Interview with Maureen McCandless
by Alex Hutchinson

Maureen McCandless on her way to a third-place finish at the 2004 Big East Cross Country Championships in Boston's Franklin Park. (Both photos by Alison Wade/New York Road Runners)

McCandless competes in the 5,000m at the 2003 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Sacramento.

Maureen McCandless' fifth-place finish at last November's NCAA Cross Country Championships was a significant improvement, to say the least, over her only previous appearance in the meet, a 210th-place performance in 2002. A senior at the University of Pittsburgh, McCandless emerged as a contender when she finished third at the Big East Championships, and followed that up by winning the Mid-Atlantic Regional Championship.

At Nazareth Academy in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she earned all-state honors in track and cross country, finishing second at the state cross country championship in her junior year. She improved steadily during her first three years at Pitt, finishing 35th, 24th, and then 22nd at the Big East Cross Country Championships, but few observers would have predicted her breakout 2004 season.

On the track, she holds school records at 1,500m (4:23.95), 3,000m (9:24.76), and 5,000m (16:20.38) — all of which should be vulnerable if she maintains her current form. She spoke to Fast-Women.com about her surprise emergence, her training under new Pitt distance coach James Trautmann, and her plans for the upcoming track season.

Fast-Women.com: Your race at NCAAs was a surprise to a lot of people, but looking at the splits and photos from the race, you were right up at the front of the chase pack throughout the race. So did you finish roughly where you expected to?
Maureen McCandless: Yeah, I did. Before the race I felt like I had a good chance to be up that high, because everything after Kim Smith was pretty wide open. I was just trying to stay near the lead — not near Kim Smith, obviously — but near the pack, and just see how things happened. And with the course being a mess, and it being a long season, anything can happen at nationals.

FW: So you planned to let Kim Smith go, but stay with everyone else as long as you could?
MM: Yeah. I mean, Renee Metivier went after Kim Smith a bit more, and obviously separated herself from the pack. But I just tried to keep my eyes on third place, and just run how I felt. With the mud, and with so many people up there, it's kind of hard to see what's going on.

FW: Did the mud affect you much?
MM: It didn't bother me. I mean, I can't say that I really like mud or anything. It was pretty messy at our regional race in parts, and right at the two-mile mark, where I pulled away to win, there was this huge muddy field. So I actually was thinking about that when I got to NCAAs. I was like, 'Well, I seem to have done pretty well in the mud last time.'

And just how we train in Pittsburgh — Coach Trautmann is this crazy distance-runner guy, and he's always saying that you have to be prepared for anything. So when Hurricane Ivan made its way up to Pittsburgh, we were out running around, doing a workout in this pouring rain - it was crazy! And we were like, 'Oh, we survived Ivan, we can survive anything.' Little things like that give you the confidence to pull through in a messy situation.

FW: Do you often run from the front, or do you prefer to sit in the pack and kick?
MM: I think it depends on the race. I'm usually not the person to take it out, but if it has to be done, then I'll do it. Like at regionals, I went right to the front to control the race, because I knew it would be pretty slow if I didn't do it. But at nationals, I didn't go out too hard — I think I was in 10th or 11th at one point. And at Big East, the other big meet that we ran, I was in fifth or sixth for most of the race. I do have a lot of confidence in my kick, and in the last 1,000 meters or so, so I'm not too worried about trying to take it out fast.

FW: A bit of a random question: what's your standard warm-up routine before a race?
MM: Actually this year, I tried something new, because I have a new coach. He has the whole team start with what he calls a steady-state warm up. We do a normal 15-minute jog or so, an hour before. And then the big part of our warm-up is actually 10 to 15 minutes before the race or workout is going to start. We do an interval at race pace, to get really, really warmed up. For cross country, we did around 600 meters. Since it's on a cross country course, it's not exactly timed or a certain distance, but maybe two minutes of running at a good race pace. And then, you know, a few striders. That's something that I think has really helped me out this year, because a lot of times last year or in earlier years, I felt like I spent a lot of the first mile warming up. So I really like that idea of doing a good interval. I mean, 600 meters extra is not going to tire you out when the race is 6,000.

