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garycohenrunning.com
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Graham Blanks is the 2023 NCAA Cross Country Champion. At the 2023 NCAA Track and Field Championships he finished sixth at 10,000 meters and second at 5,000 meters. Graham is a seven-time All-American and five-time Ivy League Champion, representing Harvard University. He is two-time NCAA Northeast Region Cross Country Champion. At the 2023 Boston University Season Opener indoors, Blanks won the 5,000 meters in a 13:03.78 PR, the fastest time ever run by a collegian. In high school at Athens Academy, Graham was the 2018 and 2019 Georgia State 1A Cross Country Champion, the latter in Course Record time. Other notable prep cross country wins include at the 2019 Great American XC Festival and 2019 NXN Southeast Regional. He also was the 2019 Georgia State 1A 3,200 Meter Champion. His personal best times are: 1,000 meters – 2:23.16; Mile – 3:56.63; 3,000 meters – 7:44.76; 5,000 meters – 13:03.78; and 10,000 meters - 28:15.90. Graham is pursuing a degree in Economics with a minor in Philosophy. He was so extremely gracious to spend an hour and fifty-five minutes on the phone for this interview in late 2023.
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2023 NCAA CROSS COUNTRY SEASON AND CHAMPIONSHIPS It’s less than three weeks since you won the NCAA Cross Country Championships individual title and sometimes it takes a bit to wrap one’s brain around such an accomplishment. After finishing twenty-third and sixth the last two years, what is the feeling of taking the biggest step and to be on top of the podium?
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It’s great and everything I thought I could have done has come to reality. It’s almost a moment of manifestation, but it still doesn’t change the feeling of how unreal it seems. I’m trying to take some downtime to digest everything because I don’t think I have digested that win or the 5k this past weekend. When you ask what the feeling is – it certainly is a weird one and I can’t put a finger on what feeling I would call it.
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How tough is it to win in cross country versus on the track as everyone is together in one race as you face runners who focus on 5,000 meters, 10,000 meters and steeplechase plus some 1,500-meter runners and also since the competition has varied racing strengths, surges, and tactics?
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It is tough and a lot of times it depends on how the course is shaped and how the race plays out. As you mentioned, we have runners from all the distance events with different strengths. I think it helps that perhaps I’m more of a 10k guy than many of the runners. The 10k specialists tend to have an advantage over the rest of the guys in the race. We all do have to bring it on that day because anything can happen and there are many different ways to win a race. You have to be able to match all those different tactics otherwise someone is going to jump scare you. Everyone in the lineup is so talented.
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In cross country something weird always seems to happen – someone falls in front of you or cuts you off or there are muddy spots or there are so many fast runners that you could get crowded. You’ve lost a shoe in the past. So, when you go into a cross country race what do you do to prepare yourself to meet the unexpected and work through adversity?
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Number one is to expect that. Cross country is chaos. That’s what it’s all about. I come into a race expecting something unforeseen to happen. Number two is to triple tie your shoelaces. Those shoes are just begging to come off in cross country races. That is generally my strategy nowadays.
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A quick aside before we discuss the recent cross-country season up through the NCAA Championships – how much did the cross-country strength help you to blast a 13:03.78 big 5,000-meter PR this past Saturday at the indoor season opener in Boston and drop a 57.04 last 400 meters for the win? Also, how important was it to have two pacesetters early on and then two other top runners to allow you to settle in behind them before you made your big move?
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First of all, the pacers were great. They took us through 3k in exactly what they promised, which was 7:55. Then Sam Atkins and Ky Robinson did an excellent job of keeping the pace and maybe pushing it a little bit. With all the cross-country training, at that point after doing high mileage since June and July and racing on all these difficult cross-country courses, when we got on the indoor track to do a 5k, it honestly didn’t feel that bad. At the end I ran a 57 second last 400 meters but, if you look at the splits, I ran an even split 57 second 400 meters. I don’t really have that much speed. But what I can do is to get to 400 meters to go and still feel comfortable. I do credit much of that cross-country training to helping me achieve that 5k time. But, in order to be world class in the 5k, you have to train like a 5k guy. That’s what I plan on doing over the next few months to get into good track fitness.
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Before we chat about the specifics of the NCAA Cross Country Championship, let’s look back at your complete season. First, how strong was your summer preparation, what weekly mileage and key workouts were you doing, and were you much stronger and faster coming into the season than in 2022?
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It was great. I was in Boston with a few teammates, so there was no altitude training this summer. The training here is amazing. After Flagstaff, Boston has to be one of my favorite places to train. There aren’t many hills but there are plenty of running routes and amazing places to work out. I had an exceptionally good, focused summer with my teammates. We were recovering well. We were able to cook for ourselves and were eating well. The main thing is that we were able to get in good training. I was up to a hundred miles a week by the end of summer. Generally, there were many basic workouts. It gets kind of boring and monotonous, but that’s what it takes to get strong as an ox. We did many long tempo runs and a lot of long fartlek runs. Sometimes we would switch it up and do broken tempo runs like three by ten minutes or five by eight minutes. There was some randomness, but a lot of hard, boring training. That got me back to campus with a particularly good base and we immediately started chiseling away as I tested myself with some faster workout reps. It was my best summer of training even without altitude training. I was pleased and credit much of my recent success to those few months.
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You didn’t race many times but started the 2023 cross country season in late September with the Battle in Beantown over eight kilometers where you won handily in 23:26 by twenty-three seconds. How did you feel in that race as you set the tone for the season?
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It was a good effort. There is never an easy race at any of the regular season meets. I did feel very good that day and that is when I started to feel that maybe we could do something very good this year. I tried to relax the first 5k or so. I took off with 3k to go and aimed to see how fast I could run toward the end. That was an exciting win. I love to run at Franklin Park and to get a win at home. We also won as a team, which was amazing. Beantown is a historic race. It may not have as much prestige as in the past, but that was a trophy we were extremely glad to take back to campus.
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Your first big test was at the Nuttycombe Invitational as all your chief rivals for the NCAA individual title were there. You won in 23:23.4 with Nico Young, Habtom Samuel and Ky Robinson finishing together less than three seconds behind you. What were the crunch points that led to your win, when did you make your move, did any of them try to go with you and how much confidence did this give you for the remainder of the season since you knew they would all be there at the end of the season?
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It was kind of a slow race compared to what it’s been in the past. There was a long windup of the pace as it was rainy and muddy. We had to be careful not to slip as there were many dangerous spots on the course where we could go down. I tried to hang in the pack. After Beantown a couple of weeks beforehand, I knew I had good strength and was thinking that maybe I could take the pace with a mile to go, or a kilometer left. But that is always dangerous with the level of talent of the other guys because they can just stick on you. Since it was so rainy and muddy, I decided to just stay with the group until the pace seemed to slow down. With about a mile left in the race, it did start to slow down. We were in about a group of twenty runners going for the win which was massive. I’ve never been in a big race like that where there were so many runners in contention with a mile left. Naturally, it started to slow down as runners were probably starting to think about the last two hundred meters up the final straightaway. We ran up the last hill and runners were struggling to get down the other side as it was very wet and slippery. At that point, many runners were tired, it was rainy, and we all wanted to get back in the tent. So, that’s when I decided to go. Those are the times when I want to go – when nobody else wants to. I went with five hundred meters to go and didn’t look back. Certainly, it wasn’t a fun last five hundred meters. A lot of people have asked me if it felt like a victory lap, and it definitely wasn’t. I was waiting for someone to pass me the entire way up that last hill. But I got the win and that was a huge confidence boost for me. Also, the team got sixth which was unbelievable. I was super happy with that. Sixth place at Nuttycombe was a big result and, though the rest of the season didn’t play out as well, it makes me super excited for where we will be as a team next cross-country season.
