Mike Scannell Interview (Grant Fisher's coach)

[Music] hey there friends and running fans this is Ambi burfoot welcoming you to the latest episode of the podcast running state of the sport and this is George H your co-host at running state of the sport in every episode we talk to the smartest most informed most influential and sometimes fastest Runners on the planet this week we have a great conversation with Mike scannel the little known coach who masterminded Grant Fisher's two bronze medals in the Paris Olympics in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters no American has ever done that before so it's really a major achievement but first George and I would like to look at some of the biggest recent news in running George what have you been paying attention to well of course the Zur Diamond League meet which year in year out is one of the biggest meets in our sport uh but particularly this year coming off that spectacular Paris Olympics with so many Olympians there and fresh in our minds uh but actually the day before the Zurich meet meet in the Zurich Stadium there was a very intriguing race it was a setup race 100 meters between Mondo Duplantis the world record holder uh in the stratosphere in the pole vault and the world record holder at 400 meter hurdles Carston warholm these guys are friends Scandinavians uh uh swed and the Norwegian and they decided they would test their speed and athletic ability out by an actual 100 meter race and it it was intriguing and it got a lot of attention the stadium was uh was quite full and uh you know just a reminder amby the the level of speed and athleticism so Mondo the pole volter won in a really quick 10.37 and just behind him came the 400 met world record holder uh and the fans apparently just loved it it was all good with one slight uh problem and that is that carsten Warhol tweaked the hamstring during the race and sometimes this can happen when people get out of their own very specific disciplines you and I remember a Classic Stage race many years ago between Donovan Bailey the great 100 meter champion and of course Michael Johnson one of the great long sprinters uh in history and they settled on an in between distance of 150 meters and Michael Johnson after a huge amount of promotion uh pulled up in that race and pulled a pulled the muscle so these things these things can happen when people somehow get out of their normal training and competition Cycles but anyway it was terribly exciting and it was a great uh opener for the Zurich meet which had some terrific races uh leile toogo this youngster who won the 200 meters in Paris uh he did it again but just on a bar lean in a very quick 1955 beating Kenny Bernard and Ambi you know how much I like the Sprints and so this was shakeri Richardson getting even again if you will with Julian Alfred who beat her in the Paris 100 meter and again it was quick and gave the fans a lot to cheer about but the real race of zurk was the men's 1500 and this time you had all of the players the top four runners from Paris they were all there yakob ingerson of course Cole Hawker who stole that race and uh of course Josh Kerr and uh the race in the end uh was a terrific race it was fast it was sub 330 the Pacers did their job and NGO the American who of course had medled in in Paris uh and has been running so well he outkicked ingon in the final step and uh I think he gave us all another reason to think that right now the men's 1500 may be the most competitive event uh anywhere uh in the world with such a number of terrific Runners uh including a few more uh Kesler from the United States Timothy chiot guys who can come up and maybe win this on any given day so um a lot a lot was going on there amby and what did what have you seen lately I've seen and heard enough from you just now George to know that neither one of us should go out there and do any 100 meter sprinting in the near future I am certainly not not planning to because I'm healthy at present and I'm very happy uh to stay that way well Zurich was uh unbelievable ing britson said he had a slight fever or infection or something I don't want to say he comes up with excuses now and again because he always shows up in races and you have to give him credit for that uh it may not have been his best race but boy his race on August 25th was one of the great distance races of all time that when that was when he broke the 3,000 meter world record by 3 seconds he ran a 71755 which is merely 354 mile pace for seven and a half laps or 58.3 four seconds per lap for seven and a half the old record had stood for nearly 28 years held by Daniel Coleman many people considered it the best distance record on the books people wondered if it would ever be broken after all this time ingor britson completely pulverized it and uh in my mind at least uh settled that if he's not absolutely the best 1500 meter runner in the world right now he's pretty darn top at 35,000 who knows how far he can keep going to turn brief briefly to the roads another race that uh happened a week ago was the usatf national championship 20K in New Haven that's been held there for a couple dozen years I think now and it was won by Hillary bore and Kira damato we'll be hearing more from both of them this fall because bore is set to run his first half marathon in Valencia in late October and damato is going to the Chicago marathon in the middle of October where of course she'll try to bounce back from the disappointment of her dnf in the US Marathon trials last February and on a very sad and tragic note I think we have to mention uh the death uh in domestic abuse uh basically murdered by her partner in in Kenya the Ugandan Olympic Marathon run Rebecca chapy she was 33 she had ran the recent Paris Olympic marathon where she was 44th overall and she had a PR of 22247 in the marathon so a great Runner and a tragic loss to everyone in this Sport and so uh I think that's it George that's our view on the biggest recent running news now let's turn to Mike scannel this week's guest at running state of the sport Mike recently returned from the Paris Olympics where he served this coach to us distance Runner Grant fiser in Paris fiser won bronze