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Thursday, March 1, 2018

American OLYMPIAN Shelby Houlihan

Today we drop a great interview with Shelby Houlihan, a distance runner who placed 11th at the 2016 OLYMPICS. During the interview you will see how Shelby goes through the timeline of her career proving just how much time and effort is needed to succeed in this sport.  In question 8 you will see how she stayed patient and stayed the course.  Improvement takes time, you need to trust the program and work for the results.

Thank you for your time and advice, Shelby.  Good luck this season!

1) How did you get into the Sport?
I grew up around running. My mom was a professional marathon runner for Asics and my sister ran the steeplechase professionally for Brooks. I grew up watching my mom run and when I was 5, I started running myself, doing 1 mile cross cross country races. My dream was to run professionally and win an Olympic gold medal when I grew up. I was also in soccer and gymnastics but I always felt that running was going to be the sport that I was going to be good at.

2) Did you consider yourself a slow or fast developer?
I would say fast but patient. I pick up things quickly and gain fitness quickly but I’ve stayed very patient with my training. In high school, I focused mostly on speed training and was only running around 20 miles a week. My parents never made me do anything and it never felt like a job. I found the love of running on my own which I think was big for me and the reason I still absolutely love it 11 years later. Each year since my freshman year of college, I’ve only increased my mileage each year by about 10 miles a week (I started out running 30 miles/week, then 40/week my sophomore year, then 50/week junior year, etc.). Nothing happens overnight and a slow, gradual progression is always better for long term performance and staying healthy.

3) Most memorable HS Race? - My most memorable HS race would be the 1500 at the Drake relays my senior year. I was trying to get the Iowa state record which was 4:27 and going into the last lap, everyone in the stands stood up and cheered me on. I didn’t end up getting the record, running 4:28, but it was still an awesome experience.

4) Most memorable College Race? - My most memorable College race would be winning an NCAA National title in the 1500m my Junior year at Arizona State.

5) How's it different being a pro athlete? - Being a professional athlete is a lot more intense and self disciplined than what I’ve experienced before as a high school and collegiate athlete. With the training group I’m in, the workouts are a lot longer and more intense. My first year, I was getting my butt kicked almost every workout. Eventually, I started getting aerobically stronger and was able to keep up and finish them but it took awhile for me to get to that point. The biggest thing was just staying positive and knowing that I was going to be better for it at some point. There’s also no one there holding your hand and telling you what to do every step of the way. You have to be disciplined and motivated in making sure you’re getting your mileage in, eating healthy, recovering, etc.

6) What Training philosophy are you following? - I just trust my coach and the training wholeheartedly. He believes the more you run, the better your aerobic system is, the stronger you’ll be. We work on speed as well but the main focus is getting aerobically strong so that you can utilize that speed at the end of the race.

7) Do you incorporate any cross training and/or Weight training? - I try to swim 1 mile 2 or 3 times a week during the fall and the training time between indoors and outdoors. We also do weight training 3 times a week on non workout days. We don’t do a lot of traditional lifting. It’s more running specific functional movements.

 8) What advice can you give to young Runners?? - The best advice I can give is to believe in yourself, trust your training, and stay patient. I've been running since I was 5 but it has taken me about 8 years of real training to get to the point where I am right now. Each year, I’ve been able to improve on something whether that’s increasing my mileage, to eating healthy, to doing more to help my body recover. I’ve been able to stay healthy the entire time (which is soooo important!!) and have been able to just keep chipping away and get better each year.

One good tip I'd give is to choose one thing to improve on each year. In college, I'd always have this huge list of things that I wanted to do better (besides increase in mileage) the next year such as eat healthier, drink more water, roll out more, stretch more, and it would be so overwhelming that I wouldn't do any of it. My coach eventually told me to just pick one thing each year and focus on improving that. I'm still working on improving the little things but I've gotten much better since college.


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