February 16, 2022
My guest for this episode is Michigan State sixth-year star Morgan Beadlescomb. This past weekend at the Windy City Invitational, most people’s attention was on Cooper Teare and Cole Hocker’s attempt to break Bernard Lagat’s indoor mile American record of 3:49.89. They fell just shy as they lowered their personal bests to 3:50.17 for Cooper and 3:50.35 for Cole. Behind them was one of the biggest surprises from the weekend. Beadlescomb not only broke four minutes for the first time in his career but he ran 3:52.03 for the fourth-fastest time in NCAA history. Beadlescomb also ran 7:43.22 last month to be the top collegian in the Millrose Games men’s 3,000m which was stacked with pro talent. In this episode, we discuss his breakout, why he was overlooked despite being 6th place at last year’s Olympic Trials 5,000m final, his early thoughts and plans for the NCAA indoor championships and coming from a small town of 4,000 people in Michigan.
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SHOW NOTES AND NOTABLE QUOTES
CITIUS MAG: How did you get yourself into this race?
Morgan Beadlescomb: I have no idea. I came into practice on Wednesday and my coach had texted me, “Are you at Jenison?” That’s our field house. I’m like, “No. Should I be? Did I miss a meeting? What’s going on?” He said, “Come to my office as soon as you can.” An hour before practice, he goes, “You’re in the heat on Friday. You’re not racing on Saturday anymore.” We had been preparing to race on Saturday so we had to modify the workout. We had to hope that the workout on Monday lined up nicely. And we had to hope that the legs weren’t too tired from two workouts. It turned out fine. We adjusted very well. I think just being excited about the opportunity got me through it enough. Plus, coach’s experience knew what to do almost immediately.
CITIUS MAG: You ran a mile earlier in the season in 4:01 and closed in 55 seconds. Even after that race, what did you think you could have realistically run for the mile? To go from 4:01 to 3:52 is the part that’s having people scratch their heads and wondering why you didn’t do this sooner.
Beadlescomb: I raced a mile last year and I ran 4:13 and then I found out I had mono so I had to take some time off. By the time I came back, it was pretty much just focusing on the 5K for nationals because that’s what I wanted to do. I didn’t have time to run a 3K or mile. It was just what I wanted to focus on. Getting that national standard wasn’t even on the plan. Coming into this season, we wanted to go into that first mile and just race and bust the rust off. I think racing is a better way to do that and so does my coach rather than just going for a time trial. I waited until about 600m – probably too late to make a move and then Ben Veatch passed me on the last lap and I managed to get him back. It was more of a race to see what I can close in. This was set up to go fast. It was more of a time trial. I knew I could break four going into it. I knew I had a little bit left over after that first mile. I went in with confidence but I wanted to go in and have fun and hang on.
With 200 to go, I knew I didn’t have a whole lot left in my legs so I knew if I hadn’t made that move then, it probably wasn’t going to happen.
CITIUS MAG: Take us through that decision to make a move with 200m to go. We have the video on the CITIUS MAG YouTube channel. You came up on Cole Hocker’s shoulder and tried to make a pass. They end up responding and pull away a bit. You realized that was the guy who won the Olympic Trials and finished sixth at the Olympics. What got into you to try and do that?
(Watch at the 3:50 mark of the video below)
Beadlescomb: It’s still a race. I came in with 200 meters to go and I knew they like to go with around 150-100 meters left. I know they can move really fast. It’s not like I didn’t know who these guys were going into it. I also knew what I had left in my legs at that point. I’m still trying to sharpen up. I needed to rely more on my strength. But yeah, I came up on his shoulder. I wanted to go around Cooper as well, got stuck on the outside in the corner and they wound up pulling away from me. Being the time trial that it is, they’re going for an American record attempt and yeah I wanted to race it but I didn’t want to push Cole onto the rail. That’s not the time or place to do it. They’re going for something big and so was I so that’s not conducive to what we were trying to do. So, yeah, I did give away that inside a little bit but I don’t think it was any more harmful than it needed to be.
CITIUS MAG: I have to apologize for leaving you out of the preview of the men’s 3,000m at the Millrose Games and especially the graphic where I featured Charles Hicks (Stanford), Wesley Kiptoo (Iowa State) and Nico Young (NAU) and you ended up beating all of those guys / Young didn’t show up. You first popped on my radar the day before Millrose Games when I overheard Nick Willis telling your coach that he’s got a special talent on his hands.
Beadlescomb: You would not be the only person. I worked out with Nick and after the race on Friday, he’s been pretty vocal on social media as well. He helped me out in New York and that was huge for me seeing my way around the Armory and finding my way.
It is what it is. I was left out of a lot of race previews. I was left out of race previews on Friday. I was a 4:01 guy. There were people from Michigan who thought I was pacing.
CITIUS MAG: And then you took to Twitter and said, “Oh, I’m racing that bad boy.”
