FW: Do you still follow Columbia’s track team?
DM: Oh, yes, very much! I’m still very, very involved. We just had a huge alumni athletes’ function with about 120 people. I helped arrange that, so yes [laughing], I follow it probably way too closely!

FW: Are there any particular athletes on the team that you follow the closest?
DM: I followed Caryn Waterson’s career [one of Columbia’s top 800-meter runners who graduated in 2005]. She’s now one of my top athletes. The Central Park Track Club actually has a lot of former Columbia athletes on the team. I’m now watching Laura Meyers, who’s a steeple-chaser, she’s actually also from Pasadena. Hopefully, she’s going to have a really, really great year. I also follow Sarah Decker; a great 800-meter runner. I follow, Erison Hurtault, who has won seven Ivy titles in the 400 [meters]. It’s an exciting time for Columbia. It’s great to see the program grow. It’s so great to see them so good and so strong, and national All-Americans. The men have had a history of success, and it’s so great now, to see nationally-ranked athletes on the women’s side.

FW: Let’s talk about what you did with your running after you left Columbia.
DM: Right after Columbia, I was running for Nike Coast out in California. I took a year just to run, and I qualified for the Olympic Trials that year, 1991, so I was out in UC [University of California] Irvine training. Then, I actually went to grad school the next year up at Berkeley. While I was there, I was training for the trials, but I had to sit out because I had an injury caused by an undetected kidney tumor.

The good thing was that the second year in grad school, since I was injured, I started working with Tony Sandoval, so I was coaching with him that year I was injured, so that was my venture into coaching.

Eventually I went over to Oxford and I ran there. It was very cool, I was able to run for the university as a graduate student. I think that cross country is bigger than track and field in England. And it’s real cross country. I’ll never forget the first time that I ran a race there and all of a sudden we came to this stream. And everybody jumped in! I hesitantly went into the water and thought “Here, we go!” and the water came up to about here [she points to her mid-thigh].

And then there was this other meet between Oxford and Cambridge and the water came to about here [she points to her chest] and they didn’t think twice [laughing]! It was crazy, it was so much fun. That’s real cross country. What I had done back in the states was nothing compared to that. Also, at that point, they were running 6K.

FW: And you had been running 5K in the United States right?
DM: Yes, exactly. I don’t know if I would have ever qualified for nationals in cross country [in the United States] if we had to run 6K. A 5K was still tough for me since I was a miler. A 6K would have been that extra K to make it too tough for me.

FW: Did you mainly use cross country to keep you in shape for track?
DM: No, I kind of saw cross country as it’s own thing. Obviously, cross country gets you in phenomenal shape for track, but I loved track so much more in college. In high school, it was the other way around.

Cross country is just so tough; I mean, you never know what the conditions are going to be. I like that on the track there is a little more control. I think that’s why I love the indoor track because you have the most control and it’s hard to get off pace.

FW: So, indoor track was your favorite of the three [cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track]?
DM: [Crossing her arms, taking a moment to think about it]. I wouldn’t say I always ran well in indoors [laughing]. No, probably outdoor track was my favorite, and I did better. So, that was what I liked the best.

FW: To this day, do you still consider yourself a miler?
DM: I still consider myself a miler, although I haven’t competed in a while.

FW: How many years has it been since you have competed?
DM: Since, I really focused on competing? It’s been a couple of years. I’ve had phases where I wasn’t able to compete for various reasons. One reason is that I’ve had two different battles with kidney cancer, one was in 1994, and the other was in 2001, yet I was very serious in 2002. Each time I had kidney cancer, I quickly got back on the track and was back running again. After 1994, I was back and running at indoor nationals in Britain. In 2001, I also got back quickly because I was very focused on getting back.

The last couple of years though, it’s been hard to fit in my personal training because our group is growing so much [The Nike Central Park Track Club]. It’s so exciting! I’ll be honest, I get more excited about other people’s PRs that I do my own now. That’s where my passion is now.

FW: So, you see yourself now as making a definitive transition from being a runner to being a coach?
DM: Absolutely! I’ll say that the transition has passed. I mean, I’ll fill in for a relay anytime. Like last year at indoors [at New York Road Runners’ Thursday Night at the Races], we needed a fourth leg for the 4X400, so I filled in for that. I hopped in a bunch of relays about a year and a half ago for the USA[TF] Club Nationals. I ran the DMR, 4X800 and the 4X400. Why not? And I love relays; they are so much fun. I expect to do another 800-meter leg soon. Our team has the world record in the 4X800 [10:01.9] for the 35-39 age group and I’d like to get that lower. We have a good crew now, so I think that’s going to be a main focus. We set that a few years ago; we’d like to get that lower.

