SVSU Track & Field - Five Minutes with Andrew Middleton
Background: Andrew Middleton is an SVSU Sophomore, and in 2013, he was the 800m state champion for Holt High School at the Michigan High School State Championships in a time of 1:53.36. His personal best at the Midwest Meet of Champions later that year was a 1:52. His first year at SVSU was a transition, and left him disappointed to finish out the year without any new personal best times motivating his collegiate career. Under new coaching staff, and with an encouraged sense of confidence after boasting personal bests at 8k cross country this past fall, and personal record times in the mile and 3,000m from this recent 2015 indoor track season, he's excited to see what outdoor 2015's track season will bring him.
1. This February of 2015, you broke your two mile personal best of 10:43 by running an 8:44 3000 meter (a sub 9:20 two mile equivalent) season opener at Grand Valley's Big Meet, and followed that up a week later by annihilating your previous mile personal best of 4:45 with a 4:17 for the win at the GVSU Tune-Up meet. Share with us your thoughts on how you feel this strength you've built indoors during your redshirt indoor season will translate to your middle-distance performances outdoors?
Middleton: I think the base I've built over the last eight months will help with the last part of my race. In the past, I couldn't be consistent in workouts. If I would do 10 x 400m, it would start at 56 and end at 70's! Now I can do them all between 59-61 and not die! In the past, my lack of consistency in training translated to me dying at the end of a race, whereas now I have confidence that I'm not going to die in the last 150meters of the race, that I'll be able to hold a consistent effort because that's what I have to do at practice.
2. What are your goals for the GVSU vs. SVSU dual meet this weekend, where you'll race the 800m? What are your long term goals for this 2015 outdoor season?
Middleton: Another personal record! I want one in the 800 now! I'm excited because I've never had a rabbit for a race. My teammate—Joey Southgate, a 4:14 miler, is going to "rabbit" the race for me, and go out hard the first lap, and let me sit on him. Our coach set up that situation to create a race scenario set up for me to succeed so that I'm not doing all the work for two laps by myself. I've done workouts with Joey in practice, and so I trust him as my race rabbit. My biggest goal is to break 1:50 in the 800m—if I did that this year, I might break down in tears, it would be the best day ever.
3. What's the hardest workout you've had to endure in practice that you feel has prepared you for what you'll be put through in the toughest parts of your race?
Middleton: It's a three-way tie between 8 x 800m at 3k pace off short recovery (60 seconds), 20 x 200m off 15-30 seconds recovery at 800m pace, or 3 x 600m at mile pace, hills, and then coming back on the track for 100m repeats at 400m pace. All three workouts were grueling in their own way. I find them hard because it's mentally exhausting when you're out there forever, doing so many intervals. If you're on number five and it hurts, and you know you still have 15 more to go, it just starts to wear on you. I know that doing that work testing my mind through all of those intervals will pay off because during a race I have to stay tough for two minutes, but in practice I have to stay tough for three hours, and in cross training for hour long workouts on a bike or elliptical some days too. I took confidence in the 3k that, if I cross trained for hours doing something really boring like cross training but had to work really hard and go really fast, and not die, for an hour, that I could do that for nine minutes or less.
4. Who do you look up to in this sport? Talk about someone who ignites your motivation:
Middleton: I'm inspired by Drew Windle because he's from an 800m NCAA Division II program competitor just like me, yet he's beating competition from NCAA Division I schools. I'm proud to be friends with him, for how he runs but also for who he is. He's this underrated guy and then he shows up at these big meets and beats people, and turns heads, and maintains his humility and kindness through it all. He's a good role model in division II. I see his 800m success in the sport, going above and beyond NCAA division II, and I want to be like that.
5. What's your pre-race meal of choice? Running shoe of choice?
Middleton: Definitely the Nike Pegasus, and then for food, pasta with chicken! I have to carbo-load!
6. Tell me something you're proud of with the team this year, and who you're inspired by on your own team—whose performance are you most excited for this outdoor season
Middleton: Andrew Plude. That guy works so hard. He never complains. He hasn't had a chance to race because he got banged up a little bit, but even still, he's been working so hard cross training and finally has been healthy enough to train again, and has been keeping up with us on the long runs at 6:15-6:00/mile pace, which would have been a tempo pace for him in high school, and now he can hold that pace for long runs—he's gotten so much stronger! I think all that cross training is going to help him have a really great race when he runs the 1500m, and he's going to run a race that he's proud of. I'm excited to watch his race and see what he can do, because he never complains, he just does the work, and now I want to see it pay off for him. With the team, I'm proud that we all always eat together and are close—all the freshmen fit in together really well and we all go out to eat together all the time and I like that. Our team is really young, but we all get along and eat together all the time and have a strong bond.