medals in both the 5,000 meter and 10,000 meter races which no American has ever done before the medals were a little bit unexpected at least I must admit I was not expecting them so that makes Mike scannel kind of one of the world's hottest most interesting coaches today in fact Mike is a long strong coaching relationship with Grant fiser he coached Grant in Michigan back in Fischer's high school days when he won two Foot Locker Cross Country championships and ran a sub4 minute mile then he became fiser coach again a year ago when fiser left the Bowerman track club and moved to park City Utah Mike Welcome to our podcast well thanks George and I'm very happy to be here with you and Ambi uh it's a that introduction was pretty strong so I hope I can uh back it up with some information that you're looking for well we're we're pretty sure of that uh Mike we would like to begin by asking you to give a quick biographical summary of of who you are and where you are how old are are you where are you living now what have you done most of your adult life because we don't think you've been a professional running coach and what do you currently do to fill the hours of each day boy amby that was a lot of questions there so go for I am I am an operations manager or CEO of a Manufacturing Company by trade I did that for the last 20 some odd years uh that manufacturing company is in Michigan I'm North of 60 I don't know if your your listeners need to know my exact age but I'm I'm not I'm not new so so um as a profession I I have a computer science degree and a master's degree so I used my Master's Degree I did Coach many many years ago for the Olympic Training Center I coached the triathlon team the national team through panm games Goodwill games up to the Sydney Olympic Games as a matter of fact and then I began my professional career and stepped away from the world of coaching completely so Mike let's get right to the Olympics um and then later we can catch up on your full history with Grant fiser and your training philosophy which I know our listeners are really interested in what was Paris like for you as an Insider who saw a lot of of it especially the five and the 10,000 meter races you were up close and very personal tell us Paris for me personally was I went there for work and so there was really not a whole lot of Celebration a lot not a lot of visiting the other venues visiting the other sports all the things that you would go to the Olympics for I didn't do that I went there specifically to help Grant get on the podium so there was a lot of uh Hotel time a lot of training time at the track the Paris did a great job with the facilities I got there after opening ceremonies because we skipped all of that so that we could kind of one stay at altitude but then to not use a whole lot of energy before the uh 10K so we skipped all that and so for Paris for me it was kind of like remote working go to work come back to the hotel eat rest get ready for the next day go to work and come back and really at this level you really have to look at running as a job it's it's you need to be prepared physically and mentally and you know your nutrition has to be spot on everything has to be go for you know August 2nd so there's no doovers you don't you don't get to line up twice you it's a one-time shot and every all systems have to be go and have to be go at that time for you to perform well so it was kind of for me very limited to just a few venues and a few things when I was in Paris itself Mike I'm getting kind of nervous and anxious about the pressure and I'm not even Grant Fisher and you getting ready for it what what kind of strategy did you and Grant have for the the first race August to the 10,000 meters and and how well did you think he executed the preparation for the 10,000 was done pretty much all year long when we sat down originally the 10,000 was the main focus we knew if we could get him in a position that he didn't have to run very hard the first let's say 9,000 or you know almost the entire race we wanted him to be very cruisy throughout that 10,000 uh so he could race at the end that was our primary focus in the training that did happen the strategy for the 10,000 was he wanted to be on the podium that's top three there's no fourth there's no fifth it's top three and you can count the heads and you can count them quickly so his strategy if you watch that race he stays in the top five certainly you know he got tripped up once but you know he stays in third basically that whole race and that was really where the strategy was because we didn't I knew in that race or we had talked about it in that race that when the when the racing really started it would be about a threep problem there would be a very quick aggressive move and you had to be within Striking Distance to react to that move and if you don't hit that move you're out of the race and so we want to be in the top three and the grants eventual move was a little too early in that race because he ran out of gas before the finish line but it was strategically in advance planned well and then Grant really is good at executing the things we talk about we talk about it we agree on it and then he doesn't really change it unless it's you know something happens in that race that isn't expected but that race panned out as we expected it to and then um there were how many days between the 10 and the five Mike and what did you do during those days and what are the big challenges when you run both of those events at a global Championship well the Olympics in such a short time span and how do you how do you approach those challenges there's not an easy way to approach those challenges the 10 was on August 2nd the easier you run the 10 the less beat up and wasted you are for the five prelim which was 5 days later there's and then in addition to all of that is the lack of rest and Recovery because of all the stuff that goes on around the Olympics so Grant actually left uh Paris to get back into altitude for a few days and get out of the energy and excitement that is the Paris Olympic Games so he could get some rest between the two thankfully in the 5000 you get a prelim which in most cases is a