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Two weeks later at the Ivy League Heps Championships there was a pack of 20-25 runners at halfway before the pack thinned to a half dozen runners a kilometer later and you emerged victorious by eight seconds over Penn’s Dylan Throop. Was this a race where you ran strong, but didn’t have to throttle up as hard as at Nuttycombe and was it a bit disappointing for Princeton to edge your Harvard team by three points?
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I was happy with my individual performance. We were back at Franklin Park to run another 8k. I hung out in the pack and went with about a mile to go. A fun part of the season was all these various places where I made my moves. It was fun to test out various areas on the course. I felt very good, and it left me feeling confident individually. On the team side, we were obviously super disappointed. We didn’t run to our ability at all. Losing by only three points was honestly a surprise as badly as we ran. A three-point loss was close, and we should be proud that our floor is so high now that we can have a ‘B’ day and lose to a good Princeton team by only three points. That Heps team title has somehow eluded us, and I get one more shot next year when I am still with the team. It is due for our program though nothing is ever granted.
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At the NCAA Northeast Region Championships, it was your first fall race at the 10k distance and there was a huge pack of 25 through 7k before the race heated up. When it came down to Perry Mackinnon of Syracuse, along with the Iona duo of Damien Dilcher and Joshua DeSouza, what did you do as far as surges or to counteract their moves? And did the course terrain affect your decision whether to push with a mile to go, a kilometer to go, or less to pull away to your nine-second win?
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The 10k distance always feels different than running 8k which seems closer to a top effort. When we transition to 10k, it almost feels slow. The race works out more slowly. Most of the field is still together through halfway which is rarely the case in an 8k. It was a race that slowly wound up. I remember Perry started to push the race with about 3k to go. He took the lead and pushed a little. The race was at Van Courtland Park, and I made my move with about a mile to go right as we headed into the woods behind Cemetery Hill. I know how difficult that section can be with the gravel and rocks and Freshman Hill. I tried to use that to my advantage because it is hard for someone to cover a move in that area. I wanted to string out the lead group. I also figured that, if I could make some guys hurt and go backwards through the field, it could hurt our competitors like Syracuse and Iona and give my Harvard team a better chance to qualify. Thankfully, we did get the automatic qualifier with our second place team finish behind Iona who had a very good day. We were happy as a team with Regionals, but it was just the race to get ready for the big show at Nationals.
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In advance of the NCAA Championships, Stanford’s Ky Robinson, Northern Arizona’s Nico Young and you were at a joint press conference. How much mutual respect is there amongst your competitors and you as you know each other, you all train so hard, and you each have the goal to win?
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It’s very intense as we were right next to each other about an inch apart. We were three dudes who wanted the same thing so badly. There is a lot of mutual respect. Those two guys are amazing runners and I felt badly that the press conference was limited to only three runners. There were ten or fifteen runners who could have won on that day. The NCAA is at an incredible level right now. Ky and Nico are two guys who have pushed it there and I have a lot of respect for their abilities.
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Since you had raced Ky Robinso, Nico Young, Habtem Samuel and others before and you each are familiar with each other, what was your pre-race strategy to take advantage of your strengths and to meld them with nuances of the racecourse?
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I know that Nico and Ky are vastly different runners. Nico is super, super strong. He trains at altitude and has been training at a high level for a long time. I imagined that he would be able to make very big, hurtful moves early in the race to make people hurt. That is what he did the year before at the NCAAs at Stillwater. He took off from the gun. Ky is equally as strong but also has a great kick. We saw that last year at NCAAs outdoors in Ausitn, Texas when he took the 5k and 10k titles handily running strong from 400 meters to the finish. I had to find a balance between those two and to try to find a dominant strategy. I know that I can’t control how my competitors race, so I focus on what will put me in the best spot towards the end of the race. I had been planning on running hard the last kilometer since I saw the course map. I looked at the course map on my phone with an APP and plotted out the locations of the hills. I noticed that there was a sharp turn with a kilometer to go after a long climb. I figured that there wouldn’t be many runners left up front at that point and that the race would probably be slowing down then. That’s not a fun part of the course to run. So, I thought a kilometer out would probably play strongest to my advantage with what I saw I could do in the regular season beforehand and it ended up working. It ended up being Habtom Samuel and me. I knew he had incredible strength across the board and was hoping that move could put him in the dust at that point. To be fair, he did an incredibly good job of holding on. I thought I had more daylight than I had. He kept that gap constant. If I didn’t run as hard as I did, he probably would have been able to catch me.
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Can you take us through the race including how you felt the first half, sizing up your main competitors as the pack grew smaller, challenges from your foes before you made you move with a kilometer to go, how much it hurt to hold off Habtom Samuel and what it felt like to cross the finish line first in the moment of exhilaration and exhaustion?
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It was an extremely hard race. Everyone was throwing punches. Nico Young and Drew Bosley were in the front during the first half of the race making sure that the pace was hot right from the gun. I don’t think anyone was going to let them go this year because of what happened last year in Stillwater when they went off the front. Denis Kipngetich and Bryan Musau from Oklahoma State made a big push up the hill at about six kilometers. That was a serious move. Those guys were really moving and that changed the dynamics of the race after that. At that point, the race strung out and the lead group narrowed down to about six runners. Ky Robinson took the lead at about 7k to 8k and that thinned the lead pack even more. When we were between 8k and 9k and turned back up the hill again, there were only four of us – Ky, Habtom, Denis and me. I knew a lot of the guys had made their moves. Ky and Denis had. Coming up the hill, Habtom took the lead and I stuck on him. That narrowed the race down to only the two of us. I was happy that I was kind of the last guy to throw a punch. But, when you run like that, it truly hurts. I was covering every move and it felt like I was taking multiple shots to the gut throughout the race. When I crossed the line, you are right that it is a weird gumbo of exhaustion and exhilaration. The feeling then all boiled down to gratitude. I finished the race and high-fived some of those guys who were up there with me. It is an honor to race with them and to see their abilities. It is astonishing how talented they are.
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One final question about the 2023 cross country season, from September through the NCAA championships, what were Coach Gibby’s key overarching principles, to keep your team strong and healthy, your team’s key tempo, hill and speed sessions that honed your talents for NCAAs and got you ready for that amazing win, and how helpful were your teammates to your success as you all hurt together through the workouts and races?
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In terms of the principles for good health, we take responsibility for that. It isn’t on Gibby. Staying healthy doesn’t happen on the track. It happens on the other side of the river when we are in our dorms. We make sure we sleep a lot and eat as much as we can. We never want to be at a deficit when we are training the way we do. We take pride in the difficulty of our training and realize that we have to take recovery seriously. Some of the workouts we do in season are less boring than in the summer. We do stick to the long tempo runs on Tuesdays. We will some days run for fifty minutes at about a ninety percent level or whatever Gibby would tell us to do. He has a lot of ambiguity in the way he assigns workouts. I have great teammates. Every year there is a long-distance crew of guys who are doing high mileage. This year there were three of us – Ben Rosa, Acer Iverson, and me. They are great training partners. Acer has been my training partner ever since I arrived here at Harvard. He’s the best training partner I’ve ever had. He’s pushed me to places I cannot believe. He is an incredible runner, and he has made me hurt so badly so many times. This guy has no mental boundaries. He will run hard every workout and I am so much better because of that. This year things started to click for Ben Rosa. He’s been running high mileage for a while and this year really turned it on in some workouts. Ben kicked my butt in a couple sessions just as Acer did. It’s nice to have those two guys pushing me to the edge in every workout. The rest of my teammates don’t have to be vying for an All-American spot in cross country to help push us all. My teammates have different strengths in each workout assignment. Certain guys can push each other differently as I’m training with 1,500-meter runners and steeplechase runners. One of the best parts about being on a college team is working with each other and pushing each other to places we only dreamed about.
