Coach Will Palmer Shares Insights From Coaching 5xNCAA Champion & NationalRecord Holder Parker Valby

coach will Palmer welcome to the running effect podcast how you doing this afternoon I'm good thanks for having me on you had kind of a a unique year probably first of its kind where normally you're used to to closing things out probably June for the track season and then I'm sure a little bit of a reset and then right into the cross season writing plans having athletes back on campus that was not the case this year you had an athlete qualified for the Olympics what's this past summer been like for you yeah um it was busy um it was a lot of fun um we we kind of took vacation a little bit in the middle of the summer but it was hectic at the end um because the turnaround from the Olympics to getting back with our team was two three days I think um so it's an interesting balance I have a lot of respect and appreciation for the coaches that are are coaching post Collegiates and college kids at the same time it's there's not a lot of downtime you know you've been at many levels in this sport uh but the Olympic level I believe that was new for you this year what are some things you learned being in Paris and you know through the atmosphere of talking to other professional coaches talking to the athletes what does it take to make that level and and bridge that gap between you know being a college kid and making the Olympics yeah I've given that a lot of thought um and we've had some of those conversations with our kids recently actually like I think there's this par Paradox that exists um like the better and better you get at anything and kind of the more you go down rabbit holes and get your hands dirty um and that is a lot of times like if you find early success doing something um you start to think you've got it all figured out um and then the deeper you get in a topic um it's almost like you walk away feeling like you have it less and less figured out um even if you're making growth and progress you know uh and so like that's something we've talked to our kids about like the especially the newcomers to our team we want them to almost feel like wow okay I've made some great growth this maybe first year in college but I also realize like wait a minute there there's so many other levels to what is going on and like I know I'm a better Runner but I feel like I'm a worse Runner because I I I'm like holy smokes like these guys are running 332 in the 1500 or you know these women are trying to run under 15 minutes I didn't I I'd never seen that before you know uh and so when I walked away from the Olympics like I've never seen a woman close in 57 seconds over 10, ,000 I'd never seen a 327 1500 live um and so it just kind of made me feel like holy smokes like there are so many other levels to what's going on and like yes we had this really successful year but there's definitely some stones that we haven't turned over yet you know how much do you think Parker Valby who I'm sure is going to come up a lot of times in this conversation has changed the trajectory of the program and can you speak to the impact that her few years there have had on you know what kids now coming into the program think they can do being a Florida Gator yeah um I mean I think Parker's helped like she's certainly helped shape our program and uh maybe we think it's possible here um but I think the cool thing is she's helped shape that across the NCAA as well you know like she she broke some I don't if you want to call them like mythical barriers for women or whatever but under 31 minutes under 15 minutes um that hadn't been done you know and like I I can just say like having seen that firsthand and been a part of that I'm like yeah there should be more women in college doing this stuff you know um and part of it is it's it's challenging in this environment to run but so fast because of the like the time demands of our schedule doesn't always line up with the time demand demands of the professional runners out there and you're you're getting into an intersection between college and the pros that has to happen to run that fast um it's very uncommon to just go Walt out on the track at at some random meet and you know run 1455 if everyone else has running 1520 um but it made me feel like yeah there should be more women in college doing this stuff um so yeah I don't know that it we'll see what her like Legacy and impact is over the years to come um but I mean she's she's made Florida cool you know for for distance right which you know if I talked to you 5 10 years ago probably wasn't the case I think Florida you know she's elevated Florida and and what it means and what it means to be a gator to a whole new level for you I'm sure to an extent you're tuned into social media and what the outside world is saying uh what's kind of your general take on you like she's just so popular off the track it's all Parker Valby like Parker Valby owns the NCAA um and also it's you know unique for even the distance space right because normally it's a sprinter or you know some big-time athlete um and not to say that there aren't those figures but you know at the Olympics like Parker's even being talked about in terms of all of Team USA as being one of that the headlining athletes headlining stories what's that kind of been like to to follow along and just see her progression uh you know being popular in the media yeah I so I hate social media uh it's just like I feel like I missed a boat by five 10 years you know it just like it comes very I don't know if it be third nature to me or something like it it's it's not natural you know to the point where I really don't post um but I I certainly see what's out there it's it's kind of like a necessary evil for me um but yeah like Parker's not boring and I I do think that um you know certainly in our sport people are just very much like I think they can be afraid to show their real personality sometimes in um media settings and I get it it can be intimidating and you're you know the