defensive race and you don't have to put it all on the line to make the final or at least that was the plan and in Grant case that's what happened you didn't need to be at 100% for the predm 5 days later and then of course in the final everything has to be operating at Full Tilt again not sure that happened in Grant's case because a 10,000 no matter what takes a lot out of your body uh but he was fortunate enough to get through the 5,000 prelim without a whole lot of energy output and then in the 5,000 final you know the strategy was different you know we don't like up with the same strategy don't want your competitors to know this is what you're going to do so the strategy was really completely different and you know he was fortunate enough to execute the strategy in the five uh to get a bronze medal again and that strategy worked out really well so that's interesting to hear I wouldn't have expected that you had a completely different strategy in the 5,000 than the 10,000 the five was of course an astonishing ly interesting race because you had a certain guy named inab britson in there and a lot of action started happening with what I don't know whether it was 800 meters to go or exactly where for a brief period it looked like Grant was moving backwards but then he got it together what what happened in that period and towards the end well let's talk about the 5,000 as a race first so the 5,000 as a race you've got yaka Binger britson who is and I didn't talk to him after the 1500 I did you know I said hi to him but I didn't really talk to him but I figured he'd be really angry I did yeah yeah really really angry and a angry iner britson is not a pleasant field right we really planned for the entire 5000 to be an angry iner bitson race which meant it was going to go fast throughout now that did not pan out I was very surprised at that and then when he put the hammer down it was about a thousand out actually so it was slow it was slow it was slow and I really expected somebody else that was in that field to push the pace earlier because if you don't push the pace you wind up kicking with eight guys well you don't want to take your chances with eight guys with 200 to go and so yaka put the hammer down with a thousand to go and he came through you're in his like his pen ultimate lap in 56 which I knew this is is really hot and you know Grant I asked Grant later because I of course I don't want to see Grant get dropped the plan is never get dropped to just FYI we don't line up and go hey by the way just get dropped and let everybody think they're gonna beat you that is never my plan so he gets dropped between the quarter to go and about the 200 to go and and it really was those guys were just moving at such a rate of speed that he couldn't turn his legs over any faster he told me that he said I was going flat out and they were running away from me so you know for him to give him an extra what was it 30 yards he wasn't even the camera view I could see him of course and I was not comfortable with that but there's nothing I can do about it at that point I was wondering how will this close go there's no doubt about it but I also knew the close was going to be very short nine nine eight seconds nine seconds 10 seconds I knew he was going to just hammer for 10 seconds that's all we concentrated on don't worry about anything else but 10 seconds and so when he did put the hammer down I my jaw was on the ground I couldn't believe it I mean he went from getting dropped and not being in the field and not being in the race to basically running faster than anybody the last 80 meters uh to the point that I think if the race was another five five or eight yards longer he would have gotten a silver yeah yeah he was it was an amazing finish it was spectacular just incredible so that was the difference in those two events uh as far as strategy goes the 10,000 the move was about really about 120 to 130 out something like that and then he ran out of gas as you saw and then we moved that that that you know gear change and that final uh leg turnover change to the last 60 n seconds eight you know whatever and that was the difference between the strategies of those two races and at this level honestly every single second matters I mean the the 10,000 was contested for 25 laps and they finished within a second and a half of each other the 5,000 was contested over 12 and a half laps they finished within a second of or two seconds of each other it's a it's a it's a game of very few seconds and really no margin for error M I don't know if you've ever considered a secondary career in standup comedy but you do pretty well you've got some pretty good line lines you're dishing out there you know you are describing astonishing races that we all saw and and when I'm reliving them with your words I'm thinking these damn events have become like 800 meter races I mean it it's crazy what's going on in the last straightaway yeah it is honestly it is crazy but we plan for that in the training cycle especially the last uh six he does a 10-day block a 10day cycle I don't know if you guys are fam with that terminology but every 10 days we tap every system of the race and so in the last six Cycles 60 days we tapped pretty much the aggressive and raw speed angle of the 5,000 and the 10,000 but really the 5,000 and only in that block did we only in that section of the year did we tap that section of the race so Mike um you know tell us what you and Grant learn from the whole Paris experience and is there some big looking ahead messages and and also reflect a little if you will on Grant's influence on the American performances that came after that 10,000 meters he obviously injected huge energy into American distance Runners at that [Music] moment I'll tap the influence quickly first the influence of any training cycle Paris included you as a coach I look at it and I I say uh what went right and I like that and I say do I emphasize that and what went wrong you know there's two guys in front of you so yeah I'm kind of a greedy guy so you know we can do something a little different to climb the ladder and we will address that I'm currently writing right now uh the schedule through next