Beadlescomb: That was more popular than I thought it was going to be. I honestly just wanted to let the guy know I’m racing because he’s an announcer for a bunch of local sports and he does a lot of commentating at local meets. So I didn’t think it would really go beyond my followers and maybe his followers. And then I came back and it was like a thousand likes and I’m like, “Oh people think this is a big deal.”
CITIUS MAG: People are done sleeping on you. Now you have to move forward as a top contender for the NCAA championships but the signs for all of this success were actually around us when you finished 8th at NCAAs in 13:21 for 5K and then took sixth at the Olympic Trials. Where did you want to take things from there? Why did you decide to go back to Michigan State?
Beadlescomb: I didn’t know if I wanted to go pro after the Olympic trials. I actually had a job lined up. I had accepted a job offer in South Carolina to start in the fall starting August. And I called them when I qualified for the Trials and I’m like, “Hey, I’m not going to be there. I’m going back to school, I’m going to be in East Lansing.”
Having the opportunity to come in for a sixth year and get a free master’s degree was pretty big. I knew I could do it in a year. I already had some credits. I knew that competing more and getting my name out there a little bit more would be really advantageous. So I decided to come back as a collegiate and maybe get a maybe a better deal or get with a team that hadn’t been looking at me that I was a better fit for after the trials.
I didn’t get a whole lot of attention from pro teams or even agents immediately after the Trials. It wasn’t until the fall, so that kind of swayed my decision. Now I have the time to look at all of the options and see what’s what and where I could go while not making any super rash decisions – all while still getting a master’s degree.
CITIUS MAG: What are you studying and what’s the job you turned down?
Beadlescomb: I was going to be a research and design engineer at Michelin in Greenville, South Carolina. That was a pretty nice gig, but I got it. I got to take advantage of running while I cam.
CITIUS MAG: I know you might say that the best moments are ahead but what’s been your favorite moment of being part of this team so far?
Beadlescomb: It’s crazy because those moments are still coming. It keeps getting better. We have such a fun group and we’re just talking about it at practice yesterday after the workout. (Coach Aaron) Simoneau just goes, “This is probably the most fun group of guys that we’ve ever had.” I thought Millrose was a great experience but being in Chicago and having “Go green! Go white!” chant going from 800 meters was insane. And then when I finished, I got last but they still handed me the Michigan State flag and I did a victory lap with it. And I would say that’s one of my top moments since I’ve been here.
But my second year, we won our regional. We were kind of struggling to find our footing a bit in cross country and then we got second in the Big Ten, which is a race that we should have been able to win. And we came in and we won a regional and made it to nationals. It was a race that we finally put it together. That’s very high up in my memories.
Gosh, there’s just there’s so many it’s hard to choose one, but most of my best and my favorite memories since I’ve been here have not been the individual races where I’m alone or even just with a small group of guys. It’s when we’re all there and competing together. We all have each other’s back and we’re all doing stuff together.
CITIUS MAG: Looking ahead at the NCAA Indoor Championships, you’re sitting atop the mile list. Notre Dame’s Yared Nuguse just set the NCAA 3,000m record at Boston University. You have a hard decision on your hands coming up as to whether to run the mile or the 3K or the DMR. Where is your head right now?
Beadlescomb: Yeah, nothing is set in stone, but we are going for a DMR qualification this weekend in Indiana. I want to be on our DMR team. I want to be our miler. I do want to race the 3K so that double is definitely there. As I said, my favorite memories have been with the guys. I think I have to do the DMR if we qualify and I really want us to qualify. If we do, I think it’s going to be the DMR/3K double. That’s kind of been the plan. 3K has been the plan. I’ve raced pretty much only 5Ks at nationals since I’ve been in college. I showed my range a little bit outdoors last year with an 800m so we decided for indoors, we’d take a step back to the 3K and see how that goes. And I think so far it’s going pretty well.
CITIUS MAG: When you look at the competition specifically. If Yared decides the 3K and DMR as well, that’s going up against the NCAA record holder. You fared well against some professionals in New York City. He’s an Olympian. You can go into that race being the underdog.
Beadlescomb: Yeah. I have a lot of respect for Yared. I think he’s really talented. His ability to win from the front and run fast from the front is insane but I don’t think he’s unbeatable. Even if I do run the DMR and he doesn’t – which I don’t see happening – and we go head-to-head in the 3K, I think we can still prepare for that fast race. If it’s tactical, he’s a 1,500m specialist. I don’t mean to put a label on him without knowing but I mean he did go to the Olympics for the 1,500 so I think it’s pretty safe to say he’s a 1,500m specialist. If it’s a sit-and-kick, it might play into his hands but I have to prepare for that as well as a race that he’d probably make go, if it goes fast. It’s just about going into practice and going into workouts planning for all possibilities and preparing for that but understanding that he is beatable – as is every guy in the NCAA, as am I.
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Chris Chavez
Chris Chavez launched CITIUS MAG in 2016 as a passion project while working full-time for Sports Illustrated. He covered the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and grew his humble blog into a multi-pronged media company. He completed all six World Marathon Majors and is an aspiring sub-five-minute miler.