This week we’re joined by three members of District Track Club, the professional group based in Washington D.C. and northern Virginia.

Willy Fink is a 13:17 5,000m runner and graduate of Eastern Michigan University. Jacob Dumford is a 3:59 miler and graduate of Notre Dame. They brought along their coach, Tom Brumlik, for the show as well.

The idea for this podcast came about when Willy recently pointed out on social media that there is an impressive crop of elite milers from the state of Ohio with 10 active runners who’ve run under 4 minutes in the mile. All three of these guys have deep Ohio roots and strong Ohio pride, so of course, we got right into discussing why Ohio may or may not be “the Mile State.”

After a healthy debate on the state’s mile prowess, we also covered which Midwest stereotypes are right and which are wrong and a whole list of other things including training during COVID, the ups and downs of the steeplechase + Jacob running 4:00.00.

We recorded this episode remotely from four different locations, so the audio is a little fuzzy at parts, but overall it turned out fine.

Subscribe and listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify| Stitcher

 

HIGHLIGHTS

Q: What are the odds of Ohio producing the most 2021 Olympians in the most distance/middle distance events?

Tom Brumlik: Well if we’re talking middle distance, you got Drew Windle who’s made a world team, [Brannon] Kidder who’s made a world team, [Clayton] Murphy who has a medal, Colby [Alexander]’s run 3:34, Willy [Fink]’s one of the best distance runners in the U.S. right now, [Sam] Prakel’s run 3:50… so I’d say, yeah I like our odds.

Willy Fink on switching from steeple to flat events after college:

“I focused on the steeple mostly in college, which I think looking back was probably not the best plan because I’m not athletic at all. I still think it’s an awesome event; I think it’s really fun. It’s unique as far as track events go, but what brought me away from it was really just starting to run really fast in the 1500 and the 5k without the hurdles.”

Jacob Dumford on finally breaking 4 minutes this year:

“It felt good because I’d been sitting on that 4:00.00 PR for over two years. Can’t count it though… We both thought it was hilarious at the time; Tom [my coach] says it was the last time he laughed out loud.”