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The majority of people don’t think about the importance of all teammates. In football, they see a running back score, but the offensive linemen have to block. In basketball, when someone hits a three-pointer, a teammate brings the ball up the court before one or more other teammates pass the ball and one gets an assist. It sounds like Acer Iverson and your other teammates get the assist when you get the win.
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There is a huge team effort for anyone to get the individual win. It would be impossible to list all the people that helped me get there. But they know who they are, and they know that a win for me is a win for all of us that helped me to get here. The individual title isn’t just for me, but it is something that all of us on the team are taking a lot of pride in because it is the culmination of all our work. I would trade the individual win for a podium finish as a team in a heartbeat. But it is an incredible achievement. Everyone helped me get here and it wasn’t just me as an individual. There were many moving parts to get to this level.
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YOUTH ACTIVITIES AND RUNNING IN HIGH SCHOOL Let’s step back in time to when you first became interested in running. What sports did you play as a youth, how old were you when you started running competitively and were you one of the fastest kids right away?
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I was a soccer guy and I still am. It is my favorite sport to watch. I wanted to be a soccer player and I did a lot of running during practice and games. I also ran a lot of road 5ks when they were held in town. I always thought I was rather good at running them. The reason was that I was good at knowing how to pace myself compared to other boys my age. I was able to get age group awards because I went out at a seven-minute mile pace instead of sprinting the first four hundred meters like a lot of boys my age would. That was something I enjoyed. I liked winning my age group and that was fun. I took up cross country in middle school. The road 5ks and cross-country running were while I was still playing soccer which was my main focus. There was a point when I was doing club soccer, unrelated to my school, and cross country at the same time. After classes in middle school, I would go to cross country practice for a couple hours. Then mom would pick me up to go straight to soccer practice. I was probably doing more mileage in middle school than I did in high school because I was involved in multiple sports.
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How did your focus on running change when you went to high school?
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When I went to high school, I started taking cross country more seriously and started seeing some good results. My sophomore year. I decided to drop soccer. It was a hard decision at the time for me but, when I look back, it should have been obvious. I chose the right answer and that was to go all in on running. That’s when I started to see results.
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Can you tell us about your coach, Neville Anderson, his overall training principles and how he balanced mileage for endurance, which was your strength in middle school, with certain workouts to hone your speed?
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The hard part of coaching for Neville was getting me to focus and getting me to care. High school coaching seems super difficult. I was once a freshman in high school and I can only imagine what a pain in the butt I was for him to try to get me to stick to a plan or be committed. Neville and some of my teammates at the time finally got me to a place where I cared about my training and wanted to be better. I didn’t run a lot of mileage in high school, probably thirty to forty miles a week. But a lot of what we did were very hard workouts. Coach Anderson assigned us a workout and our hearts dropped. The thought would be, ‘I don’t know if I can do that. It sounds way too hard.’ A lot of the time I would fail. I spent the first two cross country seasons in high school failing over and over again in workouts. They were so hard that my teammates and I felt that we could never hit them. Eventually, the workouts started to click. I got better when I pushed past those mental barriers and started to believe in myself. That has also helped with Gibby’s training here at Harvard. He will assign workouts that also make me think, ‘I don’t know if I can do that.’ But I think that Neville prepared me well for those challenges.
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At your first time at the Georgia Cross Country State Championships in 2017, Griffin McCauley won in 17:02.42, Devin Wade was second in 17:04.84, Zackary Truitt finished third in 17:09.97, you were fourth in 17:13.81, and no one else was within 15 seconds. Was the group of four together and did they make some moves that you couldn’t cover due to your inexperience?
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That was a long time ago, but I was kind of running all out. I didn’t have much of a game plan. I was essentially running with myself because I didn’t have any strategy to win the race. I ran as hard as I could. I remember being in that pack of four and that was exciting because I had never been in the front of a race that was so big. It was thrilling and maybe the moment got to me a bit too much because it can be scary at times. We hit some hills toward the end of the course, and I fell off the back of the pack a little bit. When I finished fourth, I was super-excited and so were all of us on my team. That was one of my first big performances.
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When we look at your early track season performances from late February through mid-April, there was a nice, linear progression. At a dual meet at Athens Academy, you ran the 1,600 meters in 4:43.0 and 3,200 meters in 9:57.0. Two weeks later at the Jerry Arnold Challenge you improved to 4:37.49 for 1,600 meters and 9:55.23 for 3,200 meters. Then you ran only the 3,200 meters at your next two meets and dropped your PR to 9:48.96 at the Apalachee Invitational and by another ten seconds in 9:38.19 at the Bojangles Track and Field Classic. Was Coach Anderson just working with you to help you progress slowly as you went through these early season meets?
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Some of those races were run alone. At that point, I didn’t like to run against other guys. I wanted to front run. I was working to defeat myself and my mental barriers race after race. Neville helped me prepare for those races. There was a thought process of, ‘Well, I just ran 9:48 this week. Maybe I can run 9:38 next time.’ I would run the proper even pace the first mile of each race to see if that worked out and it kept working out. It was a fun outdoor season. runner never expects a linear progression like that, but it ended up working out and was a lot of fun.
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A week after running that 9:38.19 at the Bojangles Classic, it was time for the Championship season and the Georgia GHSA Region 1A meet. You chopped five seconds off your 1,600-meter PR, running 4:32.77 for third place behind. Brandon Potra in 4:29.82 and just behind your senior teammate, Ryan Iyer in 4:32.00. Then you won a relatively slow 3,200 meters in 10:06.08, slightly ahead of Alex Branch in 10:08.41. How much fun was it getting into the competition that would qualify you for your first Georgia State meet in track and field?
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That Region meet was nerve-racking because I didn’t want to mess it up. I wanted to make it to State. It was good to get through those moments with my teammates to get to the next stage. The 3,200 meters was slow because we knew that, if we ran ten minutes flat, we would be fine to qualify for State. It was fun to get through those races and get to the next level.
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At the Georgia GSHA 1A Private State Championships there was a competitive field in the 1,600 meters as you improved by a second to 4:31.82, but only finished fifth. But in the 3,200 meter you matched up with Zackary Truitt, who finished one place and four seconds ahead of you the previous fall in cross country at State. You both ran well as he beat you in 9:31.53, three seconds ahead of your 9:34.07 PR, with your teammate, Alex Branch, in fourth place. In the latter race, did Truitt get away early or were you off the front and Truitt caught and outkicked you?
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We were together for most of the 3,200-meter race. I was in the lead for probably the whole race. Like I said, I don’t like to run behind other runners. Then we gutted that last lap. I had a little bit of daylight, but Zack had a lot of speed. He was able to take off with about three hundred meters to go and pass me. It was game over. I wasn’t ready yet for those moments. I wasn’t able to get to a different gear and a different place at the end of my races. I was hoping to run hard from the gun and have enough daylight to win. I wasn’t at a mindset where I could win these races with last second decisions and tactics.
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Results changed at the 2018 Georgia Cross Country State Championships as you won in 16:31.89 ahead of Devin Wade in 16:43.53 and Zackary Truitt in 17:02.03, who both had beat you the previous year at State. There was no one else within forty seconds of Truitt, so were the three of you together, when did you make your moves and how did you improve so much from your sophomore year?
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I was much stronger at that point and started to believe in myself. Nothing had changed in the way I raced. I was running hard from the gun. I knew that I could make other runners hurt and that I could open up enough daylight if I ran from the front. Devin and Zack stuck on me for the first mile or so and then I tried to step on the gas. Coach Anderson put a lot of emphasis on getting up the hills unharmed by trying to conserve some energy when running up the hills and then flying down the down hills. That helped me a great deal at the State Championship to open up a gap. So, I was still running hard right from the start, but was strong enough to win races.