FW: You were sixth at the Penn State meet in October, and then fifth a month later at NCAAs. Do you think you timed your peak well, or were you just training through the early races?
MM: Part of Coach Trautmann's philosophy is that those early races are not important at all — and they really aren't. I think at Penn State I was in the middle of one of the highest mileage weeks that I've ever done. So we definitely weren't too concerned about tapering for any of those early meets. We were training through them, and it worked out perfectly for peaking when I finally did start tapering right around Big East. Then everything started to click and my times dropped.

FW: The Big East race [where she placed third] looked like a step up to a new level.
MM: I had been working out really well, but I hadn't raced really well yet, because I hadn't done the tapering or anything like that. So I did kind of surprise myself at Big East: it was my fastest time of the year, being at Franklin Park, which is a fast course. So it was a big breakthrough race for me.

FW: Did that make you reevaluate your goals for nationals?
MM: Yeah, it kind of did, because I finished right behind Mary Cullen, like a step behind — it was a great, great finish of a race. And I beat some other runners who had done very well at nationals in previous years. At the beginning of the season, I really just wanted to be All-American. And then once it got closer to nationals, I realized I could do something more than that.

FW: This year seems like a big jump in your level from previous years. Did you see any signs last year that you were capable of running at this level?
MM: Actually, sophomore year was kind of a big jump for me from freshman year — I increased my training a lot. Junior year (last year), I expected to do a lot better. I was actually in pretty good shape, but I was injured and missed most of September. Mid-September to mid-October, I didn't run at all. So even though it looks like my season really wasn't that great, I actually did pretty well. I missed nationals I think by one person, even after having not run at all. So each year, I've definitely progressed.

FW: Has Coach Trautmann made any major changes in your training since he arrived in August?
MM: The things that I'm doing now aren't too different. This track season will be pretty different because I'm concentrating more on running 5,000m, even indoors, and definitely outdoors, whereas last year I was messing around with the 1,500m and stuff. I missed some time last year with being injured, so I was missing a few important weeks of base training, and I kind of just floated down to the 1,500m. So it is different this year, doing workouts that are for longer distance, but the basic philosophy is not a complete change.

FW: Can you describe a typical training week for the middle of cross country season?
MM: We would do intervals Tuesday, and another workout on Saturday if we didn't have a race. And Thursday we would do what we call a threshold or a sub-threshold run, which is a good pace for six miles or so, what our old coach would call a strength run. Then the other days, just getting in mileage, recovery days, with a long run on Sunday. My longest run is about 12 miles or so. We do everything by time, and just kind of guess at mileage.

FW: Do you run twice a day at all?
MM: Yeah, we get a lot of our mileage, actually, by doubles. Four days a week, we do a morning run of two to four miles.

FW: Two miles is pretty short...
MM: Yeah, I usually do four miles in the morning, and six in the afternoon or something.

FW: What kind of workouts would you do on Tuesdays and Saturdays?
MM: We have a 1,000-meter loop here, we call it 'The Oval.' It's a gravel path that we do our intervals on, which is really nice. Being in the city, we don't have all that many soft surfaces, so it's good to able to do a workout and not be on the track too much.

We do like 6-8 x 800m with 2:00 rest, or 6-8 x 1000m with 2:00 rest, usually. They're my favorite ones. We do some other, like fartlek-type stuff. And a neuromuscular workout, which is a continuous run where we run five or six hundred meters at a good race pace, and then have the rest of the 1000m loop to recover — but still a continuous run, not slowing down too much.

FW: You're pretty far ahead of your teammates in races; do you have anyone to work out with?
MM: During cross country, everyone pretty much did the same workouts. I had my own splits, so I'd kind of do that on my own. I do all the regular runs with my teammates, so I don't mind working out by myself if every other run of the week is with them.

FW: What sort of mileage have you done in college?
MM: My freshman year, probably the max would be 50 miles. Sophomore year 60, but not too many weeks of it. And then junior year, I probably stayed about the same, but got more weeks up to 60. This year I've been getting up to 70, but not every week. We'd usually do 60, 65, 70, and then we'd do a rest week, down mileage, maybe 50 or 55 miles. Three weeks hard, and then a rest week where we'd back off a little bit on the morning runs, cross train a little more.

