Detroit, MI

Josh has been with the Hanson-Brooks project for around a years time now. He came from a small Division III college with less than 2,000 undergraduate students. While at Wartburg, Josh was a multiple National Champ as well as several time over all-american. Read on to find out about Josh's impressions of his past year.

RM: Josh, you have had a solid year while at Hanson's. Your biggest success has been a runner-up finish at Steamboat. This is no small feat seeing that you beat a world class runner in John Yuda and finished just behind another world class runner, John Korir. What are your thoughts on that race and how was your training going into that race?

JM: First off, thanks Nick for interviewing me. Going into the Steamboat Classic I wasn't very sure what kind of shape I was in. All I knew was that I had a tough time pacing Jeff Gaudette through 5k at the Hansons Midwest Distance Solution. After that I thought I had a lot of work to do if I wanted to run well in the big races towards the end of the segment. The next week was Steamboat and I was fired up about this race because I love road racing. I just thought I'd give it hell and see how I end up. Turns out it ended up pretty well. Looking back on the race I'm still trying to figure out just what happened. I was definitely 'on' that day.


RM: You followed Steamboat up with what most would consider a subpar race at US Track Nationals, running a 29:26 to finish 12th. How did you have such a great race the week before but not so great the next week?

JM: Good question. This is something I've thought about for a while. I think it's a combination of a couple things. First, Steamboat was less than a week earlier and that flattened my legs a bit going into USATF's, not much, but enough to tell. Secondly, I was a little too aggressive the first 3k of the 10k. Doing well at Steamboat boosted my confidence and I thought I could finish in the top 5. I think this was a reasonable goal, but I should have approached the race differently. Sitting back and biding my time would have been a better strategy. Lesson learned.


RM: How would you rate your first year at Hanson's? What things would you have done different if you could?

JM: If I could rate my first year on a scale of 1-->10 I would give it a 9.76. I did far more than I thought possible. I dropped my 10k time by over 90 seconds 30:12 to 28:40, 5k 14:20 to 14:05, and made a USA team (Chiba Ekiden). Would I change anything? Nope, not one thing. I did exactly as I was instructed by Keith and Kevin Hanson and it certainly worked well. I guess there is one thing I would change, and that would be running in a pair of Brooks Radius size 12, women's. Yep, I ran about 300 miles in a pair of women's shoes, not that there's anything wrong with that. It was a narrow enough to accomodate my feet. After daily ridicule from EVERYBODY I gracefully retired the shoes.

RM: To all those kids that are boarderline about pursuing running after college and giving it up, what would you tell them?

JM: I would tell anyone who's thinking about running after college but is still deciding that life only happens once. Work will always be there waiting for you no matter what. There is only a small window of opportunity to pursue running competitely. It's fun to chase down a dream.

Thanks for the great interview Josh! (Interview conducted by Nick Cordes)