more you put yourself out there the more people are going to judge you right um but one of the thing and like Parker certainly was probably a little bit more closed off early on and and would get overwhelmed by the attention she was getting but I think at some point she just learned to let her hair down and and just be who she was and um you know she she realized at some point along the way like I don't care what these people are going to say about me like I'm going to be who I am it's just going to be more fun that way and I don't have to second guess every little thing I say um and that was something we certainly encourage her to do like just be yourself um you know don't don't worry about what other people are going to say and it's it's okay if people say um negative things about you like the better you get at anything um the more the more there's going to be like really positive things that are said about you but also really negative things that are said about you like everyone loves to be an armchair coach right um it's just kind of the world we live in so I don't know I think the more comfortable she's gotten with that the the more she's just been like yeah I love cows I want to go to Switzerland uh you know there was a there was she she must have somehow gotten interviewed by a Norwegian uh newspaper at the Olympics um you know and she she claims to have Norwegian Heritage I have no idea if she does um but they're like who's your favorite Norwegian athlete she's like I am of course you know um so she just doesn't hold back in that way but it's not like she's out there um giving a lot of controversial opinions it's just kind of goofy offthe wall stuff I I'll have to ask her about this Norwegian did not miss that or miss that interview is the key to being fast Norwegian yakob her Carson War gu I guess yeah what's her claim I I I don't know uh her claim is that she's Norwegian like I don't think it's been very well researched or documented you know I'm gonna text her after this and get the tea on this the other thing that she's very open about uh her love of Kombucha when did when did you see this take form and has she gotten you on the wave and if so what's your go-to flavor um I mean I appreciate a good kombucha but um yeah she's always liked it u i i plain is better for me like the more original flavors or whatever um I'm not into all the crazy stuff but you know like like my coffee black um like I like good strong flavors you know you are uh you are uh wisdom is coming from you you like your coffee black not natural on social media uh all these things your uh textbook my mom would love you my mom loves black coffee she's like my mom says that uh you know I love like a specific brand it's Chobani like vanilla creamer and she's like that's not even coffee I'm that's what that's what my wife drinks like she she lives and dies by it yeah oh it's so good but my mom's like that's not coffee she's like you can't taste the coffee I'm like yeah well maybe I don't like coffee though I don't I don't want the hazelnut flavors or anything it's just like you know my Starbucks order is a a black Americano like I can't even drink their coffee anymore to be like I can't even drink their drip coffee like it just is not really too sweet or I just don't like it okay okay I've never been a Starbuck myself okay yeah that's fair that's fair so I've talked Parker about oh go ahead I I was G to say like I I think this is important to say about her too um like along the lines of social media um I can't remember when she started doing this but she actually started deleting her accounts um like when she gets in within a certain amount of space before race she'll just delete everything off her phone I think she'll keep Tik tock on there um but she got to the point where she recognized like it was almost impossible for her to not see negativity that people were putting on the internet and so she's like she understands she's got to to live with it and exist with it um but there comes a point leading into races where she'll just get rid of it because she's like it's it's garbage like it's not doing any me it's not doing me any favors for you as a coach with any of your athletes and I'm sure you've seen the progression over the past five or so years as apps like Instagram and Tik Tok have become more prevalent I'm sure every recruit coming in is on both of those platforms how have you you know what's that landscape like as a coach in the NCAA um with your athletes in in terms of talking about comparison straa like seeing what other athletes are doing some of those different things how are you coaching athletes to focus on themsel buy into the program what you're doing and try to shut out the outside noise yeah um I don't know maybe we need to do a better job um I mean we don't we don't mandate that kids get rid of social media or anything but um I think the way we conduct our practices um in like training sessions is just try and take a a businesslike focused approach to workouts and stuff um and that that is one of the big things like if you want to be an elite distance Runner um you have to develop an ability to focus through difficult circumstances for long periods of time right um and so a lot of what we do in training is trying to teach and emphasize that aspect of it um but I mean I certainly encouraged Parker to continue deleting social media um going into races but it wasn't my idea um you know and I guess I just hope that more of our athletes would would take a page out of that book um yeah I hate straa I think it's terrible um I I just I I get the idea behind it um but I think if you want to be elite in this for there's more negatives than positives to comparing yourself to other people um so I mean that is an area where I encourage our kids strongly if they're going to post on it to be private um and to really be thoughtful and reflective of who's seeing what they're doing because I don't think it's it's necessary you have that standard for the college kids that you coach