FW: Has this season's success made you focus more on the different ways you can help your running?
MM: It's been building steadily. When I came to college, I really had no idea about the little things that distance runners did. I've always been one for sleep! But eating better, things like that, over the years I've been gradually learning things.

FW: Can you tell us a bit about your high school career? Did you ever go to the Foot Locker races?
MM: Actually, when I was in high school, Pennsylvania underclassmen couldn't go to Foot Lockers, because of some crazy rules. So the only year people were eligible to go was senior year, and I was not feeling great my senior year [during] cross country. I got second at states my junior year, but that's where my season had to end, because that was all the racing we could do. I didn't run my outdoor season junior year because I was injured, and that kind of carried a little bit into my senior year. I did get fifth at states when I was a senior, which was pretty surprising to everyone then too, because I came out of nowhere.

FW: But Pitt was recruiting you?
MM: Actually Pitt didn't come into the picture until later in my senior year. There was a girl at Pitt who had gone to my high school, Beth Rocks, and she was really successful — she ran 2:06 indoors, and qualified for indoor nationals. Originally I didn't want to come here, because I didn't want to go to the same place as her and everything. But I had a couple little nagging injuries in high school, and in high school you don't have the treatment. I just had runner's knee or something, but it kept me from running, so a lot of colleges lost interest.

Then when I came down here, I really liked being in the city, and I really liked how Pitt had more of a track team than a lot of schools I was looking at. And I've always loved track just as much as cross country, so I didn't want to go to a school that was all cross country. And they really let me follow that — like my freshman year, I pretty much ran the 800m and 1,500m, they didn't throw me right in the 5,000m, because I wasn't ready for that mentally. In high school, I always ran the 800 and the mile, I didn't even run the two-mile.

FW: How does the Pitt track team look for this season? Will you be hoping to win Big East?
MM: Yeah, last year we got second outdoors, and third indoors. Miami left the Big East, and they were the ones that won both. So with them gone, we definitely have a good chance. I'm guessing our main competition will be Notre Dame — they're really good. We have a lot of all-around different athletes — we have sprinters, we have a heptathlete who's really good, we have throwers, we're starting to get distance runners now really developing. So it's definitely realistic.

FW: Have you planned out your season yet?
MM: I'm not racing until January 28. I'm going to run a 5K at Penn State, and hopefully get a qualifier out of the way so I don't have to worry about that. Then we're going to the Armory, where I'll probably run a 3,000m. Then we go back to Penn State, and I'll probably do something short, like a mile, because the week after that is Big East. I don't know what I'll be doing at Big East, but I'm sure it will be a lot. Then we have a last-chance meet at Notre Dame to do whatever needs to be done.

FW: So if you need a qualifier, you'll chase it there.
MM: Yeah — hopefully not!

FW: Any thoughts on the races at nationals?
MM: I think that now that Kim Smith is not running, the race could be pretty wide open, at least compared to the last few years. So it should be a good race — both the 5,000m and the 3,000m.

FW: And for outdoors...is the 10,000m in your future?
MM: Um...yeah, I'm thinking about it. I always swore that I would never do a 10K, but I have pretty much every school record in every event that I run, so it would be nice to at least run it once and get a school record.

FW: Does that mean you'll be running steeple too?
MM: No, I'm not going to steeplechase. I wanted to, but I don't think I'm allowed.

FW: Do you know what you're going to do next year?
MM: I am working on a couple of options right now. I might be going to grad school here, to study exercise physiology. I didn't run indoors my sophomore year, so I have indoor eligibility that I could use next year. I would also love to try one of the post-collegiate training groups that are around, because you only have a few years to run. It would really be a lot of fun to be in a team like that, especially since I'm so far ahead of my team here. I've never really had people to push me in workouts, [not since my] freshman year.

I kind of want to redshirt this outdoor season, so I can come back next year for two seasons, but that of course is up to the head coach. He's going to see how indoor Big East goes, and how outdoor Big East would be without my points and everything. But those are my two possibilities: either here for grad school or one of those training groups — definitely somewhere that I can run.

(Interview conducted January 13, 2005, and posted January 20, 2005.)