World Championships and we'll sit down and I will give Grant my feedback on that cycle and on that what happened through Paris and what changes I'm going to suggest so that we can climb the ladder and so that will happen that's the influence as far as the the overall Global influence on track and field Andor the next SE couple of races I believe that you know yard's experience and I believe that uh Cole hawker's experience and you know I I was completely shocked by Kenneth Rooks goodness yeah but it is a race and if you open your mind to allow success just allow it to happen then good things can happen and I think Grant kind of paved that way like hey he he did that and so if you pay that way and open that door then maybe Cole Hawker says hey that door's open and in Cole hawker's case you know two guys are solely focused on each other whatever the case may be and the door is left wide open Lane one lane one is left wide open well Cole Hawker says I'll take that lane it just runs by both of them it was great I loved it so I think in general I love the fact that nobody expected you know the pundits the goal was for us Grant and I to get on the podium but the pundits all said you know it was a bad decision to change coaches it was a bad decision to leave B it was a bad decision to train on your everything was bad you know all the chips are stacked against you but then when it happen happened then people started saying well me too I guess there's a me too movement on that I'll take the me too movement on Mike you I I got a question I was going to ask you later but you kind of just brought it up when you talked about the last six cycles of training before Paris and you use the term RW speed I I believe of course you're you're a coach you're an athlete you're headed to the most important race every four years you've got no choice but to push the boundaries as far and fast as you can but at the same time you got the risk that all this new stuff you're doing is going to injure the athlete how do you balance those two the the injury component of it really comes into play when you run the body too hard and you don't let the body recover that's when injuries happen that that's just what happens you know so You' really got to balance how much of that raw speed you can do can you do 12 minutes of it I don't know because Grant's a different body than he used to be so we never did that in high school by the way I just never did it I don't do it at all no raw speed no really hard quarters no really hard 600s no no really hard speed with this particular training block you have to do hard speed you just have to and then you have to learn what is his reaction to that does he need one day off or two days off so that he's ready to go again we always took two days off after a hard speed session FYI so you need to learn this because the target the Grant Fisher Target the human is not the same human that I worked with in high school and his you know his his body and mind in high school were different than the body and mind he brought back to me a year ago so that was a combination of Grant giving me feedback and me coaching with my eyes I coach a lot with my eyes I don't coach with my watch I coach with how taxing is this event event being a an interval how taxing is this event on his body and then thinking that was a lot now I have to do a lot of recovery as well you know Mike let's let's shift a little and go to your running career you ran a 216 marathon and qualified for two Olympic Marathon trials and what did it take for you to get to that level and what if have you learned from your own running that you now apply in your coaching I learned everything I've applied to coaching from my own running I still to this day Grant doesn't do a workout that I haven't done e even now I do I will do if we change a workout for example we did two new workouts this year that he had never done before I did both of those probably four to six times testing my own levels and looking at my own data to find out what is that doing to the body and do I want to do this to his body and then yeah he's he's stronger than I am so my muscles fatigue sooner so he can he can tolerate you know twice as much volume at that level that I can but all of my workouts were tested on my own body and if you really want the truth the reason I coach and have experienc coaching is because I was a a running failure so so I'm trying something and I I also have asthma by the way I would never have tried to run distance with asthma if I was smarter but I didn't I wasn't so I'm I train for something and I race and I fail or I want to get better and then I adjust it to find out what changes do I need to make to my personal running when I was racing to get faster and I tried a whole bunch of different systems I was a mega mileage guy for a while I was a pounder for a while while I settled in on some scientific training for a while and I eventually refined that training but everything you ask me what influences my own running has to do with it my own failure has to do with my coaching that's what it has to do with well 216 is a pretty high level of failure uh Mike but um against the guys running in the Olympics of course they are from another planet yeah there's an interesting story about how you became Grant's coach in the first place in Michigan when he was in high school and I don't think it was through the school system I think it was through the Fisher family can you can you tell us how that happened sure I was doing um road racing in Grand Blank Michigan and I could still run under 15 minutes for 5K when I was 40 um or 42 or whatever I could still run 1430 or 1440 so I was jumping in races here and there and a bunch of young kids they were freshman at the time said hey will you will you guys will you help me run and I said sure So I I took him on as freshman one of those kids that eventually set the state record he ran 406 twice won the PanAm Juniors and then I quit I was gonna quit because I really I'm not a coach I I have a full-time job I work every day 11 10 hours a day so I was working I had hired Dan fiser who Dan fiser is Grant said I had hired Dan fiser to be the national sales manager