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Like this year when you came off cross country season and started strong indoors, you did that four years ago after your high school cross country season. There was more of a gap, but at the Last Chance Invitational in late January of 2019, you dropped both of your PRs as you won the 1,600 meters in 4:23.34 by five seconds and won the 3200m in 9:13.41 by 19 seconds. Did that year of experience totally manifest itself when you got on the track?
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When I look back at high school, I took a noticeably big jump during that indoor season. I had won the State Championship in cross country and was all in. I knew I had to run some fast track times so that I could run in college and be recruited. I figured out some things in training. I was a little bit anemic and started iron supplements which helped. In the end, it was a big step up. I was extremely excited to race, and I wanted to win races. I got in many good and fun performances that indoor season. I was super privileged to run those races because there isn’t an indoor track season in Georgia. I had to travel to places and was able to get into these cool meets.
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Continuing with the indoor season, after dropping your PR by eight seconds from 4:31 to 4:23, three weeks later at the University of Kentucky Invitational you dropped another eight seconds to 4:15.69. What was that race like as Carter Cheeseman won in 4:14.45, Sam Gilman followed in 4:15.15, you were a close third, and four others were under 4:20? Was that eye-opening to drop eight seconds two races in a row?
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That was an incredibly fun race and I’m glad you asked about it. I hated the mile, and my mile times didn’t align with my 3,200-meter times. I was trying to figure out how to run the mile. I feared the distance because it hurt so much to run that hard right from the gun for four or four-and-a-half minutes. To finish in third place behind Carter Cheeseman and Sam Gilman, who were big figures on the track, was a big moment for me. I deemed that to be a very acceptable time for me and to be able to compete with two guys that were on a high level brought a great deal of confidence to me.
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During outdoor season, you advanced from Region to State and at the Georgia GSHA 1A Private State Championships in the 1,600 meters Zackary Truitt won in a PR of 4:17.25, with you a few seconds back in 4:20.04 and Devin Wade another second back in third place in 4:21.41. Then in the 3,200 meters you won handily in a 9:13.93 PR with Zackary Truitt over twenty seconds behind in 9:34.34, followed by Devin Wade in 9:38.05. What were the crunch points that allowed Truitt to beat you at 1,600 meters while you won by a huge margin at 3,200 meters?
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It was more of the same thing. I wasn’t ready for those big moments in the 1,600 meters when the race was very quick. It had nothing to do with my coaching. Coach Anderson put me in the right spot for the shorter races and I should have been able to win. But I don’t think I was ready to hurt as much as I could in those moments in the mile or 1,600 meters. It hurt to run the mile. It was fast and uncomfortable for me. Meanwhile in the 3,200 meters, it felt a little more natural. It’s like I mentioned earlier about the transition in college cross country from 8k to 10k. It feels slower. The 10k feels slower and it is slower because of the distance change. I felt that way in high school moving up from the 1,600 meters or mile to the 3,200 meters. It felt more comfortable and easier to push. The mile and 1,600 meters were something I was trying to figure out in high school. I couldn’t quite put it all together at a State Championship meet, but I was happy to at least compete with a guy like Zack who was very talented.
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Speaking of the mile, after State you raced the mile twice. At the Wingfoot Mile at Emory there were six runners from 4:13.20 to 4:17.00 as you finished seventh in 4:17.4. Then at the Music City Distance Carnival there were 22 runners, including 10 underclassmen, from 4:04.19 to 4:19.03 as you finished twenty-third in 4:19.41. What was it like to run under 4:20 and have twenty-two guys in front of you and were you asking yourself what you had to do to step up your game?
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At first, I had to think of great kudos to the meet director to recruit that many guys who could run that fast. Good for them. But that was a lackluster finish to the season. Coach Anderson and I were trying to figure out how to get that mile time down. We were thinking about doing the two-mile at the New Balance meet. Since we had those two performances in the mile that weren’t clicking, we decided to move on as we knew we needed to work on some toughness over the summer.
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You obviously made big strides as you had some great races in your senior cross country season that fall and we’ll look at three particular races. First, at the 2019 Great American Cross Country Festival, you won with a sterling time of 14:45.60, with Carlos Shultz next at 14:55.6, Anderson Denton a couple seconds back in 14:57.3, and a large group of 18 runners from 15:05 to 15:17. What was that like to step up into a large field with many strong runners, to duke it out and win by ten seconds?
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That was huge. I was already having a good season and knew I could run well. A lot changed after that race. Coach Anderson said beforehand, ‘I would love to see you run 14:45.’ And I ended up running 14:45. He knew me well as an athlete. I didn’t even believe I could run 14:45 at that point. I ran much of that race in the front again. It went out very quickly because of a downhill start. We went out in about 4:30 the first mile and regressively split the rest of the way. In high school, the trend was the longer the distance, the more comfortable I felt. I was able to push the pace from the front. To win such a big race was very cool, especially on an iconic course. I had known about that race since I was a sophomore in high school. I was hoping Coach Anderson would let me run it at some point but to win it was a whole different story and I enjoyed that moment.
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Then at the 2018 Georgia Cross Country State Championships, the course record was 15:51.3 and you destroyed it with a 15:33.32. Also, you beat your rival, Zackary Truitt, by a whopping thirty-two seconds as he ran 16:05.81 for second place. Was that one of those magical days where everything clicked?
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At that point, I wanted to get the State Record. I knew what it was that morning, and I knew I would have to run extremely hard. For some reason, they started us at around nine o’clock and it was about thirty-two degrees. Honestly, that may have helped. It’s not fun to stand on the start line at thirty-two degrees, but once you get going it feels pretty nice. That was a huge day for me. I remembered in the past seeing people break sixteen minutes on the Carrollton cross country course and I thought, ‘That is the most absurd thing I have ever seen. I didn’t think I could ever break sixteen minutes on this course, much less run in the 15:30s.’ That was a big moment and was a fun thing to do as everyone in Georgia runs on that course and they know what it’s like. That was an incredibly special moment for me.
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Next up was the 2019 NXN Southeast Regional with a strong field and you won in 14:57.70, with the next four finishers being Sean Stuck at 15:02.4, Sully Shelton at 15:03.1, Ian Harrison at 15:05.9 and Carlos Shultz at 15:08.0. Since the top five finished within ten seconds, were they making moves, were you countering and how did that race play out?
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I was trying to get the individual qualifier so I could make it to the Nike XC Nationals. That race played out a lot like Great American. We went out quickly and settled back in. I tried to be up in that front pack for most of the race. I do remember making a move toward the end of the race when we were going up a hill. That foreshadowed my strategies now to try to make people hurt and to try to make moves when my competitors are at their most vulnerability. Normally, it is the most vulnerability that I am experiencing as well. You know when you make those moves that it is extremely hard for the other runners to respond. So, I made a move up the hill near the end, and I was ecstatic to qualify to go to a National Championships race. They are a lot of fun, and you get to meet so many fast runners that it changes your perspective. To that point, my horizons were in the state of Georgia. To go out to Portland, Oregon and to race against people whose names I had seen on MileSplit was a very cool opportunity.
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At the 2019 NXN Final you finished in 28th place in 15:37.3 as Nico Young, who you have raced on the collegiate big stage, took the win in 14:52.3. What did that race tell you in terms of your perspective on what you needed to do in the future?
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I think about it and maybe that was all I had that day. I didn’t realize how good the competition was. I thought I would go into that race and be up front. I knew about Nico Young and thought, ‘I’m going to run with Nico. I’m going to go out hard.’ Then the gun went off and the race was over. He was already out front, and his pace was impossible to match. I tried as hard as I could to run well and was a little disappointed with my run. But I was happy to be there. That was the moment where I realized that there were many runners who were very good and that I still had a long way to go. It was nice to get that perspective before I left high school, so I knew where I was and where other runners were. I have applied that realization to my training from then up until now.
