years of global championships. I think it’s great. It also helps that I feel I have grown so much as an athlete and I’m excited to carry this confidence forward. With the World Championships in our own backyard, it is like the Prefontaine Classic which was so exciting. It gave a glimpse of what Worlds will be like with the energy and excitement and having many spectators that are familiar faces. It is so much fun to be able to share my running. With my family, my running has allowed them to see parts of the world and have experiences they never thought would happen. So, I am very excited about the World Championships in Eugene.

GCR:

You mentioned working on your 5,000-meter strength to be strong for the steeplechase. In 2022 will you also work on the 1,500 meters for speed in the early season before you focus on the steeplechase?

Definitely. I am hoping, since the World Championships are early in the season, being able to tackle those flat events. I think I have made a lot of growth even since the 14:50 and 4:07 that I ran back in 2020. I’m excited to see how that plays out in those events. I have learned to embrace the 1,500 meters more than before. I was scared of the event for so long, but I’ve learned to find some joy in that race. I aspire to run a 10k one day.

GCR:

We talked early in this discussion about how you put yourself in position to win a Gold Medal. How important is it to you to again put yourself in Gold Medal position in a global championship and to earn that Gold Medal?

I’ve learned that I can’t let winning or being on the podium define success for me. The important thing is to put myself in a position to be successful. Being the best version of myself is the definition of success for me. When I went to the Olympic Games, I could have done everything I could and still finished fourth. You must learn how to hold your head high. It doesn’t mean I don’t have goals of winning Gold, but the ultimate definition of going for it for me is putting myself in position to win rather than saying that winning is the only way to be successful.

GCR:

You haven’t hit your thirtieth birthday yet, so does your long-range plan include goals of competing at the 2024 Paris Olympics and 2028 Los Angeles Olympics?

I have always said that I would be ecstatic if my career could continue to the 2028 Olympic Games. Then I can reassess the situation afterward. I think it would be incredible to run in an Olympics here in the United States. That is always what I envisioned my career looking like, getting to those Games in Los Angeles. The steeplechase will always be the event that I love and have passion for, but I aspire to see how I can do I other events. Obviously, I am very committed to the steeplechase in the foreseeable future.

GCR:

You spoke earlier about how when you had that down period a few years ago you lost much of your joy for running. It takes a lot of demanding work to succeed at the elite level as a professional runner but, since you are so upbeat now, are you still having fun, and do you love your job?

Yes, I am back to a place where my runs are the best part of my day again. I have a whole new outlook. I wasn’t dreading going out the door to run but this sport is way too hard to not find joy in it. A lot of it was from my fearing failure instead of seeing what I could do. Making that shift was important. It was amazing to accomplish two very big goals last year but, I look back, and they were the result of risk. So, why wouldn’t I take risks in my training and my racing from now on? If I had played it safe, I don’t know if the Olympic medal and sub-nine steeple would have happened.

GCR:

When we spoke after your 2017 World Championship Silver Medal performance, you expressed a desire to spend recurring time in your hometown in Nixa, Missouri and to spend time inspiring kids like you were inspired by Olympic gymnast, Terin Humphrey, and even possibly start a hometown 5k like Emma Coburn does. Have you been able to give back and how much did the covid-19 situation limit your ability to do so?

I have been back to my hometown several times. I put on a kids’ clinic in 2017 which was fun being with the up and coming running community in Springfield. Last year, when I went home, it was when our home cross country meet was held in our town. I was able to go and be a part of that day. I haven’t been able to start any sort of event. I think that would be very cool and it has been very inspirational to see what Emma has done in Crested Butte. I have been able to stay well-connected with many athletes in my hometown, in Springfield and in Kansas City which is great. I also am a part of the Albuquerque running scene, so I feel connected to many areas. Staying connected to all those communities has been very enjoyable. As you noted, I was fortunate to get Terin Humphrey’s autograph from my teacher when I was in third grade and that made a massive impact on me. I went back after this season and was able to share my Olympic medal with so many people. Now, there are so many kids who are aspiring to go to the Olympics.

GCR:

When you speak to groups and want to share some of your tips to be their best and advice to reach their potential, what are the main points you emphasize?