for this company that I was working for and as Grant was growing up I had quit coaching these guys they had graduated so I wasn't really coaching and Dan in eth grade Dan said you you have to coach Grant you realize you have to coach Grant and I wasn't coaching anyone I was like no no I don't have to coach Grant no no no no no no mikee you're gonna coach Grant and so and so Grant was he's a good salesman yeah exactly he was actually a very good salesman so I started coaching Grant in eth grade and he's doing the POV Vault for his Junior High and but we're doing workouts as running workouts but he didn't want to race very often or if at all because once the coach found out he was doing running workouts you know the junior high coaches run him in 10 events or whatever you're allowed to run him in so it really didn't you know let on that he was doing too much but he was pole vating and running then by the end of his eighth grade year and then by the time he was a freshman he was really a soccer player to be truthful so he was a soccer player and then Dan was Dan do did tell me you're gonna coach Grant I agreed to that but then his freshman year Dan said you're gonna make Grant soccer and I said no I'm not going to agree to that and I didn't make him quit by the way and then Grant sophomore year Dan said no no you have to tell Grant to quit soccer and I said I I'm not going to do that Dan and so I didn't and then by the end of Grant sophomore year Grant had made the decision that he wanted to train full-time so then his Junior and Senior year he just ran and you're right I was not the high school coach we ran at 5:30 in the morning every day and Grant met me at a private indoor 400 meter track which was at uh the Genesis atletic Club in Michigan so we would meet there and when I did take on Grant though I took on about eight or 10 kids to help Brant run so he had a group to train with because really don't like training athletes on their own I like him to be in a group so he was a pul vter a soccer player and was it easy to see that he had a really big Talent Mike and what else did he bring to the table Grant brings two at the table that are that that I can take zero credit for number one his mom was a 1500 meter runner for University of Houston so he's got her speed and number two he's got his dad's mentality his dad would run through a brick wall he was just a total grinder in college and his dad was a very good athlete very good but Grant brought along the mentality that his dad uh used in college which was just you know he he could put himself through so much pain his dad and Grant has those two skills and they're ingrained and it's great Grant is a much happier guy and he's much more jovial than his dad but you know Dan if you're listening to this podcast it's true your son is much easier to be around so um but he brought those two things from his parents and that's great I'm curious Mike I think I feel like that I I've read that you were doing lactate test with Grant way back in the early days is that true and if so what what was the purpose what did it serve I'm a very scientifically based coach so when I took on the group before Grant the athletes name was Omar cadora I also I that's just the way I've trained all the time so for me it was part of training now it wasn't well known and you know iner britson didn't make it world wide popular but at the time that's all that's how I train bodies you know the science behind training is not new to me I did I I stole it it's not something I made up and so I just applied that science and the most uh specific way to Target those uh speeds and energy levels in the body is by lactate analysis so I've always used that you can use other things like heart rate monitors for example or OT o to monitors but you've got to be you've got to know what you're doing with those devices and lactate analyzers for me allowed me to also give direct feedback to high school kids that always want to run too hard so I used that on myself I used that with every athlete I've coached for 40 years so Mike give us a brief overview of Grant's training back when he was in high school winning Foot Locker twice and running a 359 for the mile everybody always talks about um Grant's everyone wants to talk about mileage and I'm a low mileage coach so Grant was about 55 in high school even on Race weeks he might have gone down to 45 but total mileage wise he was always about 55 he might have touched 60 a few times in high school but not many so he was a lower in in my you know what I see with other high school programs now lower mileage guy and then I believe strongly in just for high school kids four basic disciplines once a week you run long once a week you run a tempo run once a week you do a V2 Max run which is three minutes of fast running in two minutes of jogging I call that V2 Max and once a week you do Hills now I just named a lot of workouts in a 7-Day period because you've got to run easy between those things and so Tuesday Tempo is standard for me and we would run Tempo in the morning and we'd run Hills in the afternoon then we'd run V2 Max on Friday and we'd run long on Sunday that was pretty much a standard week for Grant Fisher and I do that I don't do all of those things year around but that's a pretty standard week overall and then strides on top of that but no Grant Fisher ran four quarters in high school two before the Adidas dream Mile and two before another mile um both of those quarters were done sub 60 and both of those quarters were done too fast in my opinion and so in both of those cases we were lining up to do four in both of those two cases I told them you know the last one fast one I go fast one last one so if you run too fast it's your last one so he ran too fast and I said okay you're done Mike my favorite kind of coach is a coach who hates making his athletes run quarters cuz I grew up in the Ryan era and they all thought that we had to do 20 quarters in 60 seconds and guess how many of us could do that exactly yeah how many of you walk three days later that's the bigger question that too so jumping forward a little bit uh After High School of course Grant does what every kid does he goes off