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We will touch on your extremely limited senior year track season due to the Covid pandemic but first, had you already committed to Harvard, how did you come to that decision and what other schools were in the mix?
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I had committed to Harvard near the beginning of the cross-country season around the time of Great American. I committed right before that race and was walking around with a Harvard hat on because I was happy to be going there. I visited Georgetown, Columbia, and Harvard, so those were my final three choices. Ultimately, I liked the guys at Harvard, I loved the coaching staff, and I loved the school. The main point that Coach Anderson and I talked about was that we had to find a school that I would be happy to be at even without running. Harvard is definitely a place I thought I would be happy with outside of the sport. It also helped to have an amazing coach, amazing people on the team and amazing places to train. I love the city. It’s a very good fit and I have truly enjoyed my time here.
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In early 2020 you raced at the Last Chance Invitational over 3,200 meters and were second in 9:04.92, just behind Ethan Strand of Alabama, but handily ahead of preps Justin Wachtel in 9:11.11 and Andrew Jones in 9:13.31. How were you feeling, did you think that your senior track season was off to a good start and were you totally looking forward to the rest of the season before Covid stopped races shortly thereafter?
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I was happy with that race. Ethan Strand blew my doors off in the last two hundred meters. He has turned out to be a good 1,500-meter runner and is at North Carolina. It was another moment like at NXN where I knew I had to get better. I had lots of big plans and was excited for the outdoor season. I was going to be able to travel. I had been invited to the Brooks PR Invitational and was excited to be able to run in another National Championship. I was excited to possibly run at the Arcadia Invitational in California. I wanted to run all the big meets. I wanted to see what these events were all like. It was a down feeling to lose all those amazing moments that were going to come. One thing that paid off was that I earned a lot of flight credits in my Delta APP that I used this past summer. It was a little disappointing to not run those races, but I was happy with where I left off in high school.
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COVID, THE GAP YEAR AND COLLEGIATE COMPETITION After the disappointment of not being able to compete your senior year in outdoor track and field, what did you do once you wrapped yourself around that mentally and emotionally to work on improving physically?
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The first thing I thought of when all the remaining meets were cancelled was that it was time to move on. I was itching to get to Harvard and to train with my new teammates. I had a serious case of senioritis. I had my head in the clouds because I wanted to get up to Boston and to start as soon as possible. With the Covid situation, I didn’t realize there would be a year delay. But, when Georgia cancelled all sports for the spring, Coach Anderson and I decided to part ways with my training program, and I started working with Coach Gibby. It was a good move and was a big transition for me. It led to a lot of excitement throughout the rest of my senior year as I was determining how to do Coach Gibby’s training. I took a lot of pride in trying to figure it out. When I started training under his program, I thought, ‘Wow! This is real training. This is serious now.’ I was looking forward to getting fitter and that is how I trained for the remainder of my senior season.
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How did you decide to take a gap year before starting at Harvard and what did you do for training and racing during that year?
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For a while, I assumed that I was going to start at Harvard the next fall as planned. Then sports were cancelled, and classes were online. The day before, we had to decide if we were going to defer a year. My teammate, Acer Iverson, told me that everyone was going to take a gap year. I didn’t know this but had an immediate discussion with my parents and we made a quick, but tough, decision to take a year off. That ended up being a good decision that I was lucky to make. I was able to train some at altitude, meet my teammates, drive around the country, get out of town for a bit, and it was one of the most fun years of my short life. That was a fun year that I look back on fondly. I credit much of my success and my team’s success to that year. That built a genuinely nice foundation for the next few years.
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When the gap year ended, it was time for the 2021 cross country season and, when we look at meet results, your teammates Acer Iverson, Matthew Pereira, David Melville, and you were trading places on the team from race to race. How did this early collegiate cross country help your development as you stepped up from 5k racing in high school to 8k racing in the early collegiate season?
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That was a lot of fun with Acer, Matt, David, and me trading spots in those races. It was great to be able to train with guys who were that good. Honestly, I wasn’t even fully training with them. I wasn’t doing that much mileage. My mileage was less than their mileage. I was just trying to compete up front in those races. It was stressful and chaotic at first because there is a big transition to collegiate racing that I did not think was going to be that difficult. But it turned out to be extremely difficult because the level of competition is unmatched. That freshman competition did a lot to help me improve and ended up turning out well at the end of season meets. Until the Region meet, I was trying to figure it out and was like a deer in the headlights.
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At the 2021 NCAA Region Cross Country Championships, the distance increased to 10k but you ran a strong second place only two seconds behind Ehab El-Sandali of Iona and then at the NCAA Championships you were in 23rd place though, it was so bunched from 12th to 23rd with only eight seconds of time for those twelve finishers. So, did you look at these two meets of finishing second at Regionals and only eight seconds off twelfth place at Nationals and felt that this was a successful first collegiate cross-country season?
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I was happy as I went into the season hoping to be All-American. I ran a few meets and thought that I probably wasn’t going to achieve All-American status as it was very hard. I was humbled the first few meets. When there was the transition to 10k, it was like in high school that I felt more comfortable at the longer distance. I felt that I could control my race better, run hard from the gun and not worry about race tactics. That NCAA Championships race in Tallahassee, Florida was extremely difficult and amazingly fast. Wesley Kiptoo and Connor Mantz and Athanas Kioko really pushed the pace. I was happy to finish in the top forty. The most exciting part was finishing All-American as did my teammates, Acer Iverson, and Matthew Pereira, which was our goal. That felt like a moon shoot for all of us, but we were able to pull it off. That was so cool because we were trading places throughout the season. For all three of us to get up on that All-American podium was incredibly special. That was my favorite part of freshman year cross country.
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During your freshman 2022 outdoor track season, a highlight had to be at the IC4A/ECAC Championships as you won the 5,000 meters in 13:51.65 by eleven seconds over Jack Ikenberry of George Mason who ran 14:02.18. How sweet was it to win your first collegiate individual championship?
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That was my first collegiate win, which was nice. We raced at William and Mary, which is where Coach Gibby coached previously. He is a legend there. We couldn’t go anywhere without people recognizing him. That was a fun trip. We went to that meet to get qualifiers for the NCAA Region meet and I was lucky to be the last qualifier. Sneaking into Regions was fun, but getting a win was huge because, at that point, I wasn’t super confident that I could win races.
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You mentioned earlier how you would trade your NCAA individual win for a team podium finish and that relates to two interesting team cross country finishes at the Harvard-Yale-Princeton triangular meet. At H-Y-P in 2021, you ran at Princeton and Harvard scored 36 to nip Princeton’s 37 score on their home course. Then at H-Y-P in 2022 at Harvard, despite your individual win, Princeton scored 29 to Harvard’s 31 team total to win on your home course. What was that like to have the joy of winning on their course, but then to lose on your course?
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There is something about the Harvard-Princeton rivalry and we are always within a few points of each other. That leads to moments of elation or moments of agony. H-Y-P isn’t a meet where we focus and, unfortunately, it has fizzled out because of how the season is structured. Cross country is a team sport, and those team moments will never be matched by what I can do individually as far as a level of excitement and emotion. Achieving as a team is amazing. I remember going into the tent after the Nuttycombe meet at Wisconsin where we finished sixth and we had a feeling that we could possibly make the podium at Nationals. We felt we could do great things and, though people may not believe in us, we believed in ourselves.