for a high school listening who wants to be really great in the sport or even like a college kid who competes for another team would you recommend that same practice of getting off of Strava or merely using it to track your mileage look at your runs but you know maybe don't follow anyone yeah I I wouldn't recommend being on Strava um you know hopefully Strava is not listening um I I think they're better better tools out there to do it um without the the social component and I I think the social component is nice but when it bleeds into to inevitably like comparing yourself to what other people are doing or trying to run faster on a certain segment or that sort of thing um I think it can send the wrong message um so like if I just wanted to go out and like be part of the running Community um in Gainesville and join a running club and do that stuff I think it's great um but I think if you're trying to be elite in the sport um it's a slippery you know do you think comparison is the biggest struggle that you see present day athletes struggle with or something else can I give like three answers sure go for it go for it yeah I think I think comparison is is challenging um so that would be one um I would say the ability to focus and and kind of see things through would be two um but but this may may kind of all be lumped into this um one of the trends I've noticed um especially with kids that struggle in college is like do they have the ability to take the same consistent approach to what they're doing and be methodical with something despite how the the outcomes are presenting themselves um and I think that gotten harder and harder for kids to do over time and it's become a a rarer and rarer skill but more and more important to be able to do that you know like are you going to radically change your approach to something just because it doesn't go perfect the first time you do it um that just doesn't pay dividends in in this Sport and in a lot of things in terms of Parker having had her on the podcast and she spoken to this she was very quality in high school uh she was a top recruit she ran really fast times but I think by no means would anyone have seen her times and accomplishments in high school and have thought okay she's going to make an Olympic team you know a few years later she's gonna break all these NCAA records win five individual titles for you where did that was there a moment where you you thought oh wow these are things that can happen and as her coach what's the journey been like getting her to that place from solid recruit to doing things that have never been done before in the noua because the reality is any power five School is generally and you can disagree here generally getting pretty similar level of recruits this has never been done before can you speak to that progression yeah um oh man I haven't shared this with many people so um I I knew Parker was really good obviously like she had been NCA runnerup twice before I started working with her right um and so early on in our arrival at Florida um um we you know we we do this um with any any new year right or any new semester we'll sit down with each of our athletes and have a one-on-one meeting and just kind of talk through some stuff but I I think those interactions are a little bit more important the first time you work with someone whether it's a new freshman or you know in this case coaching a new team um and so one of the things we we took away from that meeting and I say we it's it's me and Sam sitting there kind of working through stuff with her um was what she had been doing and kind of how her her training had been structured and looked and so um you know I kind of got a window into what she'd been doing and I saw that and had a realization very quickly like wow like I know she's good but like this kid's another level like I've never seen anything like this before if she was really doing what she told me she was doing I was like holy smokes this is like just a completely she's on another planet um so I mean we were hired here January 9 or 10 something like that um and a week or two after that like I was convinced she could do things that had never been done in the NCA before I actually wrote it down and put it on paper and and said that to her um so and you know like our relationship wasn't perfect early on um we had some there was some tension you know I think a lot of the great athletes I've coached have been stubborn um it can be part of what makes them great but um you know they've been successful and so they're they can be hesitant to change and that creat some friction early on um and so to in an effort to kind of mend the relationship and make sure it was headed in the right direction like you know I sat down and I wrote out some thoughts and I shared them with Parker and one of them was like I think I'm paraphrasing but I essentially said I think you can do things that I can't even put on paper like I don't know that anyone can put into words how special this could be um you know and honestly a big part of the disconnect in our relationship early on was I saw where Parker was and what she was doing and I thought she was capable of so much more that I don't I don't know that she realized and so it was like you know par Parker thought her her ceiling was the ceiling in this room right now and I was trying to tell her like it's yo it's 10 levels up and I'm not going to come down like you're going to have to come up and meet me there you know um and that was hard for her because she was kind of like what the heck like I've been in doua runner up twice like how can you say I'm not I've not been successful and my point to her was like not that you haven't been successful but you have no like you haven't even scratched the surface and that can be hard to hear right um and so what I what I asked from her was look I don't I don't want you to I don't want to change you Parker is right like there's some very unique qualities you have that make you really special but if this is going to work