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Louisville Cardinal Matt Hughes is fresh off an NCAA victory in the 3,000-meter steeplechase this past outdoor season. Hughes, who's battled iron problems in the past, never really put together a great cross country season and looks to change that this upcoming fall with his Cardinals. Running with the new confidence that comes with being a healthy NCAA champion, the Canadian runner is looking to place himself more in the front pack of races he competes in.

You're in Ontario, not too far out of Toronto?

Yeah. My hometown is Oshawa, which is about 45 minutes east of Toronto. I'm up at my cottage, which is up in Bancroft—two hours north of Oshawa.

Last time we saw you, you had a pretty killer mustache at NCAAs. Have you been letting it grow rampant since then?

No, I had to give it up. My mom was getting a little embarrassed. It'll be back for cross country, I'm sure of that. I didn't get a chance to take pictures. I guess I have to take some pictures for Louisville and stuff like that. I didn't really get a chance after NCAAs, because as soon as I got home I took right off up to Canada. I'll have to do pictures when I get back to school. After that, I'll start it a little ways into September.

Are you the only guy on the team doing this?

Last cross country season I got everyone to do beards. We'll probably end up doing beards until NCAAs, then the day before we'll all shave it into something wild.

What exactly have you been doing since you won the NCAA steeplechase title?

Not too much. I don't really get a chance to come home much, so when I'm home I try to catch up with friends and family and hang out and chill out.

Did you take a lot of time off? What's your training been like?

My coach, Brice (Allen), really only wanted me to take two weeks off. He's good with that stuff. He just wants you to let your body all the training. I took a little bit longer than I wanted because I had a really long season. I didn't take a break going from indoor to outdoor. I took a two-and-half to three-week break, which was good for me. I've been running ever since that. I started with 30-mile weeks, then 50, 60, 70, then a week break and 70 now I'll probably hit 75 this week and hope to get 85 next week before I get back into Louisville.

You'll be getting back to Louisville with 85 miles a week?

Yeah, that's probably the most I've ever done in the summer. Usually I'm a big procrastinator when it comes to training. I talk a big game before I leave and then when I get home I feel like I have a little too much fun hanging out with friends and running kind of gets put on the back burner.

Getting over the iron problems you had had last year, do you think you're going to be going into cross with a lot more in the tank?

I think last season was more where I wasn't watching what I was eating. I was kind of just going through the motions. I got really behind on my iron and got anemic. We didn't really know. It was really regionals where I started taking iron supplements and there wasn't really time to get me back going. Cross country was really just an awful season. Going into indoor track I was on a couple supplements for iron. I watched what I ate and iron was in my diet. You could tell how I had a great season and everything came together. I was taking care of my body. I think this season I've really just got to watch and take care of my body.

Is it still supplements or is it you just eat red meat and lots of spinach?

I live with two guys in a house in Louisville. I try to eat two or three steaks a week. I'm on an iron supplement and I think that's really helped too. I'd actually encourage any distance runner to be on a liquid iron supplement. If you have good iron then it really helps...and it's been proven in running.

Training in Oshawa, are you on trails a lot or on the roads?

That's one thing: I love home—because I can see my family and friends—but one that I hate is not having trails to train on because I'm probably on cement with about 60-75% of my running. Then, if I want to run on soft surfaces, I've got to get outside the city and run on the shoulders of roads where it's dangerous sometimes. You've got to do what you've got to do, I guess.

Is that a lot different from training in Louisville?

Louisville is kind of an urban center too, similar to what Oshawa is. Obviously there's a lot more people in Louisville. In Oshawa there's only about 125,000 and Louisville there's...I don't even know. It's huge. Coach is really good about driving us out to trails. He probably drives us out to trails about five or six times a week. We have cars with our teammates. Me and Matt Bruce, Gordy Dooley, we have cars and on our NCAA off-day, we drive out to trails and bring ourselves. We're on trails five to six days a week, so it's usually pretty good.

It's funny that people picture Canada to be pretty rural and you really only run on the roads. Are you just outside of Toronto?

Yeah, it's like the GTA—the Greater Toronto Area. We have what Toronto has. But, yeah, that's a funny thing because people who don't know that much about Canada think that you just cross the border and you're in 20 feet of snow, but it's actually a lot more like a lot of the cities that are in the northern states. I mean, you (way upstate New York) probably have worse winters than we do in Oshawa.

So you're not looking out of your window at a moose right now?

