Fast Five Questions with Wisconsin head coach, Mick Byrne

 

1.      You’re heading out to Oregon at the end of the month.  As of last Friday you were going to bring a loaded squad to Eugene stating, "We'll run everybody there."  Knowing you though, that may have already changed by now.  Any shift in plans?

In the real world, and not the World According to Craven, things are constantly changing. That’s what makes life fun. The decision on who will race in Eugene will be made based on several factors like, training, health, individuals racing plans etc. As you know, everything we do is based on the Big Ten meet and Beyond. We cannot lose focus on this.

 

2.      How are you surviving your second cross country season without a visit to Van Cortlandt Park?  Did you, Gavin and Gibby get together and have a good cry?

I was never a big fan of racing at VCP. I was a huge fan of TRAINING there. However, nothing beats a Saturday afternoon in da Bronx, at VCP watching XC races and heading across the street and sharing XC banter with all the coaches.

I met Gavin and Gibby last week at Illinois meet, and Buff Wild Wings in Champaign, just isn’t da Bronx on Saturday afternoon.

  

3.      You’ve got a pretty talented squad of freshman this year.  Any chance we’ll see them back in action next month?  Red-shirt or otherwise?

The plan right now is for everyone on our squad to run at the adidas meet. We’ll run 6-7 in the “A” race, and 6-7 in the “B” race. Obviously, some will be running as “Unattached” athletes.  With the young guys, there's still a lot they're getting used to.  As you know, freshmen need time to adjust to the daily intensity of training. We're not reinventing the wheel here. They are not used to the pace of our runs or the short recoveries in workouts and therefore need time to develop. Combine that with the new demands of being away from home and taking college level courses and there's suddenly a lot on their plate.  Any racing they do will be less about the result and more about getting out there again and testing themselves.  Take (Matt) McKenna as a great example. Last year he could not do a 3 mile progression run. It was just not is his comfort zone. Right now, he's handling 10 mile progression runs.  Now we need to translate that into a race.

 

4.      A lot of people on the message boards seem to be in search of your training methods.  Care to enlighten them on your whole “cart before the horse” philosophy?

Ahh, the message boards! Where do folk get all the time…..?  Basically, what I refer to here is, that you have to enjoy the pursuit of the goal, and not just spend all your energy thinking about the goal.  You have to enjoy the process of making the goal happen.  The daily grind. Too many athletes just think about the bottom line and get way too caught up on things that do not matter.  You do the work July through early October, you understand that there will be bumps in the road, you don’t panic or take short cuts. Concentrate on the things that you can control.  The main focus should always be the enjoyment of the day to day grind.  There's always going to be a rough patch for an athlete, but the ability to look beyond that and have faith that you'll be where you need to be when you need to be there is what seperates good athletes from great athletes.  If you're always getting tripped up on the pace of the workout, or worrying about getting a certain number of miles in, you're missing the point of training.  You're putting the cart before the horse.  When you focus on enjoying the daily grind, the pursuit of the goal, you're relaxed, having fun and focused on the real reason why you are doing what you do.

 

5.      Oregon begins a hard two months of racing as you go on to the 2011 Wisconsin Adidas Invitational, then Big Tens, Regionals, etc…Any insight you want to give on your approach to October and beyond?

It is pretty simple to explain. We prepare July, August, Sept and into October to race a hard 8k at Conference the very end of October, and two 10k’s in 10 days in November. Judgment day is always Big Ten and NCAAs, and everything we do is to prepare as best we can for these meets. What I’ve found since I’ve come to Wisconsin is that some guys just love to race and a coach should never stop a “racer” from racing.  Last year we went out to Oregon mid-October to race the Ducks. Many folk tried to blow this up into something bigger than it was, a XC meet between two programs with pretty good traditions. Bottom line is, it’ XC. That same night, Wisconsin played Ohio State at Camp Randall in football. The eyes of the nation were on Madison, Wisconsin, not Eugene, Oregon. That’s the reality of things. If I got all crazy about this meet, and over thought it, then my athletes would have also. I didn’t, and we had a fun trip out west which actually did a lot of good for team morale and chemistry heading into the championship season.