The following interview excerpt has been edited lightly for clarity. You can listen to the full interview with Emily Mackay on the CITIUS MAG Podcast – available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your shows.

CITIUS MAG: How long would you say you’ve been steadily progressing over the past few years? You’ve had a good long stretch of health.

EMILY MACKAY: Yeah, I feel like for the past, I guess three or four years I've been steadily progressing and I hope to keep going on that trajectory. I think staying healthy has been the main factor in that. I've been very healthy for the past four years. For the first time in my running career, just consistently healthy and I think fitness stacks. So every year I get a little bit stronger and I take a break and I'm already starting off the next year a little bit fitter than I started the year before. So, it's just been really cool to see how fitness really does stack. I'd rather be healthy and not overtraining…Like Coach Mark says a lot, ‘Let's not get greedy.’ So if we're not getting greedy, we're not overtraining. We're not racing too much. We're not doing all these things that would put us at a higher risk of injury. So I think that's what's helped me steadily progress these four years, along with also increasing my volume every year for the past four years. That has been huge and that’s how I think I've been able to get stronger and stronger every year.

I know to a lot of people it looks like I had a really smooth, perfect transition from college to professional running. But I did struggle a little bit last year. It wasn't obvious from the outside looking in. It probably looks like I was racing well. I was the most fit I've ever been but it was really hard. I felt like crap all the time. I felt like I was not fully recovering between workouts. I was tired all the time. My body hurt. I was so sore. I just wasn't feeling great but I was still able to train hard and perform well. I was really lucky not to get injured at that time. But this year, because of last year and that transition, I have gone into this year just so much stronger. I'm very thankful for that as well.

CITIUS MAG: So you mention how it wasn’t always this way. What were those years at Binghamton (University) like?

EMILY MACKAY: Definitely. Especially in my first few years at Binghamton, I struggled a lot with volume. So every time I would increase my volume, especially during the cross-country season, the inside of my foot would get super inflamed and irritated every time I tried to run over like 40 miles a week. So it was just very frustrating. Every cross-country season, I would try to bump up my volume and that would flare up and I'd have to cross-train for a few weeks. Or there was a point where I was in a boot for a couple of weeks. I just felt like I was never able to stay healthy. I don't think my body was strong enough to handle that volume. I didn't quite know how to make a gradual progression toward that.

It wasn't until COVID that I decided to buckle down and focus on running. Because another thing was that I wasn't all-in mentally the first few years. I wasn't doing the little things, which might have been a huge part of it as well. I wasn't eating properly. I probably wasn't sleeping enough. I was maybe going out a little bit too much and having a little bit too much fun on the weekends. I just was super focused on other things in my life. Running kind of definitely took a backseat more.

After struggling during my freshman year of college, I didn't know if I was ever going to be as good as I was in high school again. I almost didn't go all-in with running for fear of disappointing myself and not being able to live up to what I wanted to do.

So I struggled with that for a few years. I struggled to love running as well. I wasn't having fun with it. Then during COVID, there wasn't anything else to do and I just decided: What am I doing if I'm going to stay for a 5th and a 6th year? Because of COVID, I want to give this my all. I want to give it a serious shot. I want to see how good I can be, if I am all in and if I do the little things. So I started eating properly. I tried training in new shoes and that helped a lot. I was just more focused on it than I'd ever been – stretching, rolling out and doing all those things. I was able to get my mileage higher than 40 miles a week for the first time. I was being more consistent than ever. That's kind of how I made my breakthrough in college.

CITIUS MAG: Do you remember what your first conversation was like with Mark Coogan?

EMILY MACKAY: Yeah, it was really exciting. It was the evening of the Super Bowl and Mark DM’ed me on Instagram and he was like, “Hey, I would like to connect with you and I'm interested in having you on the team.” I just remember how excited I was. My family was over to celebrate the Super Bowl. And I was like, “Guys, you'll never guess what just happened!! Mark Coogan reached out to me!” Now every year, on Super Bowl Sunday, I remember “Oh, it's a two-year anniversary of Mark reaching out to me.” It was such a special moment, and it was one I'll never forget.

I kind of had my mind set on this is the team (Team New Balance Boston) because I think it's so special what Mark does finding diamonds in the rough. Just from following the team and seeing both Elle (St. Pierre) and Heather (MacLean)’s journey and everyone else on the team. It was so cool to see how he developed– With Elle being an America East Conference athlete as well. He developed her into one of the best American distance runners of all time. She's so good. I think that he does good with underdeveloped athletes and that’s what I was. So I just knew I would fit in well on the team.

CITIUS MAG: Mark told us a really funny story of how you've developed your signature move with 400m to go. When did that start?

EMILY MACKAY: Honestly, I think it might have started in college as kind of my M.O – as Mark would call it. My college coach never wanted me to lead ever in a race. So the sit-and-kick was just how I liked to race from the back and then just send it the last 400. It's just something I've been doing for a while and something I'm pretty comfortable doing. I think there have been a few races where I've been more upfront and I’m getting used to racing in different ways because I'm not always going to be able to do that. Especially in super tactical championship races. I'm still learning and figuring out my racing style for sure.

CITIUS MAG: What were you thinking in Glasgow when you were in that final and made that move?

EMILY MACKAY: It was definitely, maybe a little bit scarier doing it. But the difference there was that I felt really good. Usually, I'm not feeling good with 400 to go.

I feel like I shouldn't be feeling good with 400m to go. So when I was checking in with myself and how I was feeling. I was like, ‘I feel too good right now and there's only 400m to go. I need to send it.’ I know how good these people are around me. I know that there are some amazing kickers in the race like Nikki (Hiltz), for example. I was like ‘This is my best shot at doing the best I can do...My best at placing the best I can is to probably try to jump the field and go right now because I shouldn't be feeling this good.’ I feel really good about where my strength is at, and honestly I kind of wanted it to be a faster race. I think that would have played to my strengths because I think I could have run a lot faster. I was kind of disappointed that I was feeling that good with 400m to go, if that makes sense. Like, obviously it was really good because I was able to kick and jump the field, but, it's not how I pictured the race going.