No. (Laughs) If I walked back into the woods a bit, I guess I'd probably see one, but that's up at the cottage, two hours north of Oshawa. When you're in Oshawa, you're in the city. I think a lot of people in America have a distorted perception of what Canada is. A lot of Americans in the Northeast especially, they know what's going on. I feel like a lot of people from the South don't really have an idea. But it's funny. I like it.

You're around the Great Lakes. Do you have to run into that nasty wind?

Oshawa is right on Lake Ontario, right with Toronto. We get it bad sometimes, but the thing is that Buffalo gets a ton more than we do—the stuff blowing off the Lake. In the winter, you get the Northern Winds instead of the Southern Winds. It's bad and it's that chilly, chilly cold that I'm sure you've experienced.

Have you heard of Kenny vs. Spenny, out of Toronto? That's my favorite TV show!

Oh, yeah! I was really into those guys in high school. Now that I'm back in Louisville for most of the year, I don't really catch much of that stuff, but it's really funny.

Back to running (I always set off on my pop culture tangents!), an individual number in mind for cross country this year?

I don't have any individual goals in mind, really. And I know that's a big cliché with runners when they say that they don't really have any goals, but, you know what? With my last couple of years in cross country, they have been horrible. They haven't been horrible, but they haven't been what I've wanted. I've got pretty high standards. Going into this season, I just want to help the team. I think Louisville is going to surprise a lot of people. Last year I don't think we live up quite to our potential. I'd love to be an All American in cross—top 40. If I can even get top 30, top 20. I know after this steeple season and I ran 8:34, I feel like I can run with a lot of the guys in the country. That just gives me a lot of that confidence that I need going into this cross country season. I feel like I run my best cross country when I can feel the lead and see the lead. I feel like at Pre Nationals and regionals, you can get caught up with a few runners. After this track season that just ended, I feel like it's given me that confidence that I need to run up at the front with those big guys.

Has your style changed completely to going out as a frontrunner?

Maybe not leading, but being in the leading pack and being with the top guys. I feel like I run my best when I'm not in control of the race, but if I need to take control of the race I can feel the tempo of the race and I'm right there. When something happens, I'm there to cover it if I need to.

What about the recruits coming in? Who are some big guys that you picked up?

We picked up two guys, one of the guy is Tyler Byrne. And another guy is a brother of Michael Eaton—who's already on the team. He's an All American in the 10K. His little brother—Little Eato, as we call him because we call Michael “Big Eato”. Ryan Eaton will naturally be “Little Eato”. These are kind of two guys who have flown under the radar and I think if they can come into this cross country season knowing that they're not going to be front running like they did in high school, that they're going to stick their nose in this cross country season, that we'll have a good team. We have a young guy named Luke Lovelace who will be a sophomore this year. I feel like him and Dooley will step up and do big things. Matt Bruce, who won both races at Big Easts indoor. He ran the 5K and the 3K. If he can repeat what he did indoor and Michael comes back to that 28:40-shape that he was in two years ago, I think we'll surprise some people.

Why did you transfer from Clemson?

A lot of people don't know this, but Matt Bruce, another Canadian at Louisville right now, were both at Clemson. What had happened was: well, I loved Clemson. I loved the atmosphere. The thing about Clemson is it's a great school. A lot of people don't know this, but you could run at Clemson for two weeks and not run on the same trail. All the trails are basically right from their training room. It's awesome. The head coach there, Bob Pollock, who passed away this year, he was a great guy and great coach. I loved him. He had had a falling out with the administration and kind of wasn't getting along and ended up retiring. He was one of the big reasons I went to Clemson. I talked to him and he was going to retire. He gave me a full release and that's when I started talking to other schools. It was really late in the season when we found out that he was retiring. It was after nationals. I really only had a month...not even that...to find a school. It was in August. As soon as I got my release I got calls and went to Tulsa and Louisville. Louisville had originally recruited me in high school—as did Tulsa. They both were talking with me. I decided to go down and check out Louisville and check out Tulsa. I went down to Louisville and checked it out and loved everything about the program, the ran the program perfectly. I thought, “that's where I want to see myself for the next three to four years.” I can't really look back because I just had a great year. No real regrets.

With two championship years coming up with 2011 and 2012, are you looking at those as your focus?