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Moving forward to the 2022 cross country season, Acer Iverson and you were both racing extraordinarily strong. At the Ivy League Championships, Acer Iverson won in 23:59.3 over 8k with you five seconds back in 24:04.4. Then at the 2022 NCAA Northeast Region Championships over 10k, you won in 29:14.2 with Acer five seconds behind in 29:19.7. How much fun was that and how strong was Acer to beat you at the Ivy League Championships?
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He was unbelievable. Going back to my freshman year, Acer won the Ivy League 3,000 meters indoors and both the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters outdoors. When he won the Ivy League Cross Country Championships, he had won everything in the calendar year. To watch that was unbelievable. I was watching a man who was on fire and was unstoppable. I was injured at the time during track season, so it was bittersweet watching someone achieving everything I wanted, and it was right there in front of me. But it did make me believe that I could succeed on that level because we were basically doing the same training. For Acer and me to go one-two as Heps was awesome because I was finally back on my feet and running well. Those moments were cool being up front with Acer controlling the race. He has helped me and pushed me to the point that I ran better than we could have believed.
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You mentioned briefly earlier how, at the 2022 NCAA Cross Country Championships, Nico Young and Drew Bosley of Northern Arizona pushed the early pace. Of course, Charles Hicks of Stanford did finish strong for the win in 28:43.6 by a second over Nico Young in 28:44.5. You ended up notching sixth place in a group with Drew Bosley in 28:55.9, Dylan Jacobs of Tennessee in 28:58.0; 5. Alex Maier of Oklahoma State in 28:58.1, you in 28:58.2 and Casey Clinger of BYU in 28:58.7. Did you feel like you were so close to third that the top three was within reach?
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I felt comfortable in that chase pack. I think many of the guys in the pack would say the same thing. Nico Young and Drew Bosley were so fast off the front. At the end of the race, I was strong and, for once, was able to sprint and make a big move. That was a big confidence builder but, for many of us in that chase pack, we were disappointed that we didn’t go with that big move in the beginning. At that point, I wanted to achieve a good podium finish, so going with the leaders early wasn’t worth the risk. I was very happy with my individual performance.
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After the cross country season, you went to the 2022 Boston University Season Opener and ran the 5,000 meters where you blasted a 13:18.45 PR, but it was only good for eleventh place as Ky Robinson of Stanford won in 13:11.53 and the Northern Arizona duo of Drew Bosley and Nico Young finished fourth and fifth in 13:13 and 13:15, respectively. How did that feel coming off cross country season to run a fast time even though you had ten guys ahead of you?
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It was awesome. That is such a fun race. After cross country season is over, a 5k on the Boston University indoor track feels seamless. It’s not terribly difficult. Certainly, the pace is fast, and it hurts, but feels natural with that massive base. I was incredibly happy to run 13:18 and to qualify for the NCAA indoor championships. I thought that 13:18 would qualify me and it did. I was happy to make it to the next level at Albuquerque early the next year.
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We talked about the H-Y-P cross country meet and, on January 28th, 2023, there was the H-Y-P indoor meet. How cool was it for your teammates, Acer Iverson, Vivien Henz, and you to all race your first sub-four-minute miles as you finished second in 3:56.63, Vivien Henz was fourth in a Luxembourg National Record of 3:57.47 and Acer was fifth in 3:58.27? Will this be something the three of you will be talking about thirty years from now?
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That was awesome. It was like when Matt, Acer and I were All-American in cross country. To have three guys go sub-four was a whole lot of fun. It was something great for Vivien to get his National Record. We like to joke that was the day that the sub-four-minute mile came to die because, once Acer and I broke four minutes, it wasn’t that cool anymore. We are just distance guys. We also like to joke that Acer ran probably the most boring sub-four mile of all time running quarter miles of sixty, sixty and sixty before kicking in a little faster to break four minutes. He is so strong that he doesn’t need to do much else than to go out there and run the pace he needs to. That was a special moment for that indoor season.
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You may not realize now, but when you are out amongst the public and someone says that you are the NCAA cross country champion or that you ran a 13:03 for 5,000 meters, a person who is not a track afficionado will ask, ‘What’s your mile time?’ And when you say anything that starts with a ‘3’ it carries so much weight. You may not know the following, but you and Acer are number 685 and number 686 on the all-time list of Americans to run a sub-four-minute mile, but that is what people generally want to know.
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That’s true. I totally agree. Honestly, that is what has brought the most utility to my life. I can now say, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve run 3:56,’ because that is what everyone asks me. I’m fine with saying that the rest of my life if Coach Gibby doesn’t want me to run another mile race. It was nice to be able to put a ‘3’ at the beginning of that answer.
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You were on a roll because the next week at the Boston University Scarlet and White Invite you raced another PR, this time over 3,000 meters as Sam Gilman of Air Force won in 7:43.70 with you a second back in 7:44.76 just a hundredth of a second ahead of David Rotich of the Union Athletics Club who ran 7:44.77. How did that race play out as you scored back-to-back PRs at the shorter distances?
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That was another extremely fast race. That indoor season had a whole lot of PRs over and over. It was so much fun. I was able to close well in that race. But in the moment when Sam Gilman passed me, it reinforced that I needed to level up because my competitors were able to close faster than me. So, I wasn’t totally happy with how I closed, but I was happy with how I competed in that race. I was finishing in the top two in most of my indoor races that season, so I was happy that day.
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You mentioned that Acer Iverson won all the Ivy League championship in 2022, but at the 2023 Ivy League Heptagonal Indoor Track and Field Championships you prevailed in two very close races with Acer as you went one-two in the 3,000 meters with your 8:06.97 nipping Acer at 8:07.82 and your 5,000 meter performance of 13:53.50 edging Acer in 13:54.35. What was it like – did he take the lead; did it go back-and-forth and what was the feeling as he had won both races in 2022 and now you turned the tables?
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It was awesome. We train for those moments and almost function as one organism. We know where we are going to be in the race and when we are going to go. I tell Acer that I know where he is in the race just by his breathing. I know how he sounds when he runs. It was so cool to be able to go one-two in both of those races and we knew we needed to if we wanted a chance to win as a team. Unfortunately, we ended up losing by one point to Princeton. That kept the trend going of Princeton and us having remarkably close competitions and it was very disappointing to not win as a team. But it was a fun moment to share with Acer. The moments we create, and share are always more fun than the moments created independently. I’ve had a lot of fun with my talented teammates as we achieved those moments.
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Leaping forward to the Ivy League Outdoor Championships, again you and Acer Iverson had two strong finishes, in the 5,000 meters as your 13:56.44 win topped Acer’s 13:59.79 and in 10,000 where your 29:46.69 nipped Perry Mackinnon of Cornell by hundredths of a second with Acer five seconds behind you in third place. In the team competition there was a dominating win for your Harvard teammates and you as you scored 203 to Princeton’s 137 points. How exciting was it for you to be a two-time champion outdoors just as in indoors, to take down four individual championships, and for you and your teammates to kick Princeton’s butt?
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That was fun and was almost anticlimactic because we beat Princeton by so much. We were so focused on beating them at the margins and the margins really added up to a big blowout. It was fun to earn that trophy. It was the first trophy for Harvard in about forty or fifty years in the Ivy League and it was ridiculous that it had been so long since we accomplished that. Bringing home the trophy for the alumni who hadn’t had a chance to experience it and to share those moments with Acer in the distance events was great. He ran very well as he struggled through an injury, went out and competed for us and did super well. We were very happy with that weekend. When we won the team championship and blew the doors off everyone, that was a lot of fun. Those moments as a team are what it’s all about in college. I’m trying to enjoy those moments because I’m sure I’m not going to have many of those moments post-collegiately. We can’t match what this collegiate competition is like.