to a great College Stanford for four years and then he's a talented athlete so he gets a pro contract then he runs for Nike and Bowerman track club for four years and then suddenly he calls you up or messages you or whatever a year ago basically and says you know Mike I think I'd like to make a change and go back and work with you again what were those conversations like and what did you decide you were going to work on together I had known when Grant got injured that he was looking around and talking to other coaches and there were several that he talked to sure and he wanted to make a change that would include other things in his training that weren't included at Bowman so I knew that was that process was going on but I didn't want to influence the process so if Grant wanted to land with Mike Smith or Grant wanted to land with Pete Julian or he wanted to land I would have been fine with any of them honestly um but after talking to and I don't know if he talked to those coaches or not but after he was looking around for a while he called me and I was ready for the call I knew he was looking around and if he would have gone somewhere else I would have said great Grant what can I do what can I do to help you you know succeed with another coach I don't care I can help some way I can you know be a supporter or whatever I don't care but he called me and asked me and he said uh would you like to work together again and you know of course what am I going to say to that Grant Fisher calls you and says do you want to come on so I said immediately I said I I just quit my job so I'm quitting my job today I'll put my two weeks in now and I will clear my plate because he told me his only goal was to get on the podium in Paris and my response to that was I will do whatever it takes on my end to make sure we're doing it right on your end and that included a lot of time energy travel and setup preparation I mean included a ton of stuff that people have no idea how much change there was involved in the process but I was honored by the phone call and then after that was done I said the first thing we have to do is sit down specifically identify where you want to go because that's how I that's how I coach I coach from the end line I don't coach from the start line I coach from the end line and say this is where you want to be now if you want to be there how do you need to get there and we set all these things up for we sat down for hours I don't know how long it took and I told him he knows my philosophies on coaching he knows my scientific uh background with coaching and he wanted more of that so at the end of that whole thing I said what what do you want me to do you want me to write the plan you want to write the plan and he said no you can write the plan and then I said okay I'll write this plan no problem I have no problem doing it I'm confident in it but no matter what Grant you are signing off on everything we do I'm not gonna I'm not coaching you like I do my high school kids anymore you know I don't walk up to practice and say you're gonna do this I want Grant Fisher to say that is the workout I looked at it and that is going to get me to where I want to be tomorrow so I'm doing that and that's the way we did it all the way along we still do it that way he doesn't do a workout that he hasn't read doesn't know what the outcome's going to be and he is confident that that workout is part of the the puzzle that we have to get him on the podium that's the thing we're working on this piece of the puzzle today that piece is important don't miss that piece we're going to insert it today right after you're done and you put it in there when you're done if you're not confident that piece belongs in the puzzle we're not doing it so that's how that that's how the whole program worked well you talked about ints and uh is he unbeatable in the 5000 mik and let me ask isn't is an angry yakob ingon unbeatable it sounds like an angry Mike Tyson someone you just want to get out of his way well if I thought anger britson was unbeatable in the five then I would be setting myself up for failure when I lined up against him I think he's beatable if you were to asked me that in the 1500 month ago I would have said he's you know you're you're going to tell me he's unbeatable in the 15 well that's clearly wrong but he was unbeatable at the Paris Olympics in the five because he won the race you know you can't argue with that exactly I believe that you can train to race and beat yakob berson if I didn't believe that then I probably shouldn't have the job that I have right now because we're lining up to beat him next year Well we look forward to seeing that but we also can't help but wondering at this point in Grant Fisher's career which has been long and successful and he's not a rookie anymore what is his Marathon potential and is he thinking about it at all and are you part of those conversations let's put it right out there all right you want to put it out there on the long runs I carry a baseball bat and never Ed the word Marathon I hit him in the legs so and I want to be very clear Ambi I know your background we're doing that until uh he decides that he is ready to um change that that decision is not on the table it wasn't this year at all he will be very successful when he makes that transition just because of the type of training that we do he would have to change his mileage a little bit because he's hovers around 90 right now we would change that to Target Marathon racing and then we we would change the training as well you know all all kidding aside the word Marathon uh came up because we did a long run on the day of the Olympic trials and Grant was doing his long run at an alarming pace and so we and I'm just not I'm just gonna throw that out there he was doing a long run at an alarming pace and we laughed about what that would yield at the trials but for right now Ambi I'm going to go with we're not even going to Broach that topic and that's the last marathon question that's the last you're gonna use that word in this podcast that's fair enough we we will not be the only ones asking the question as you as you well know but fair enough so Mike you know our