FW: It’s amazing that you struggled through two bouts of kidney cancer and you obviously persevered. Did running help you through those tough periods?
DM: Absolutely. For me, running was always been a release. For me, I ran for competition, yes, but running was always more than that for me. I feel like if there was anytime that I had any problem, I could go out for a run and would realize that it’s all going to be okay. For me, that never changed. So, for both struggles through cancer, running was very therapeutic. It also gave me a focus as far as getting back and getting healthy. As soon as the doctors said that I could, I was out there running.

Running was a lifeline for me. I feel like I didn’t get to achieve all that I wanted to with running, but that’s okay. Now, I get to see my athletes get to the level that I wanted to get to, and that feels good.

FW: So, let’s talk about your coaching. You sound so passionate about it. Basically, the experience at Berkeley was your launching pad into coaching, right?
DM: That’s exactly right, and Tony [Sandoval] has been an incredible individual. I speak to him still at least once or twice a month. Alicia Johnson recently won the 800 [meters] at the NCAA [Championships] under his tutelage. Tony is my biggest mentor. We have kept in touch non-stop since 1992. I got into coaching because of him. He was instrumental in encouraging me to coach full-time. He told me “This is what you should do! You love it!” And I thought “Maybe you’re right” [laughing].

FW: Do you help the athletes on Central Park Track Club try to find sponsors?
DM: Well...we’re now Nike Central Park Track Club; they picked us up a year or so ago and that was one of my goals was to get sponsorship, because the sport is so expensive these days between shoes, and clothing, and travel. Sponsorship is necessary for athletes who want to succeed in running; it doesn’t have to be a shoe company, but for us, Nike was the perfect fit. The shoes are great; the gear is great; and as an athlete you feel more confident when you have a sponsor. For example, a year ago, Caryn Waterson was just signing with Nike and she went to indoor nationals just beforehand up in Boston and everyone was being read off as “Nike,” “New Balance,” ”Asics,” and whatever their sponsor was and Caryn was read off as “Central Park Track Club.” You may think that it’s just a name, but now at nationals our bibs read “Nike Central Park Track Team.” It’s almost as though the sponsorship makes you feel like you’ve arrived as an athlete. Maybe it’s a sad reality, but it’s true that sponsorship is extremely important and you can’t get to an elite level without finances.

FW: I think it’s simply phenomenal that you were able to get sponsorship for an entire team! How many runners do you have now on the team?
DM: We have 350.

FW: And how much does Nike help with the athletes’ expenses?
DM: Basically, they take care of the team uniform for all of our members, other perks with shoes and gear, and then our top group receives financial support to go to national meets. It’s just great for us! It helps take our athletes to the next level.

I really believe that if you want to be an elite athlete, you need to really have ten things going your way: You need to have training partners; you need to have experienced coaches; you need to have access to the best facilities; access to the best doctors; you need to have some sort of elite status (like for us we have USATF elite development team – we’re one of 35 in the country); you need to have some sort of PR, press, and promotion; you need to have elite races to compete in (like the races that New York Road Runners put on such as the [Continental Airlines] Fifth Avenue Mile, the [ING] New York City Marathon, or the national cross country championships that they hosted last year); you need to have sponsorship; and some sort of history of success like being a national qualifier. We’re very fortunate to be in New York where we have all of these factors and that’s why the program is growing. If you don’t have all of these factors, you can’t pull it all together.

The funny thing is that in New York, we have everything we could ever want and most people don’t even know about it and I really believe that New York is the next running Mecca, and everybody laughs when I say something like that, but I respond “Have you seen the trails in Central Park, Van Cortlandt Park, and Rockefeller State Park [in Tarrytown]; Have you seen Icahn Stadium; Have you seen the Armory; Have you seen Columbia’s track?” We have all of this stuff here; we actually have more than most places. Some of the [distance] camps have better trails, but they have to travel far to get races. Just imagine waking up in your own bed and having access to all of this. Just think of Anthony Famiglietti; he was able to wake up in his own bed and run in the USA 8K Championships. People here don’t always have to travel across the country to go to a good meet. We’ve already seen the level of competition here in New York improve in recent years; I think we’re going to see it grow even more. I think people should really take a second look at New York and realize that if you want to run post-collegiately, you should come to New York.

