Morgan Uceny is off to a great start to her professional running career. Uceny, a 2007 Cornell University graduate now running for Reebok, won the women’s mile in 4:38.87 this past weekend at the Meyo Invitational in Notre Dame, Ind. She also won the women’s 800-meter run at the 2008 Reebok Boston Indoor Games in 2:05.75, January 26. “Any professional race is going to be exciting,” Uceny said about the elite competition. Her main goal this season is to make the 2008 Olympic team. Uceny, 22, currently trains with Mike McGuire’s group in Ann Arbor, Mich., which includes Anna Willard and Lindsey Gallo. Running with elite athletes has been helpful for Uceny, who now runs almost twice the amount of mileage she did in college. “I never kept track of mileage until this year,” she said. Uceny runs around 40-45 miles per week, compared to the 20-25 she typically ran before. The teammates push each other during workouts, but still find time to have fun together when they are not running. They have been trying to come up with a name for their team, but Uceny said the best they could think of was “The Ann Arbor All-Stars.” However, she joked that it sounded too much like a youth basketball team, so they are open to suggestions. A perk to post-collegiate running is that Uceny has a lot more free time than when she was in school to focus on her training and get adequate rest. “It’s so nice to actually get eight hours of sleep at night,” she said. She may not have gotten enough sleep in college, but Uceny, a four-time All-American, managed to earn six Heptagonal 800-meter titles, hold eight school records and run a 2:01.75 personal best in the 800 last summer at the USATF Championships. It was a challenge to balance academics with athletics for Uceny, but she graduated last spring with a 3.30 grade point average in communications and applied economic management. Uceny joked that there is a saying that Cornell is the easiest Ivy League school to get into, but the hardest to graduate from. Uceny, from Plymouth, Ind., was originally set on going to the University of Illinois, which offered her an athletic scholarship. However, she received a financial aid package at Cornell for nearly the same amount. She felt that Cornell was academically superior and fell in love with the school on a campus visit. Before she started running, Uceny was raised in a family of athletes. An avid basketball player, she was involved with both sports when she attended Plymouth High School. “I used track to get in shape for basketball,” Uceny explained. Little did she know that she would soon excel at track and field. Uceny ran the mile as a freshman, but did not like the distance. When she was a sophomore, she switched to the 400. Uceny moved up to the 800 as a junior, where she finally found her niche. The 800-meter distance requires a mix of sprint speed and endurance. To prepare for her races, Uceny runs hard workouts 2-3 times per week in addition to lifting weights. Typical workouts for her are 5000-meter tempo runs and short, quick intervals or ladders, such as 200-400-600-800-600-400-200. Unlike an all-out sprint or a longer distance where an athlete must conserve some energy at the start, the challenge of the 800 is to endure a very fast speed for the duration of the race. “I’m good at maintaining and closing, [but] some of the best races I got out faster,” Uceny described. “I try to run fast the whole time.” Leading up to the Olympic Trials this summer, Uceny will next run the 800 at the Tyson Invitational this Friday. She hopes to end this indoor season by finishing within the top-2 at the 2008 U.S. Indoor Track and Field Championships, in Boston, Mass., February 23-24. *Photo from LetsRun.com