podcast is called state of the sport so we'll close by asking you for your thoughts on the state of the sport in the United States what's good what's okay what could you serious Improvement so uh just have at it the state of the sport in the United States right now and it's been going on for about I don't know five to eight years I believe it's on a huge incline right now and I love it because distance Runners are intelligent distance Runners are disciplined and focused they're they're the people that we want to emulate you know we put all these athletes on a pedestal all the time and I'm not sure those athletes are the best citizens for the United States but distance runners in general are incredible humans they're incredible citizens they're incredible friends they're incredible leaders for the United States so I think we are on a huge insurgence of distance running and that is coming from a few different things you have the grant Fishers the coal Hawkers the yard and gooes of the world that are now in front of the camera and in the conversation that these are the fastest guys in the world and you have these Training Systems the btc's the the the on Club the you know these the Hoka Club these guys are developing really solid professional distance Runners and that encourage is distance running at the younger ages if you guys are familiar with uh the state of Utah and the background and the support the state of Utah that's one thing but also the communities in Utah in Salt Lake for example the communities in Utah support distance running and I guess you can see that with how solid their high school programs are there but those programs are big they're enus enthusiastic about distance running they're uh very good with their goals they're very good with their Direction they're they're all they're doing all the things that you want them to do as they grow as people because eventually everyone stops running like me and then you have to think okay what skills did you learn in track and field that I just went over what skills did you learn in in cross country that you can apply to being a dad that can apply to being a doctor that you can apply to being an attorney you know those are the kind of things that are growing in the United States right now and I love it because not everybody will reach the podium in Paris it's that's done but the podium at the Olympics but you can strive to to make world champion humans through distance running and I like that and I think we're doing it again we had about a period of about 20 years where we weren't doing that but the state of the sport is is phenomenal now and I love it and Grant fiser is a great Ambassador not just for the sport but as a person you know you guys have access to him you can walk up to him and ask him anything and he's a very good interview he's a very good person and if I had a four-year-old right now I would want that four-year-old to look up to Grant Fisher and say I want to be just like that guy Mike that's that's wonderfully stated it happens that we've interviewed half of the runners and Co coaches in Utah in the last 6 months and we to and we totally agree except for Kenneth Rooks I don't know how we missed him apparently we didn't see him coming but totally agree with you the community and the support system they built there is just stupendous and the more other places the better so you're you're a coach who's getting a little bit of a reputation now and you said you love group running and you love Club running and uh you must your phone must be ringing off the hook with people wanting you to start a a club and more people to train with grants some of that has gone on I've been and I told you I I feel terrible about answering this question like this but I coach these high school kids and then I quit because it takes a lot of my energy and it takes a lot of my time then I coach the Grant Fisher group and I quit and and I came to to Arizona because it really is a lot of time and energy to be a good coach and then I coached at broy here in Phoenix and I was just kind of a a volunteer assistant there we won the state meet um a couple years ago and now I've taken on another group of high school athletes but really I'm I kind of call myself a reluctant coach I do a lot of clinics I love those I love it that other people are adopting and changing their training Styles so that they're more successful and they stay healthy so all of that is good but but if I was to take on somebody else in a group or you know a small Club they would have to be able to support Grant because when I originally told gr Grant I would work with him I did tell him you know this you are my sole Focus I'm not going to take on 20 guys that can't help you now would I take on 20 probably not 20 but would I take on a few that could help Grant yes would it help them absolutely abolutely but you know it it does take a lot of time and energy and I and I currently coach a high school group I don't know if you're familiar with that but I do well no one's doubting I hope the amount of time and energy that it takes to be a successful coach I will offline uh send you an email email about my nephew who's one of the best high school running coaches in the country even though you and everyone else haven't heard about him so our our last question is the Fairy Godmother one we're going to give you three wishes for things that you would like to see happen perhaps in the next 12 months uh these could be wishes well wishes for Grant Fisher for other us distance Runners for high school Runners who in some cases need a lot of help your own coaching opportunities what what would you like to have a good will good happy wish come true I get three wishes from a fairy godmother that's where you're going to go with this yep okay number one I want two more hours a day so if I got two more hours a day and I'm not cutting back on my sleep you two I'm not doing that so I get two more hours a day I could take on another group of kids and I could influence that group so I like the strong influence that you have as a coach especially in the teen years because those guys they're like sponges and they need positive influences over what their