Princeton Tiger senior Michael Maag recently set a school record in the 5,000-meter run at the Mt. SAC Relays with a 13 minute, 41.17 second mark. Maag is finishing up his four academic years at Princeton with a degree in economics before heading back to his home state of Oregon to compete for the Ducks next outdoor season.

How do you feel about your 13:41?

I feel really good about it. It was a pretty special race because the whole year I've been training well and things have been going well in workouts and I've been putting in all the work, but I haven't really seen it in the races yet. I haven't raced as well as I knew I could. This is the first race really where I felt like I got close to what I can do.

 

Did you know you had low 13:40s in you or what did you think you were capable of running?

Based on how my workouts have been going, I didn't think I could run that fast. My workouts haven't been going that well lately. Based on the progression that I expected from year to year, I knew I'd be close to that if things clicked this season. I wasn't completely surprised, but based on the last month's workouts, I was a little surprised. Our school record is 13:49 and I kind of had that in my head as something of a good goal to go for. Anything down near 13:45 would have been a great race. I was definitely happy to run as fast as I did.

 

Did everything “click” or are there other small things you could do to make you run even faster?

I think I still have some in me for sure. Sometimes you finish a race with a big PR and you're like, “wow, I don't know how I'm going to run any faster than this.” But, it wasn't necessarily one of those races, although, this past Friday night...it was about as fast as I could have gone. I'm looking forward to going faster in the future.

 

With this one race, are you reseting your goals for this outdoor season?

No. This is more a vindication of the goals I set in the beginning of the year for myself. Those are still attainable and realistic.

 

What are they?

I'd like to go All-American in the 5K and also win a league title. Those are the last two things that are left.

 

You've got a 7:56 3K PR and your best mile time sits right above four minutes even (4:00.23). Are you one of those runners who thinks about breaking that four-minute barrier a lot?

No. It doesn't eat away at me. I think about it. It's kind of a crappy place to have your mile PR. I've had opportunities to chase it since then and I just haven't done it because it didn't make sense in the long-term plan. I guess that's an indication of how I look at it. It's important to me, but it's not that important that I'm going to sacrifice my success down the road just to get it out of the way now. I'm sure I'll get in the mile at some point with a good shot at breaking it. I can wait. I can wait until then.

 

What are the long-term goals?

Well, making Nationals and becoming All-American and doing well at our league meet. At the end of indoors, things weren't going that well for me, so I shut it down before doing any “last chance for Nationals meets”. I'm not even sure that I was fit enough to make the indoor meet, because I had some nagging achilles stuff going on. It kept me from getting really sharp. Instead of chasing times, I just shut it down and started training for outdoors. So far it's worked out well for me. That's one place where I passed up running a fast mile to focus on outdoor Nationals.

 

You're a senior. Are you looking past this outdoor season and graduation?

I actually have a season of eligibility left because I had a stress fracture last outdoor season. The plan is for me to go to Oregon and run there for a year. I only have outdoors left, so I'll be training and running unattached races and stuff in the fall and winter. That's the plan for next year and after that...I'd like to keep running, I think, at this point. I'll kind of cross that bridge when I get there. I'm still excited about next year at this point.

 

You'll be competing for the University of Oregon next outdoor season?

Yeah. I'm very excited.

 

You're an Oregon native. Why didn't you go there in the first place?

You've got to realize that four years ago, Oregon was a pretty different place. I also wasn't a great prep runner either. I wasn't a top recruit. I don't think the vibe at Oregon was quite as positive as it is now. I'm not sure that I was necessarily fast enough for them to generate enough interest from them. A lot of it was that I wanted to see a new place that wasn't as close to home. I would say that all those things factored into why I came to the East. I'm certainly happy with the way things worked out. This is kind of the best of both world's. I get a Princeton degree and it looks like I'm going to get the opportunity to run at a big-time division one program as well.

 

What's your degree going to be?

Economics.

 

Do you think with Princeton's emphasis on academics that you might have a harder situation than a 5K runner at another division one school where the emphasis isn't as strong on academics?

The emphasis on academics...yes. I would have to answer “yes” to that question. I feel like the academic situation here is a little different than most places. As far as athletically, I feel like I have to emphasize that I feel like I've had every opportunity that you could ever want to go to races and to train. We have great places to train around here. The facilities are fine. The trainers are good. In that way, I feel very blessed to be a part of the Princeton program. Academically...every once and while, during midterms and finals, when seniors have to write a thesis...then all those things together make the running a bit of a challenge. If you're on top of your game and don't let things pile up, then you can make it work. I've never felt like it really hurt my running, but there were times when I wish I could have got a little more sleep.