and and this is going to be as fun as it could be like you're going to have to be willing to grow you're going to have to be willing to evolve you're going to have to be willing to go outside of your comfort zone and if if you can do that if you're willing to try new things like I think this could be remarkable you know um and so it took some time but like by the time we got to the outdoor season that first year we were starting to make some good progress um I don't know as I say the rest is history right truly truly as much as you're willing to share as the man behind it all what what is her training like this has been uh talked about endlessly in terms of the talent because she you know quote unquote gets injured easily so she cross trins a lot of days runs a few days from the man himself without revealing too many of the Trade Secrets what does it look like and and just how much talent are we looking at yeah and also and also if you could put into perspective how hard she works right because I think a lot of times it is demeaning to the athlete to just say you know it's all Talent yada y y not all talent but off like she has some she has some really unique gifts that that make her special um and I think one of the I don't if I want to say frustrating but like I'll have people reach out to me all the time and like they're fixated on like oh my gosh let's talk about cross training let's talk about how cross training can make you great and like it really does discredit Parker because the cross training is not what makes her great like Parker is one of the fiercest and most Relentless competitors I've ever seen like Bar None and um she has an ability to push herself just so far beyond what other people are capable of um and that's really what makes her great um the cross training has just been a vehicle for her to actualize her Talent at the end of the day you know but um yeah I don't know her training really isn't rocket science like when when I started working with her one of the things I I noticed or I felt was going on is like I felt like on any given training session she was probably working out at a level like if you just plug that effort in at n cross country championships it was like a top five or top three performance like every single time and so what I I noticed is like you're flatlining basically like there's really no difference between the level you're racing at the level you're training at um and and so the major effort was actually to pull her training level down um so maybe her workouts were equivalent to like a top 15 top 20 finish in NCAA cross country me um but as she could do that over time you know I I call it um pulling things apart where like you know if her races and her training was was basically identical it was like as her training level came down it it wasn't easy she was still training hard but her her ceiling just went up and up and up you know um and so really what we were able to do is create a situation where I mean this past year she's run significantly more miles and done significantly more workouts and run significantly more races and Laps on the track as they put on the Olympics like hundreds of laps um but she's just been radically more consistent and and so I don't think you can look at the number of miles she runs or any of that because it's all relative to the athlete for her her yearly mileage was pretty poor initially because she had these major gaps in in training and so we're able to get rid of those and just kind of streamline things and and like even even the miles a week she was running um we don't get too fixated on that but um it was just really consistent for a long period of time you know and I think people look at her too and say oh she's only running 30 mil miles a week or 35 or 40 miles a week or whatever the number is on that week but like that kind of discredits how hard she's working because she's doing that in three days so like her training load on a given day where she's running is quite high and it is pretty on par with a lot of the athletes she's competing with on a regular basis you know it's not like she's training half as hard as um any other women that are are top 10 andca kids you know and she's working her ass off cross training like it's amazing you know so I I feel sorry for the people that think cross training is a shortcut it's like yo it's way harder and you have no idea like what do they say be careful what you wish for yep you know yep in practice this year what is something she did that just blew your mind away if you can share whether it was a track workout Tempo session something she did that you thought there's no way she just did that we wouldn't do stuff very often like that but um you know this is Florida and people think we have no Hills but we've got this pretty amazing um dirt road Loop um it's five miles and it rolls like it's it's challenging um when we were coaching at Bama we had a we had a similar Loop that we would go to from time to time um but the the like if you look at the elevation profile at this place um it's harder it's definitely harder and um so we would go there for um like some a challenging long run or that sort of thing um and we don't race those things but like I've coached enough Elite women over the years both at Bama and now here to where I kind of know like if you're putting up certain average Paces on on the back end of those runs um what it means and you know she's running averaging I don't know 20 seconds a mile faster than Mercy wood or something I'm like holy this is out there like this is wild you know um so there was that um and then other things do I actually want to share um you know like I remember before indoor Nationals um it wasn't anything special like it was it wasn't a crazy workout but um she ran a k at the end of a session um and she ran like I think it was probably 248 249 but it was just the way it looked I was like wow things are just timed up you know a a lot of when I know kids are prepared is is what things look like visually