brain vectors are doing right they're all negative all the time everyone everything is negative on these kids so I would like two more hours to have a greater influence and a greater impact on um High School coaches or high school kids the second thing I I would my second wish then would be for high school athletes and of course you know I'm I'm biased I want them be high school Runners but high school athletes to have all of the equipment and opportunity they need to succeed that doesn't always happen that they don't always get the right rest they don't always get the right nutrition they don't always get the right equipment to allow them to succeed so my second uh wish would be then for all high school athletes to have all of the gear and all of the um opportunity they need to succeed themselves and then I guess my third wish is that anybody influencing an athlete stops using any terminology that says you can't I don't like telling high school well I'm always wrong so I don't do it anymore I never like to tell somebody what they can't do you can't stay there you can't you can't keep up with that guy you can't run this pace you can't win this race I don't like that so if I could have one wish it would be for all influencers coaches that they got rid of the word can't because high school kids have proved time and time again and and you know Grant has proved time and time again everyone told him what he couldn't do a year ago and all of those people were wrong so my wish is that you can you have to stop using the word can't that's you amby don't use the word can't that's you George I hear you Mike sounds like a great advice and I think those kids you're coaching it's it's a huge motivator it really is they're very lucky to have you the LA Mike the last time I checked I was a few years past High School age but if if I could turn the clock back I would certainly want you to to be my high school running coach and thank you mental coach so that wraps things up for our conversation with Mike Scannell coach of double Olympic distance medalist Grant Fisher Mike it was really a pleasure it was fun informative and at times humorous chatting with you today thanks so much for joining us well George and amby let me close with this you two guys are icons in the running world it's amazing to get to spend this time with you I should be interviewing you guys you should not be interviewing me and with that I'll sign off and Say Goodbye Ambi that was a really upbeat informative discussion with Mike and uh you know we didn't know much about him uh beforehand so tell me what struck you most about what he had to say well of course you can't listened to Mike scannel for long we found without really really liking him a lot his personality his philosophy his dedication to athletes especially high school athletes but but for anyone and everyone out there who's trying to give it his all I particularly enjoyed the fact that granter Grant fiser himself decided to go back to Mike as his primary coach after grants had already spent four years in college at Stanford with great coaching after he had spent four years with the Bowerman track club and great coaching and he was performing really at the top of American Athletics in his distance but he wanted more he thought there was a way to get it and what does he decide to do he goes back to his high school running coach who's really a family friend who's known Grant virtually every day of Grant's life and the two of them seem to work together in just a unbelievably seamless way that's produced great results in one year and let's hope the results get even better after a few more years and of course I got a big laugh when I asked Mike the marathon question it's inevitable everybody's going to look at Grant Fischer and say boy he's a smooth 10,000 meter Runner I bet he could really tear it up in the half marathon or marathon and so I asked Mike that question what are you and Grant thinking about the marathon and he said we're not even talking about it in fact if Grant ever says that that word in a workout I'm gonna take a baseball bat to his legs right there cut it off well he's not going to take a baseball bat to Grant Fisher's legs but he's obviously very determined to keep grants on the path that he's been on and he also thinks that Grant can get better and when we asked him if yakob inab britson was unbeatable in the 5000 he said absolutely no I wouldn't be coaching if I thought yakob inab briten was unbeatable I love that I love that he he did say that an angry ing britson angry for having uh lost the 1500 in Paris uh leading you know almost the whole way he said an angry ingrams is very very difficult to beat and I think there there's a lot of Truth in that we know when he comes in with a chip on his shoulder after a down race oh my gosh it's it's something yeah so George there was so much there with Mike what you mentioned one thing what else did you take home from that conversation well I think what we all saw uh you know Mike mentioned that Grant had really paved the way in his bronze medal winning 10,000 meter run which really opened the running events at the Paris Olympics uh it paved the way for those American performances Cole hacker yared mcus Kenneth Rooks I think I think we can't underestimate when these guys who were running at that near absolute highest level in the sport see another American come through the way Grant did I think it just it sends a motivating message that uh this is doable and I I think Cole Hawker and the others would would all tip their hats to grant for for that I I think you're totally right there George he really lit up the entire us track team with that 10,000 need a performance and so friends that's it for this week's episode of running state of the sport we hope you enjoyed joining us as much as we enjoyed sharing the time with you and we'll be back again soon with another podcast until then please tell your friends about running state of the sport and we'd appreciate a review at your favorite podcast host like apple podcasts or Spotify podcasts in signing off here's our hope for the state of your own personal running chin up Clear Eyes Full heart keep moving onward [Music]