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When we started chatting today, you mentioned how Ky Robinson was so strong at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships in both the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters. In the 10,000 meters, Stanford’s Ky Robinson and Charles Hicks went one-two in 28:10.96 and 28:12.20 followed by Casey Clinger of BYU, James Mwaura of Gonzaga, Isai Rodriguez of Oklahoma State, and you in 28:15.90 as only three seconds separated third through sixth place. How tough was that competition with so many great runners battling to be in the top three positions and earn a medal?
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I was super happy with my performance as that race and the 5,000 meters solidified that I belonged in the front pack. I always believed I could be there, but it was nice to pull it off in one weekend.
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What was it like for you in a tactical 5,000 meters with a fast finish as Ky Robinson ran 14:04.77 with you second in 14:06.53 and three guys within a second of you as Jackson Sharp of Wisconsin ran 14:06.77, Luke Tewalt of Wake Forest ran 14:07.18 and Parker Wolfe of North Carolina14:07.50?
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I was super excited about the second-place finish in the 5,000 meters. I wasn’t expecting much after the 10,000 meters because that was a tough race, and it was super-hot. I was pumped up to come back and get second place but wasn’t happy with how far ahead Ky Robinson was. I wanted to be there in those final moments. At the very least, I was able to outkick many very talented runners in that 5,000 meters.
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Let’s discuss your future goals a bit. Though you may think of yourself as more of a 10,000-meter runner, with that 13:03 indoors at 5,000 meters, what do you think you will focus on indoors and outdoors and as you prepare for the 2024 Olympic Trials?
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It’s a question that’s tough to answer. I’m taking my rest period now and am trying to unwind, though I’m doing an interview about every four hours at this point. So, it’s hard to not think about that thought. That’s a conversation I’ll have with Coach Gibby. Preparing for the Olympic Trials will be the big change in my training so I can be ready when I’m there. I’m sure my training will change, but I’m an NCAA athlete and I’m here to compete for Heps titles for my team and for NCAA championships. We are hoping to make the top ten as a team at the National championships. That is where I’m focused, and I let Gibby do the rest of the work behind the scenes. I’m ready to race whenever I’m called on and Gibby is the guy who gets me ready for those big, big moments when I need to be very sharp.
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You mentioned that, if you never run another mile race and 3:56 stays as your PR, that you’re fine with that. But the guys are so fast in the 5k and 10k that Gibby, you or both of you may think that it isn’t going to hurt to get your mile time down top 3:53, 3:50 or faster as you may need to so you can compete on the world stage.
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I’m totally down with that and I would love to run some fast miles. I know if I want to compete and get big wins, I need to be able to close super-fast. It’s something we will be working on for the next few years and, hopefully, when the big meets roll around, I will be ready. I think that, with a few months until the Olympic Trials, I can get my foot speed down to see what I can do when we have to be all out at the end. Those are the races I like to watch on YouTube with guys like Mo Farah and Yomif Kejelcha and Kenenisa Bekele. That’s how I want to be able to run at the end of a race. I know it takes years to get there, but we are going to see what we can do before the Trials. Then I’ll keep working on it until my career is over.
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Since you have one more year of collegiate eligibility, is there any thought of becoming professional or are you looking forward to coming back to Harvard, having another season with your teammates, defending your NCAA title and trying to do everything you can competitively in the NCAA while you enjoy the college life and racing for team championships and honors?
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Absolutely. The plan now is one hundred percent to come back. I want to keep running for my team. I understand how special this is and how I only get to do this for four years. I’m savoring every moment.
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After next year, do you see yourself going to graduate school, focusing on professional running, or is it hard to tell now since you are still 18 months out?
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It’s hard to say and depends on how I run and what I want to do next year. I don’t foresee not using my eligibility, though I will have one year of indoor eligibility when I finish at Harvard and there may be some schools that would like to have me help them compete for an indoor team title. That’s not in the plan, but it depends on many things that could occur in the next year-and-a-half. So, anything can happen. Certainly, no doors are shut.
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When athletes conclude their collegiate eligibility, these days very few continue to compete in cross country. But, when we look back, some of the great U.S. runners, like Craig Virgin and Alberto Salazar, ran the U.S. and World Cross Country Championships to make them stronger and tougher for track season. Do you see yourself continuing to race cross country after college to keep strong for your racing on the track?
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| GB |
Absolutely – that is nonnegotiable wherever I end up. I have to keep racing cross country. That is something I’m good at. It’s a niche part of distance running, and I want to keep running cross country. I don’t want to end my career without running at the World Cross Country Championships. I may not pursue that this year because I’m an NCAA athlete focused on the NCAA Championships. But that is what I want to do, and I believe I can represent our country well.
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| GCR: |
It’s hard to foresee the future and where you might compete best, but there may be the potential to race at the half marathon and marathon distances. You could possibly train for the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters for the 2024 and 2028 Olympics and move up to the marathon for the 2032 Olympics, if not earlier. Is anything not within the realm of possibility?
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| GB |
I don’t want to be a marathoner, but it will probably get to that point at some time in the future. I will take it in stride. I want to do whatever I can to the best of my ability and want to see what I can do. The marathon is an event to which I would be open to running.
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| GCR: |
Since you started out as a youth playing soccer and running local 5k races and it took you a while before you focused on running, what advice do you give to kids who are trying to figure out if they want to compete in running or multiple sports? Also, do you encourage them to have fun while they try to make decisions that will affect their sporting life as a teenager?
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| GB |
I encourage kids to do what is fun. Athletics isn’t for everyone. It is hard, there are many struggles, and both lows and highs. I recommend that kids should participate in whatever they like. But, if they want to be particularly good at something, they have to be able to go all in. Once a person finds their passion, they need to put other things aside if they want to become great. It is extremely hard to be good at two things compared to being great at one thing.
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| GCR: |
In life we must balance academics, athletics and social life while also facing adversity that can help us to become better. What is the ‘Graham Blanks philosophy’ to be your best in running and in life?
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| GB |
Balance is key. I can’t tell you much about life because I’m only twenty-one years old. I do know that much of it is taking responsibility and doing the things that we know are right to do. In terms of balancing school and athletics, we must be very strict with our time management. This is so true especially at a place like Harvard, we are truly on the razor’s edge with athletics and academics. I feel that I have figured out my time management a little bit over the past few years. I’ve become better at it and that has helped me a lot.
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| GCR: |
I didn’t plan on asking this, but I recall when I interviewed Abbey D’Agostino that, when she arrived at Dartmouth, Coach Coogan told her that there would be three aspects of life at Dartmouth – academics, athletics and social life – and she could do well at only two of them. Coach Coogan told Abbey that, if she wanted to do well in school and running, she would have put her social life to the side, enjoy time with teammates, but not much else. Have you found this to be similar at Harvard?
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| GB |
Unfortunately, I totally agree. We joke around a lot on our team about how we don’t have social lives. But it’s a sacrifice I’m more than willing to make. My social life is with my teammates, and I don’t need anything outside of that. Having a nice, close group of friends to chase goals together is enough for me. I do agree that it is hard when we look at that triangle of academics, athletics, and social life. It’s impossible to be at one hundred percent for all three areas. So, I do agree that, to succeed in two of the three, we have to put one to the side. And for me that’s an obvious choice for me as to where I want to be good.