like I can't just share the splits and and you're like wow okay this is amazing workout like yes it is but if you're out there and you see her doing that like everyone that was out at the track was like holy what did she just do because it looks insane you know um like it just didn't look that hard you mentioned the consistent cpce with Parker a minute ago I know it's a core principle of any successful coach because it makes an athlete successful can you speak to how consistency is kind of as close as you can get to the secret sauce for an athlete listening who wants to be great who wants to experience some of the success that your athletes have or maybe one day Run for the University of Florida how you know it doesn't you're not going to find you know the the jumps in racing and training without consistency there's no magic supplement or shoe that that will match up what consistency can do for you yeah it's I would say it's literally the only thing that matters it's it's literally that important um and like one of the things I always share with our freshmen when they come in i' go back to you know the name Steve Magnus um so Steve is always tweeting things out and he's like very research oriented and he had um he had tracked a bunch of different metrics when he was coaching at Houston on um just trying to figure out like okay what was the best predictor of improvement across his kids and at the end of the day he found the one number that mattered was how many days do you show up able to train that was it if you showed up able to train I I think people get so fixated on what workouts does this program do like how many miles a week do you run like how much do you do double thresholds like how much do you do hard interval work and there you know people are nitpicking all these little things but at the end of the day like I think of it like this if you can increase your yearly mileage not your mileage a week we all fix it on miles a week but if you can increase your yearly mileage you will get faster it's almost guaranteed um and just from anecdotal experience I don't think I've ever coached an athlete that's had a major breakthrough that has not first established it a what I call like a rhythm or routine with their training where I'm like yeah they're just stacking they're repeating it's it's um they're in that zone where where they can just do this over and over and over again you know and I I kind of one of the ways I explain it is like um if you want to go be an investment banker and work on Wall Street um you go work 100 hours a week but you know after two years you you want to end your life it's just a miserable existence and and people people don't last long um and and I think a lot of times we Define hard work that way but what you really looking for is like instead of working a 100 hours a week can you come down to like I don't know 70 hours a week which is still a lot you're still working really hard but instead of doing that for two years you could do it for 10 years right so you've like exponentially increased the amount you can work over time um and that's really The Sweet Spot we try and find is okay what's the level where they can just do this on repeat for you in reflection of you know you've coached so many amazing athletes throughout the years think of those athletes and then think of the ones that come into the program and are good but never reach that level what what separates those people and what takes an average recruit who comes to you what attributes do they have to illustrate in the day-to-day to take that next step yeah um I I would say like from a performance perspective some of the things we look for are um first and foremost we want kids that love to race and love to compete like that because that's what we do at the end of the day like this is a it's sport so it's competitive um but I I tell our kids this a lot I'm like hey look I make an assumption when you sit in this room that you chose division one which we claim is the most competive comptitive level you chose the SEC which we look at as probably comprehensively the most competitive Sports conference and then you chose the University of Florida which I think is the gold standard in this boort of track and field you know and you you could make an argument for maybe two or three other programs um but comprehensively across the board I mean I tell our women like our women's team was programmed of the year we were the best prog in the country so you you chose all those things that to me say you should be a naturally competitive person so we we look for that um we we look for people that are self assured um and we encourage that quality meaning that they're not coming to college to reinvent themselves and they're not trying to like radically change who they were in high school they're just interested in becoming more comfortable with who they already are um so that's really important I mean we already touched on the ability to have a consistent approach despite the um results and the the circumstances um I do think it's important um a word we use a lot is muda um which is a Sanskrit word um but it means vicarious love or joy for someone else's success um that's a quality we really Embrace and encourage within our team from a cultural standpoint but I actually do think it has a lot of performance implications too because we're trying to be a high performing High thriving team and so if you can share vicarious joy in your teammate success like you don't feel threatened and so you you kind of feel freed up to perform at a higher level uh yourself you know uh and again it like ties back into this whole social media thing you're not comparing yourself to to other people you're just cool with who you are and where you're at um but yeah I'm probably missing something but those are those are some of the big qualities filling out some of the story of Coach Palmer take me back in time from when you were introduced to the sport all the way up to present day how you got the job coaching for the