Interview with Katie McGregor

by Beth Whitney

Above: Katie McGregor at the 2005 USA 8K Champs.

Below: Katie McGregor running Cross Country.
All Photos: Alison Wade/New York Road Runners

Katie McGregor will attempt to make her fourth world cross country team at the USA Cross Country Championships, to be held at New York’s Van Cortlandt Park on Feb. 18-19. She placed fifth in the 8K at last year’s cross country nationals, and went on to the best year of her career: national championships at 10K on the track and road, and a 10,000-meter personal best of 31:21.20 to place 14th at the IAAF Outdoor Track & Field Championships.

A two-time NCAA champion while at the University of Michigan, McGregor has been a member of Team USA Minnesota since 2001. She tuned up for this month’s cross country championships with a third-place run of 9:01.79 for 3,000 meters at January’s Rebook Boston Indoor Games.

Fast-Women.com: Congratulations on that race in Boston . How did it feel to have your teammate, Carrie Tollefson, so close to you as you were battling for third place?
Katie McGregor: It was kind of crazy, because we are so close. We’re like sisters, and we train together every day. Sometimes when you train by yourself, you don’t have anyone to compare yourself to, and you don’t really know where you’re at, but we’ve been training pretty hard together. We’d been hoping to run a little faster, but it just didn’t work out that way.

There were so many people that were still there right at the end of the race. It was a consistent race, and a lot of people could stay at that pace. I haven’t done an indoor race for almost two years now, so it was fun to get back out there again.

FW: It’s a great track, and the crowd is always so appreciative there. The time you ran is very close to your previous 3K PR, isn’t it?
KM: I’ve run 8:59, so it was pretty close. Normally, I would have been ecstatic about it. You never know in those types of races how it’s going to go, and I would have liked to have gotten a new PR, but it just didn’t happen that way. It wasn’t like we ran super slow, but at the same time, we wanted to run a bit faster. I think it was a good opener, and I think we accomplished what we needed to, at least for the first race. We had our own kind of race within the race, and helped each other out, but it didn’t end up being crazy fast.

FW: I think the last time you spoke to Fast-Women.com was after your 10K victory at outdoor nationals. At that time, you stated you felt the 10K was probably your stronger event because you felt like you had a lot more strength, but you weren’t as fast as you used to be. Does this recent 3K time mean you might reconsider some of the shorter distances? I think most people assume you will be concentrating on the 10K in 2008?
KM: I definitely am, but it’s so fun, especially for distance runners, to run so many different events. Indoor track is such a big part of collegiate sports, and we tend to move away from it after college, especially as a distance runner, because at indoor nationals the longest run is 3K. I still like to go and run the best I can for the shorter stuff and try and improve.

It’s good, especially around this time, to get some races in, and with cross country coming up to get something shorter and faster in before I get ready to go and run an 8K. It works out pretty well if I can get in a track meet before that and turn things over a little bit. With practicing all the time, sometimes it’s fun to just race.

FW: Should we count out the possibility of you doubling at the Olympic Trials?
KM: I’m just going to worry about the 10K for right now. Eventually I will probably move up as opposed to move down. It’s just right now I’m not ready to move up to the marathon. I feel like I have a lot to accomplish at the shorter distances. It’s not necessarily true that once you go to the marathon you don’t want to do the shorter events anymore. At the same time, you want to feel like you’ve accomplished what you wanted to at the short stuff. I feel like I still have a lot to accomplish at the 10K, so I really would like to run faster and continue to do well at the 10K distance, so that will be my main focus.

FW: You do mix it up a lot. It’s obviously keeping you in race shape and having a training effect. If you had to choose one type of event or venue, which one would you favor?
KM: I think the thing I like the most about running distance is you have options, you can change it up. I think that’s what makes the sport so exciting. I love running on the roads because it’s a little more laid back and it’s not just running around a track a bunch of times. Still, I love competing on the track too. For the longer [events] you don’t get on the track as much. When you step on the track, it’s a much different mentality than when you step to the line on the roads or on a cross country course. It’s just a different type of feeling.

For indoor races, the Boston meet is so much fun—it’s just such a great track and the crowds are great and the level of athletes is so crazy that it just gets you excited. So many times I’ve come to New York for different road races and they do such a good job putting great races together. There are so many fantastic places I’ve been where you get to spend time with your competitors. I don’t know if there’s one specific venue or event that I like the most—I like to do all of the different events. For example, there’s Stanford’s Cardinal Invite. I try to go out there every year because it’s kind of a lucky track for me. They tend to have a decent crowd and it’s a rather low-key race. but people usually come and race well there. I like that one for outdoor track, but there are so many venues, I just can’t choose.