FW: Does the Nike Central Park Track Club reach out to collegiate athletes?
DM: Yes and no. We have a stable of Ivy athletes right now; mainly because one, they’re so close to New York, two, many of them are going to be coming to New York for their jobs, and three, they know other people on the team, who they have competed against in division championships. So, we reach out that way. Sometimes people contact us and other times, we contact them. It just depends on what an athlete is looking for; there are certain athletes that don’t want coaches and that’s not Central Park [Track Club]. There’s a model that we really like; we like people who are living, training, working, and having a lot of fun together. That’s our model and that works well. A lot of post-collegiate athletes want to try something new and go at it on their own, and I think you really need a coach who has your best interests, who wants you to improve, and wants you to run fast. You need someone to tell you “No you’re sick, you shouldn’t run in this race; no you’re sick, you shouldn’t train today.” It’s so hard to be your own judge.

FW: Tell me more about coaching for the Nike Central Park Track Club.
DM: There are two head coaches, Tony Ruiz and myself, and we work very closely together. There’s a joke; Tony makes them strong and I make them fast. Together, we put together a great program. Tony and I are in constant contact; I know what his workouts are; he knows what mine are. There are times when people work exclusively with me, and there are times when I will send people to Tony. Tony meets every Thursday in Central Park and leads Tuesday track workouts. I lead a Tuesday track workout and a Thursday track workout, but my workouts move based on races and the season. Sometimes we’ll do the back hills in Van Cortlandt Park, especially during cross country season. My workouts tend to move to fit our schedule.

Tony and I work together to develop and plan programs for the athletes; of course, the athletes give their input. For example, I’ll develop their race calendar and I’ll have some specific workouts where I want them to go to Tony, especially when they are in an endurance phase. My athletes are more on the track.

FW: How many of your athletes have regular day jobs?
DM: I would say that almost all of them have jobs; a lot of them tailor their jobs though to allow them to focus on running. It’s very much that running is a priority. Many of them are aiming to qualify for the trials whether it’s on the track or the marathon. Running is a high priority, but in fact, a lot of them want to work. My first year out of college, it was very difficult for me to focus solely on running. It can be great, but when you get injured, it’s not so great. I had a stress fracture that year and it was frustrating because I gave up everything and here I am only able to aqua jog [laughing] and there is only so much aqua jogging you can do! I couldn’t lift because I couldn’t do any weight-bearing (the stress fracture was in my foot).

What’s nice for the athletes here in New York is that they can get decent jobs where they are using their minds and are able to get further in their career, but they still have the time to put in the mileage, put in the training, eat well, and get their sleep. You gotta have your sleep. It’s a balancing act, but most of my athletes are very committed and they want that. If you are running post-collegiately, you have to be running fast, if you’re going to put in the time. There’s no point in doing this unless you are running fast, because you are focusing your whole life around it, you really are. You’ll be making many sacrifices left and right.

My coaching philosophy is simple: run faster than your college times; If you are not running faster than your college times, then I’m not doing my job. I do get athletes who ran in college and took a hiatus for a couple of years and then they come back and for those athletes I say “First, we have to get you back to your college times, and then we’ll get you running faster.” You don’t even peak until you are 28-32, so they have time.

FW: What is the age-range of the athletes on the team?
DM: 21 to 68. Our masters athletes are some of the best in the world. Marie- Louise Michaelsohn set two world records [in the 65-69 age group in the 3000 meters and mile and three American records [in the 3000 meters, mile, and 800 meters] this weekend in Boston [at The USA Masters Indoor Championships]. Our men’s 60-69 group holds the world record in the 4X800. Sid Howard won the World Championships last year in the 800 meters and mile in the 65-69 age group. We really have some of the best in the world, if not the best, which is very humbling. Sid can beat me in workouts; to be beat by a 68-year old man is very humbling! These men and women are very serious about their running. They get to practices, and get to the races.

Some people say to me “Well, if you’re an elite club, why don’t you have just a small little elite group?” The advantage of having such a big club though, is that you always have training partners. That’s one of the big differences between the small, elite clubs, and us. What do you do when your training partner gets injured and you have no one else to run with? In our club, if someone gets injured, you’re okay because you have 10 other people to run with. If you are training for a marathon, you always have someone to go on long runs with; you always have someone to train with at night-time or in the morning. You have a network of different competitive people who want to see you succeed.

People have criticized us for having masters athletes, but look at how great masters athletes can be! They don’t understand how talented masters athletes can be; like look at the More [Magazine] Marathon this past weekend; Susan Loken can run a 2:45 and that’s an Olympic Trials qualifier. And then there’s Rae Baemiller at age 50 she ran a 2:52 in the marathon. 2:52 in your 50s – can you imagine? Why should you be done running when you’re 40, 50, or 60? And some of our masters athletes run marathons all the time. Those older athletes know how to keep healthy, so you can learn a lot from them.