University of Florida I know that could be a podcast in and of itself and each of those stages could be broken down I knew you were a successful runner in college yourself but what's the uh the short version I don't know if I'd use successful you were a four-time letter winner I think I read you were decent you're for sure decent um yeah I I'll give you the spark notes um like I I ran in high school and kind of gradually fell in love with the sport you know I played other sports growing up and um my mom encouraged me to go out for cross country and I was like reluctant so in an active um uh Defiance I didn't train over the summer you know and I showed up the first day of practice and skateboard shoes we we were doing like our coach had us doing uh doubles and I I distinctly remember I went to morning practice and I think we ran three miles and you know there was a kid next to me that had like a real pair of running shoes from a real running store and I basically I was in skateboard shoes and I was like holy that was a miserable experience so my dad picks me up I'm like Dad we need to go buy shoes right now and I showed up at afternoon practice with with a pair of shoes um it was just like immediately I realized like wow I can't do this um so yeah I just kind of like climbed my way through high school um and then went through the college recruiting process sort of um I I ran at a small division three school called Williams College um up in Massachusetts um and had a fledgling career there um Williams has been pretty successful on the D3 scene won a couple national titles and cross country and and some trophies and stuff pretty consistently U but I actually never made the the varc team I never was running in the postseason for them um so probably much to my coach's disappointment um but I just kind of continued to Foster love for the sport um during that time and partway through college decided I I wanted to be a coach myself um and so started trying to create some opportunities to get into college coaching um and I guess I won't say I had a chip on my shoulder but I definitely felt like I was at a disadvantage because I I knew that I wanted to coach I I knew like the seat I'm sitting in right now is exactly where I wanted to be like I had a very clear vision for that and and so I felt like I was at a disadvantage coming from a division 3 background because I just wasn't exposed at the level I wanted to be exposed at and so um I basically took the resources I had at Williams and was able to twist them into opportunities to kind of start to get my foot in the door um so I did a little uh one month internship with a guy named Robert Chapman um who was coaching a professional group in Indiana at the time um but that's a neat connection now because he's the he's basically the leading altitude researcher for the US and and works for usatf alongside being a um a faculty member at IU um so he's been a a awesome resource especially recently as kind of Parker's been getting into that world uh so anytime I have a question on altitude training or blood numbers or anything he's my first phone call um and then and I the the summer after that like summer before my senior year of college I did an internship with the usfca the the alphabet coaches association um and yeah I kind of I kind of saw things from an administrative side um but they were nice enough to let me work with them that summer um kind of get exposed to some different things and then um yeah when I when I graduated I was looking for back then it was mostly volunteer opport unities that you were looking at um and so I you know networked really hard to to have different volunteer options and I decided to basically I tried to figure out like okay who do I think is the best developmental coach in the NCAA um that'll just let me hang around them um and I decided Martin Smith was probably maybe the best developer of talent at that time um and developer of of teams um and so I went to work with Martin um and I was with him for two years at Oklahoma um and then he took the head coaching position at Iowa State so that opened up an opportunity to coach there um and it was at that point that I kind of started working more on the women's side of things um he' hired a lady named Andrea Gro MCD who um was kind of that time yeah the hot name in coaching uh she she been at Yukon and and kind of taken them from zero to top 10 team um so I worked with her for two years and that was a lot of fun we with NCAA runnerup team our second year there um and then I I spread my wings and I took a the head distance job at Western Kentucky University um and that only lasted a year um there was some real serious budget cuts that were going on within that program um it was pretty prettyy devastating and been a really successful team especially on the track um guy named Eric Jenkins is a head coach of South Florida now was a head coach there at the time um but yeah it kind of decimated the track program so at the end of the year I was like I I need to find a more uh stable situation like I I don't see the long-term stability here given the way the administration was prioritizing track at the time um and so yeah I I got lucky and and landed on my feet at Georgetown um which was kind of a weird story in and of itself like I I literally moved back in with my parents this where I grew up uh so I was commuting like 20 minutes to Georgetown so I was super lucky like I I couldn't have afforded that job on that salary living in DC had I not had family in the area you know um but worked there for two years actually Mike Smith's departure to na kind of create an open position at the last minute um so um yeah I was at Georgetown for two years and had a good run and then Alabama called um right as Sam my wife and I were getting married and so we kind of took that leap together um and spent five years at Alabama and that was a lot of fun um and I'm really thankful for um you know Dan Waters the head coach there took a chance on us um we didn't really have a