FW:If there’s one description that comes to mind when I hear the name Katie McGregor it’s "well-rounded and consistent.” How do you stay focused in your higher pressure training cycles and before important races? How do you balance the pressure of being a full-time runner with being able to stay calm and focus?
KM: I think that, first of all, I just want to compete. Even if I get nervous before events... I can’t imagine doing anything else. It’s just what I love to do. Most of the time I think I am consistent, but not so often the favorite. I don’t feel as much pressure because I’m always there, but just in the background—lingering and waiting for opportunities. I don’t feel a lot of pressure that way.

Also, it’s just being able to stay consistent and stay in a training program for as long I have, and training with the caliber of athletes we have here. I think it gives you a little more confidence just knowing that you’re training with some of the best athletes in the country right here in Minnesota every day. You’re confident going into events that you are ready to go, that you’re ready to race. It’s fun for me to go out and race. If I have a bad one, I know that there’s always another one coming up soon. There’s opportunities to come back and have a better one later on.

I try to get out and race as much as I can. The more I race, the more consistent I am able to be. I’ve always been that way—I’d rather race than train for long periods of time. I like to travel to the different places, and I feel like we’re lucky to have the group that we have here together. You feel like you’re racing against people that you see every day, and so it’s not as intimidating and there’s not as much pressure.

FW:When you look at yourself now as compared to when you started with Team USA Minnesota in 2001, in terms of your attitude, training style or philosophy, have you noticed any major shifts?
KM: There have been, I think just by being in a program for a few years. You don’t really until you’ve been doing something consistently for a while, so when I first got here, it took time to get used to the training and to becoming more of a long-distance runner, to get used to a different type of intensity and mileage than I’d ever had before, and just get used to being ready to go every single day. Training on your own, sometimes you push yourself, but not as hard as when somebody else is there. Here you have someone there every day. So we tend to push ourselves a little more than we would on our own.

We have a lot of support in the community. I think being able to compete at this level for so many years, you get used to certain races that you go to every year, and you get comfortable with those races and you feel like things are more familiar to you than when you first came out of school. Just as with anything, the more you do it, the more confidence you have in it. We have a few runners that came to us this year who are just out of college. You can tell they have just a little more fire to them, they’re a little more excited to go to events sometimes and compete at this level. I think sometimes the rest of us, we forget that it’s supposed to be fun, we put so much pressure on ourselves all of the time. As you get older, you feel like you can’t use your age as an excuse anymore; you are the more experienced ones. You tend to approach the races a little bit differently, but you still need to remember to have fun.

FW: At this point in your career, what performance do you look back on as being the most satisfying? It’s easy to assume that the answer would be the breakthrough race, or the one that looks best on paper. Is that true for you, or do you have a certain race where there was something else that was special about it?
KM: It’s hard to tell. I think to date, the most memorable would be just winning the outdoor nationals last year. It was so much fun, and in addition to being able to go to the World Championships, I got to feel confident that I had a good year going. I had run a fast time earlier in the year, and I just felt like this is for real, I can run this event, I did it consistently, and it’s more than some one-time thing where I lucked out. I feel like I’m now at a certain point, and yet at the same time there’s much more I can accomplish. It was also a big thing for me because I had sort of a chip on my shoulder, not making the Olympic team the year before. That whole past year was just kind of me being mad, and figuring out, “How badly do I want this?” and “What am I going to do about it?” I put myself in a better position this time around.

FW: You certainly rose to the challenge.
KM: [Pauses, laughs] I am, you’re right. At a certain point I lose track. We have a lot of teammates here who are healthy—we want to all get out there together, to come to New York and to race. I think I ran at Van Cortlandt Park once before as a freshman in college, but I haven’t been out there for a long time, so I’m excited to run there again. You can expect the worst with the weather and the conditions. It’s always something fun to do and it’s competitive. It’s a different kind of racing—the terrain can be crazy. You just have to go out there and be tough. I always look forward to cross country, and the chance to make another world team is also exciting.

FW: Do you have any strategies in place, or are you going to wait and see what the day brings?
KM: Yeah, I’m just going to see how things play out when I get there. It’s definitely something I’ve been working toward all year. I try just to focus. Once I get there I’ll start getting ready to go, and then have a game plan, but up until that point I just worry about my training, and staying healthy, and being ready to go. Once the time is closer I’ll probably come up with a mental plan, but for right now I’m not going to worry about it.

Editor's Note: Katie McGregor ran the 8K at the 2006 USA XC Championships. She finished in 5th place with a time of 27:04.

Interview Conducted on January 31, 2006 Posted on February 14, 2006

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