Yeah, if you were to ask me this question like six or seven months ago...I probably would have laughed. They were in my mind, but they were WAY back there. I didn't think those goals were possible. Ever since I started the steeple, I PRed by 12 seconds. Another 12 seconds from 8:34 and it'll put me where I need to be to get that “A” Standard for Canada. Especially going into next year, the plan will be to run cross country, maybe redshirt indoors, hopefully repeat in the steeple—and I know that there are going to be a lot of people gunning for me and if I keep doing the same thing that I did last year, it will set me up perfectly. Then I'll hopefully have hit the standard for Worlds by then. Then I'll go back to Canada and run at the Trials and hopefully make that Worlds Team. Then looking at the 2012 team for London, I feel like if you're a runner, you want to have those goals in the back of your mind. Every runner that takes this sport competitively hopes to be running in the Olympics some day. I just thought it wouldn't come this soon. I thought 2016 would be my first shot. Everything that's happened this season kind of fast-forwarded that. I feel like I have as good of a chance as anyone in Canada who runs the steeple to be on that team in 2012. If I do all the right things the next two years and stay healthy, just do things the way I've done them without changing them, I have a really good chance to make it.

8:22 is going to be the number to look at?

I feel like if I'm in that low-8:20 range, that should be enough to make the team.

Who are some of the Canadian guys that are you biggest competition in the steeple?

There's Rob Watson who ran at Colorado State. He's Pete Watson's brother—Pete, who coaches UNC. There's another guy from Quebec, his name is Alex Genest. I feel like those two would be my greatest competition right now. They both run in the high 8:20s. I think Rob's PB is like 8:27 and Gennet's is like 8:28. We're all right around there and I feel over the next couple of years, I feel like us three will be battling it out to make those teams.

If you could have one meal, prepared by anyone, what would you have and who would make it?

I feel like I've read a lot of these on Flotrack and everyone says their mom. I'm going to have to jump on board with that. My mom is a great cook. A lot of people don't know this, but I have seven brothers and sisters. Two sisters and five brothers (including me). She's cooked her whole life. If I could have one meal cooked by her, it would be her shrimp linguine, it's REALLY good. When I was in high school, she cooked that for the the family every friday. I'd have shrimp linguine and an apple pie—made by my grandma.

Of all these siblings, any other runners in the bunch?

No, they're kind of all hockey players.

Did you grow up playing hockey?

We all grew up playing hockey. I played hockey all the way until grade 12 when my high school coach was kind of getting frustrated when he said that I had to make a choice and I felt like running would be better.

Were you balancing the two at any point?

Yeah, I was on the high school team and running indoor at the same time in high school. That's when I had that grade 12 year where I had to make the choice which sport was going to take me farther. I was a little small to play hockey, so I chose running.

What was that like?

I'd substitute hockey for running. If I had to do a run and I knew I had hockey practice, I'd just chalk that down as a couple-mile run.

There's always debate over “what's a harder sport”. In your opinion, between the two, which do you think was harder?

Hockey is a fun sport and there are enjoyments in running. When you win a race or you have a great workout, there's enjoyment, but I know a lot of runners can see the same way as me on this one: there's some workouts that coach writes down on a piece of paper that you're just dreading in class all day and there's no way you're going to finish it. I don't think I've ever felt that way in hockey. Maybe suicides after a bad game or something, but I feel like running blows all those other sports out of the water.

Can you share a crazy running-related story?

I always told the guys that I'd tell this one: it was from the track at Louisville. Whenever we do track workouts, we run this road it's called “Cardinal Boulevard” I think. We run a mile out and a mile back and get a two-mile warm-up before our workouts. Along that road, there's a train crossing. We always joke that if a train ever came, we'd try to outsprint the train, but it never happened. Last track season we're doing our warm-up and we're probably 75 or 50 meters away from the rail station. The sign starts blinking and we're all like, “crap, now we've got wait for this train.” I look around and everyone is pissed off that we have to wait for this train. I start sprinting and I'm not letting this train stop my warm-up. I look back and everyone else started sprinting. It looks like it's too late for them. I get passed the train pretty easily and the next guy, Matt Bruce, gets by the train pretty easily and everyone else. Two of the guys don't make. Chase Violet and another freshman on the team. They were pretty close to the train—close enough where I was worried that they were going to get hit. The train conductor was yelling out the window and he's tooting his horn or whatever and we're just laughing! We could have been attending a funeral in the next couple of weeks.

You weren't technically a captain last year, were you?

No! No I wasn't.

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