proven uh coaching record or anything and um you know the the women's team was not amazingly successful like uh when we took the job we hadn't qualified for the NCA since '94 I want to say um but it it was fun like we just kind of got our hands diry in the process and had some neat kids we were working with at the start and um was one of those thing what what do they say like it can't get any worse you know um so there was there was nowhere to go but up and we just kind of like we we really prioritized the cultural aspect of things um that was the first time where I was like well um you know we can work on the performance side of things but we're going to try and take as many steps forward as we could culturally um and dive into that and be really intentional um with with trying to keep the culture improving um and so that was kind of where Sam and I developed this philosophy that team culture has no ceiling um it's always getting better or getting worse like it's not static and every single person is either positively or negatively contributing at all time times um and so we we just felt like look we could win an NCA Championship our culture can always get better um and that was kind of the the philosophy that we adopted with our team um and what was really fascinating is like the the culture had this um exponential upward trajectory and then the performance of the team had the same exponential upward trajectory but it just kind of lagged so we we would have these like big cultural um positive shifts and then like a little a short while later like we would have these big positive performance shifts as well you know um and yeah then the success of the team started snowballing and um in three years we were eighth in the NCAA and started having kids like win stuff um and then you know five years later we winning sec and third at ncaas and you know right after that is when Florida called um and to be fair like the the midyear move was something we were really reluctant with um but I think one of the things we realized at Alabama is a program doesn't have to be successful to be able to be successful like just because the team hasn't been thriving doesn't mean it can't it's it's like what are the circumstances what do you have to work with like you got to look at the big picture and be able to have a vision for things to be able to accomplish anything um and so as we got to know kotal we were like man maybe this place has been overlooked and and Florida is a sleeping giant um in a word or two what's it been like coaching with your wife that's a super interesting Dynamic that I mean I'm sure you know I don't know of any other program that's like that what's it been like to be there for each other uh in more ways than one but specifically in the context of this conversation uh in the coaching realm and and going through this crazy coaching life together it's it's quite neat yeah um we balance each other very well um so and I think our we have some similar skill sets but there's not a ton of overlap either so um you know maybe B may maybe compliment is a better word than balance um so like there there are areas where Sam is really really skilled especially with interpersonal relationships with um the athletes and having this just great intuitive pulse of the the health of the team um where you know like I I have that a little bit but it it doesn't come um intuitively for me you know um and I I can get bogged down in in technical details and stuff and and she's really good at kind of pulling me out of that as well U so yeah it's it's been fun though like we we get on each other's nerves like any husband and wife do uh you know but I don't know we we believe that bickering or or disagreement is a sign of problem solving not uh fighting right final question for you closing out today's conversation or final series question for you for those who have listened to our conversation today look up to you look up to the success that your athletes have had that you've coached want to be great in the sport of running simple question you could go any Direction with it what does it take to be great at this sport of running you got to love it like you you have to you have to love getting your hands dirty with with the process of it um you know and and have to at some level get away from checking boxes and just being like Oh well I I did my mileage I did my rehab I did my I I ate well today I got eight hours of sleep you just kind of have to love the the messiness of everything um and then you you have to be a a marathoner as far as your mindset goes like you just have to be able to keep showing up uh be consistent with stuff so it's like I don't know the most simple yet complicated sport at the time and we try and uh glamorize it but it's really not sexy you know coach Palmer final question for the question I ask every single guest on every single episode if you had Gordon Ramsey coming over to your house for dinner what would you choose to make for him what would I make for him what would you make for him you're the chef oh kit um hello fresh okay what's the uh what's the go-to meal from hellofresh I don't know uh there a variety like okay yeah so I I'm a terrible cook I'm a really terrible cook and I I can screw up hell fresh and a heartbeat but like that's how we have Variety in our our meals at home so what we've learned today no sponsorship from Strava but if the executives at hellofresh are listening you can sponsor coach Palmer's feature podcast oh that'd be fantastic yeah yeah there you go coach balart really appreciate you taking the time to share so many wisdoms uh wisdom and insights from your uh successful career and I can't wait to see the impact this one has I think anyone who listens to this conversation today has a lot to to go back to their coach or to the drawing board and get better at this boort of running which is ultimately what we want to do with this podcast so keep it up gogators as fall and excited to see all the things you'll accomplish awesome thanks Dominic