 

You're caught up with everything now?

I just turned in my thesis the day I left for Mt. SAC. That's a big weight off my shoulders. Now, I'm on cruise control until a couple of finals. I'm only taking three classes and one of them doesn't have a final...so, it's a lighter load for this semester and I'm looking forward to getting some solid training in. I'm going to enjoy myself for the next month or so.

 

What's your thesis on?

My thesis was on rating agencies. Like movies standard reports and looking at whether they're consistent over different market cycles. Would they rate the same in a really hot market as opposed to a depressive-type market, like the one we're in right now? It was about 60 pages when I got done and it was actually on the shorter side for an econ thesis. It was fun to write and I enjoyed it, but I'm glad it's done now.

 

And your finals schedule is pretty difficult as well?

Yeah. You try to plan your schedule so it gets a little easier when you get your thesis done—that's how most people do it anyway—and my finals won't be too bad this semester.

 

Can you give me a typical “day-in-the-life” of Michael Maag?

Absolutely. On a good day, I get up and go for a quick run...like a five-miler around a golf course that we have. I go and jog around the course and the woods for a little bit. Then I come back and stretch and shower. I usually get some breakfast...a bagel or something light. This semester, my earliest class is an 11 a.m. class and I'll go to that. At lunch, I'll study or read, especially when I was working on my thesis. Then some classes or studying, depending on the day. Then I go to practice at 3:45 p.m., unless we have a workout, then it's at 4:30 p.m., when everybody can make it. Practice until about 6:30 p.m. or so. I'll come back up for some dinner. We play pool for 45 minutes or an hour after dinner, depending on how much work I have, then hit the books for another hour or two before bed. I usually aim for 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. studying...but, I don't usually get around to being productive until 9 p.m. or so. Then I'll go online or play guitar for a bit and try to get in bed at around midnight or 12:30 a.m.

 

That's a hell of a day.

It's a full day, but I wouldn't trade it. I love it.

 

So, what kind of mileage do you typically hit for a week?

Lately, it's been in the low to mid 80s. Ideally, I feel my best when I'm running 95 or closer to 100 miles a week, but with my achilles stuff and the winter, I didn't feel like that was a good risk/reward. That's really only in the summer when I'm running closer to 100, but I'd say that on the average in the season, I'm in the high 80s to low 90s since my sophomore or junior year.

 

Is running a 10K this outdoor season out of the question?

It's not on the schedule, so I highly doubt it. Something would have to drastically change for me to have to do that. I'll stick to 5Ks and 15s right now.

 

It seems that someone like you with such good foot speed, and solid mileage could run a pretty solid 10K.

Perhaps someday in the future. I really like the races that I do now. 10K is long and hard, man. I don't know if I want to have to do that. I probably will eventually run some 10Ks, but they take a while to recover from and with the collegiate system, I think I feel more comfortable with the shorter stuff.

 

What's a crazy running-related story that's happened to you?

There was a senior last year. He was a member of this senior class, which I was really great friends with. Johnny Gawpman was his name. He's not longer running, works in Asia now. He qualified for NCAA Regionals and ran 3:45, I think. It was his birthday and there's a run we do called “Bean Fields” around Princeton. It's like eight or nine miles and we do it once or twice a week. We decided that that day, in honor of Johnny's birthday, we were going to do a “Birthday Bean Fields”, which means you run it naked. It was the first time and as far as we know it's the inaugural “Birthday Bean Fields”. We got down to the path and there were only...three guys who actually took all their clothes off, except for their shoes. Johnny was one of them. They ditched their shorts in the weeds and we were all running along—maybe 15 of us—and we were running along with three guys scattered throughout the group with no clothes on. This run goes along a road for a lot of ways, with cars passing us and we were passing people on the path. It was a nice day out, so people were walking. Some people noticed, some people didn't. We just thought it was hilarious and the whole run was fun. We get closer back to campus and it starts and ends near the track where we start and finish all of our runs. We were close to getting back and having pulled this off without getting any trouble. Well, we see a police car parked right near where the path hits the road. The three (naked) guys turn around and start sprinting the other way to some railroad tracks that would bring them back to campus. We just kept running like it was no big thing. The policeman got us to stop and interrogated all of us and threatened to throw us in the paddywagon and take us to the station if we didn't give up the names of the people who were naked. Apparently we ran by a school that we didn't know existed...which is really bad because they're kids there. The whole fiasco ended with us giving them their names. They sent out an email that night about how they were going to have to go to court and were going to be away from school for a while. That was a complete joke and they punked us on that. We though we sold them out and their lives were over. The whole thing ended with them having to do some community service or something. It was totally worth it.