FW: Do you find that a lot of the younger runners see the older runners as role models?
DM: Absolutely; they learn a lot; they start thinking about running in different terms realizing that running doesn’t have to be short-term, that running can be a life-long endeavor and you can take breaks. If you want to take a break to get married and have kids, you can always come back. Look at women marathoners who have had babies and come back running faster than they did beforehand. We think it’s a win-win for us to have such a vast age range of runners.

FW: Let’s talk about your career transition. You switched from being a lawyer to being a full-time coach! What gave you the determination to make the switch?
DM: Tony Sandoval was really the one who planted the seed. I founded the middle-distance group for the Central Park Track Club in 2000 and started out with six people. We just started growing. I loved it; people were running PRs and getting faster, and doing well. I liked coaching so much and was so passionate about it. The second bout of cancer had a lot to do with it; you always reassess when you have a crisis in your life.

I spent ten years practicing as a lawyer and I loved it, and my firm was very supportive of my running and my coaching so I was very grateful for the law firm for that, but I found that I was getting psyched more about other people’s running than I was about doing my own work! I felt like taking a change, and I believe that with coaching, you can make a difference in people’s lives more than you can in law. I mean, I was in litigation [laughing]; it’s a little hostile. I was ready for a change; I had been coaching part-time and it seemed like what I wanted to do for a job. The thing is that, when I was coaching, I didn’t feel like I was doing work. I like all aspects of it; I like mapping out the season. I could spend hours on it, and not feel like it’s work. Sure, there are some if the administrative aspects that aren’t the best like filling out meet entries, but it’s not that bad. So, that was it, I knew I needed to make the switch and Tony Sandoval kept pushing. He said I could be one of his assistant coaches, so I was toying with that; I loved working with him; he’s a phenomenal coach, but I really liked what we have in New York and what we’re building in Central Park.

It’s very exciting watching the team grow, and get to a different level. Sending people to national championship races is exciting. Watching the runners grow and become more confident is great too. Katy Masselam just went down to the 15K in Florida and that was her first real national championship race as an individual. She went out to the cross country club national championships in San Francisco last fall, but here at the 15K, she was racing with Deena Kastor. She was very overwhelmed, but she came back, almost a changed person. I don’t think she will be Deena Kastor tomorrow, but just to see that change was remarkable. I think so much about being an elite athlete is about confidence; confidence is everything.

FW: Is there anything you do with your athletes that you think helps them to develop their racing confidence?
DM: I tend to focus on race strategies and I like to go over different scenarios that could happen in a race, so that they are not surprised. Races seem to fall into three categories; they either go out way too fast, faster than you wanted it to go, or just perfect, or it goes out too slow and it’s packed. I believe it helps boost athletes’ confidence if you prepare them for all three scenarios and determine how the athlete is going to respond to each scenario. You got to be able to adjust; that’s so key as an athlete, to be able to think “Okay, this isn’t going as planned. What can I do? ,” and to not get upset by it. They can just be relaxed and think “So and so, I thought, was going to take out the lead and isn’t, but so what?” Can you run in the front? Can you be comfortable if you find yourself in the front of the race? That’s what I loved about Alicia Johnson’s 800 meters [at the 2007 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championship]; she lead from wire to wire. I saw the post-race interview and she said “I was going to do my own race; I had enough confidence in my kick at the end and when I wanted to execute it even though there was someone in the race who has beat me six times before. She knew what worked best for here, and she was going to dictate it. It was beautiful. You have to see this race! It was nice; I sent it to all of my athletes to show them “Who says you can’t win from the front?” Too many times, people are afraid to take the lead, and it’s true, there are times that you should sit and there are times when you should take it from start to finish.

FW: So, you coach 800-meter runners to 3K runners?
DM: When I started, the group was about 800 meters to the 3K, and now I coach 800-meter runners, to the marathon. I have a lot of women 5K, 10K and half-marathon runners. That’s the advantage of having Coach Tony [Ruiz] because he has trained so many marathoners, so we’ve really been able to work together to develop good programs. For instance, when we work with Katy Masselam, who’s training for Grandma’s Marathon, Tony and I literally sat down together to plan her program.

FW: Are the members of the team close to each other?
DM: Yes, they are. We have a lot of fun, and do a lot of social things together. We’ll go out for dinners. People have even met their significant other through our club!

Interview conducted on March 26, 2007, and posted on April 2, 2007.