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Inside Stuff |
| Hobbies/Interests |
I have developed an interest in reading philosophy. I find it challenging and fun to pursue. I study Philosophy at Harvard, along with Economics. I find it to be more of a hobby because I enjoy it so much. When I’m at home, I mountain bike. I don’t know if my parents are going to let me do that much anymore with my success in running because it is dangerous. Instead, I have my single-speed bike here in Boston that I ride around town. I love running. I enjoy spending time with my friends and my girlfriend and keeping those relationships going that matter to me
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| Nicknames |
I’m trying to make my nickname ‘Thirty-eight Caliber Blanks.’ That is the bullet they shoot at the beginning of a race. If people could start calling me that, it would be amazing
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| Favorite movies |
That’s a tough question. I think my favorite movie is ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’ by Wes Anderson. I like his movies. That could be a phase as I seem to be moving past his movies now. A movie I saw recently that I like is ‘The Holdovers.’ It was released a few weeks ago and I recommend it. The movie is a tearjerker
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| Favorite TV shows |
I don’t like TV shows that much as I’m more of a movie guy. When I was growing up, I liked ‘Sponge Bob.’ Shows I have liked include ‘The Inbetweeners.’ I’ve watched it a couple times. ‘Breaking Bad’ is good though I still need to finish the series. I’m not good at finishing a series. I watched a three-part documentary on the band, ‘Oasis,’ with my roommates and now we are all addicted to ‘Oasis.’ I ordered a fake Manchester City jersey with Noel Gallagher’s name on the back as he is the band’s lead songwriter. I’ve been rocking that around campus lately, but I don’t think anyone knows what that means
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| Favorite music |
Oasis, Pavement, The Replacements and Dinosaur Junior. Groups that are Indie Rock or maybe closer to Grunge Rock. I’m from Athens, Georgia and there are a lot of great bands from there like R.E.M., the B-52s, Drive-By Truckers and Widespread Panic. I try to listen to a variety of music. I have a Bob Marley poster in my room. My music changes throughout the seasons
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| Favorite books |
That’s hard, like when people are supposed to try to pick a favorite kid. My favorite book that was assigned in high school is ‘Great Expectations’ by Charles Dickens. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but that was a very good book. My favorite books now include ‘Of Human Bondage’ by William Somerset Maugham. I read that this past summer. That was a big book, so it took a while. Obviously, I’ve got to go down the mainstream route – Fyodor Dostoevsky has a lot of good books, so I’ve got to give credit to him. There are some of his books that I thought were good in terms of fiction – ‘The Brothers Karamazov,’ ‘The Idiot,’ and ‘Crime and Punishment.’ A book I’ve read that people don’t know about as much is ‘Around the World on a Bicycle’ by Fred Birchmore. He’s a dude that lived in Athens, Georgia and rode a bike around the world which was very cool. Another is ‘A Fraction of the Whole’ by Australian novelist Steve Toltz. I love that book and read it all during the past outdoor track season. I’m into philosophy and love Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus
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| First car |
A Jeep Patriot
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| Current car |
I don’ have one
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| First Job |
I was working with my friend at high school. We did manual labor for the school. We shoveled gravel, and shoveled mulch. It wasn’t a good job as far as cross training for cross country, but it did give me a little strength. That was a fun job
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| Family |
My family helped me to get where I am. My mom is Mary Catherine Smith. My dad is Eric Blanks. My stepdad is Ed Smith. My mom’s parents are Donald Osteen and Claudia Osteen. My dad’s parents are Mimi and Papa. My siblings are Annie and Madison Hudson. My grandpa and I had a Thanksgiving tradition when I was in high school. He would drive me down to the Footlocker Region cross country meet. There was a big jump in my running because he was able to get me to those meets. I have a big family. They are very supportive of me, and I appreciate all they have done for me
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| Pets |
We have one dog but didn’t have a dog until recently. That stinks because I’m away at college and never was able to experience having a dog before. It’s nice to go home and say hi to ‘Bo.’ That’s his name. He’s an English Setter
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| Favorite breakfast |
Corned beef hash
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| Favorite meal |
I like any Mexican food. God’s gift to the earth is Mexican food
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| Favorite beverages |
Water, coffee, and Coors Light. And I love a good Black and Tan beer. That is my drink of choice when I’m at a bar
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| First running memory |
I was good at the P.E. Mile. I was always trying to win that. That was my thing in middle school as I was always the guy that won the P.E. Mile. Our coaches totally measured it short every year. We would supposedly run a sub-six-minute mile. That was always fun. I remember one year that one of the football players was sick on the day we did it. We ran and I won. The football player who was sick had to come back the next week and run it solo. We went out there and watched him run faster than I had run. That sparked something in me to go out to try to bring my P.E. Mile title back home
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| Running heroes |
: I’m a big fan of Ben True. When I went through high school, he’s the guy I kept up with. He’s had an amazing career and I like how he’s been a huge anti-doping guy. He does his own thing up at Dartmouth which is very cool how he trains all alone. I’ve heard about his workouts which sound crazy. He’s my big American inspiration. Who doesn’t love to watch Mo Farah running a 51 second 400 meters at the end of a race? I love to watch him race and guys I mentioned before like Yomif Kejelcha and Kenenisa Bekele and others who are wicked fast at the end of the race
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| Greatest running moments |
Obviously, the cross-country national championship. Those moments last forever. One of my favorite moments was getting All-American in cross country with Matthew and Acer in the same race. That is up there. Vivien, Acer and me running our first sub-four-minute mile together. I do put both cross country moments higher than the sub-four mile because I am a big believer in championship races. Championships last forever. Who knows how fast a 3:56 mile will be in the future relative to other runners? For me, championship races are where the big moments are made. Now that I’ve been talking through this, my favorite moment ever is when the three of us made All-American in Tallahassee in 2021. That was an awesome, awesome race during the first semester of my freshman year. It was difficult already and super fun to finish up there with those guys. And my individual biggest moment was when I won NCAA cross country recently
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| Most disappointing running moment |
During my junior year in high school when I was trying to get better in cross country and qualify for Footlocker Nationals. My shoe came off two hundred meters into the race. I tried to run on it, but my coach eventually pulled me. That course is mostly gravel and was impossible to run with only one foot having a shoe. I remember when I was pulled, sitting down by the lake at McAlpine Park. The race finishes around the lake. I was sitting on that bench with my coach. It was raining. I had one shoe on. I watched everyone run by. I got to watch these guys all achieve what I wanted. That was a cinematic experience and a sad one at that. It was a low point, but that’s running and there are ups and downs
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| Childhood dreams |
I always wanted to be a professional soccer player. I played the FIFA video game on my Xbox and watched the World Cup on TV. I wanted to play in the World Cup and win Champions League titles. Obviously, things have shook out very differently. It’s close enough. At least I’m an athlete now
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| Funny memories |
This is easy for me to have these moments now that I’ve been in college for a couple years. I’m infamous around the Boston running community because of what occurred my freshman year when there was a party with the Boston University and Harvard cross country guys. We were at B.U. and had some drinks. There was a little coffee table in the corner and a song I liked came on. It was ‘Chicken Fried’ by the Zac Brown Band. I got up on the table, started singing it and jumped up and down. Then the table snapped in half, and I dropped to the ground. I didn’t buy them a new table. I sent via Venmo a few hundred dollars for that mistake. That was not a fun way to go out that weekend. Now people always joke about me breaking tables
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| Embarrassing moment |
If we really want to go there, one time I soiled myself during a workout. I couldn’t quite get to the Port-a-Potty in time. That was very embarrassing. I was running with Acer and, of course, he was pushing me to the edge. We were flying around this reservoir. Suddenly, I thought, ‘Oh God, I don’t think I can finish this.’ We were running at Boston College and there was one minute left. I was running toward the football stadium and looking for a Port-a-Potty. I came to a standstill, and it happened. Your readers can use their imagination
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| Favorite places to travel |
I love travelling anywhere in the United States. It’s a beautiful country. Out west is incredible. When I drove out to Flagstaff during my gap year, Arizona had some fantastic places. Sedona, the Grand Canyon, and all the mountains are great. So far, Arizona is unmatched
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| Anything else of importance in running or life |
There is nothing else. I think you nailed it. My entire past eight years narrowed down to two hours. Well done
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