The main point when I speak with kids is to follow their passion and to embrace their own path and their own journey and goals. Sometimes I’m guilty of thinking there is only one way to get to a certain place. When I look back on my path to getting an Olympic Silver Medal, it is very unconventional at times and not what people would have expected. In high school, I never made it to the State track meet. I wasn’t a superstar coming out of high school. But I surrounded myself with people who supported me, believed in me, and allowed me to dream big. Those connections and that support made the difference. I didn’t let someone else’s path define whether I could do something. There is so much access to social media and knowledge of what others are doing in their training that sometimes people, myself included, question what we are doing. The most important thing we can do is to be confident in our own path and our own journey.

	Inside Stuff
Favorite ice cream flavor	I’m a big mint chocolate chip fan
Pump up pre-race music	I was really into music by Sia this past summer. It is very confident music. I have to go back to my college days when I listened to a lot of Tech N9ne who is a rapper from Kansas City. The summer of 2021 was a combination of Sia and Tech N9ne
Last book you read	Simone Biles autobiography, ‘Courage to Soar: A Body in Motion, A Life in Balance.’ I’m a big Simone Biles fan, so its not surprising I read her book
Most annoying habit	It is the water bottles by the bed on the bedside table. I hardly drink from one and leave it
Memorable Halloween costume	For years I dressed up as a gymnast which is not very exciting. My friend and I were Rubik’s Cubes one year. We made the costume out of boxes, and we were very proud of that
Chore you hate doing	Dishes. I love to cook, but I hate to clean dishes
Embarrassing TV watching habit	I’m not embarrassed by any of the shows, but I watch way too much Netflix
Last music concert you attended	I hadn’t ever been to a concert and in December of 2019, I went to the ‘Chainsmokers’ concert with Karissa Schweizer, Vanessa Fraser and Alexa Efraimson before covid hit a couple months later
Junk food you can’t resist	Fruit Loops cereal and I’m a big ice cream eater
Favorite birthday memory	My birthday is always at running camp here. I feel like I was spoiled this past birthday. Everyone was so kind and got me nice gifts. I ended up getting two cakes. Griffin and my teammates each ordered me a Milk Bar Cake which are so good. My parents were there too. I would say this one was a great birthday
First thing you do in the morning	I check my phone and then I go downstairs and make my breakfast. Then I watch ‘New Girl’ or ‘Shitt’s Creek every morning
Your worst cooking experience	Last summer I was grilling at our house in Portland, and I didn’t realize that the grease tray needed to be cleaned. I looked out and our grill was in flames so that didn’t work out well. I had to dump some baking soda on it and take care of that
TV reality show dream	Definitely ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ because there is still a performance side of me
Favorite cartoon	When I was a kid it was definitely ‘Rugrats.’ I was a huge ‘Rugrats’ fan as a kid. My dad had all the episodes recorded on VHS tapes so I could watch them
Your pets	We still have our cat ‘Roo,’ and she is almost ten years old now. He rules our house. We do not have a dog. One day I think we will get one because Griffin is definitely a dog person. I have also become a dog person and am okay with the idea of having a dog. Unfortunately, our schedules don’t allow for a dog now and ‘Roo’ is an only child
Top mentors in your life	I can think of two major mentors. First, my college coach, Coach Butler. I don’t think I would be running at the level I am without him. There is everything he taught me in this sport and the belief he had in me. He passed away in December of 2021 which has been challenging. I have been dedicating everything moving forward to him because he had that much of an impact on not only my running, but my life. Also, Shalane Flanagan. She has been such an important piece of my running journey. It is cool to have a special, unique relationship with her, having been teammates and friends and now she is one of my coaches. It has allowed me to be very open and honest with her and we have a very open communication. That had a massive impact on the growth I had in this past year, especially as an athlete. She truly helped me to turn a lot of those corners
Something new you learned this month	I have been reading a book in the last month and I learned something that is terrifying. There is a tick, and if it bites you, you can become allergic to red meat. I did not know that. A friend of my mother-in-law had this happen to her. I’ve been learning about all these diseases that are interesting, but terrifying
What would you name your autobiography	I feel like it would have to be some type of pay on the word ‘barriers’ with the steeplechase. Maybe ‘Breaking Barriers’ or something like that. Or it could be ‘Running Your Own Path’