The Victory Lap: Jacob Thomson🏆

We’d like to welcome Jacob Thomson to this week’s Victory Lap interview. Jacob’s in his fourth year as a professional and heading into his marathon debut in Chicago with personal bests of 3:57/13:28/27:57. He chats with us about his journey to where is now and the motivations behind decisions that have gotten him here. Jacob also details his passion for all things Kentucky, and his youth running camp and club team that he has just created this past year. 

I know you started your college career at NC State and transferred to Kentucky. What were some of the motivations behind that decision and what lessons do you think you learned about yourself from that process?

I spent two years at NC State and three at Kentucky. Coming out of high school I visited Oregon, Colorado, Florida State and NC State. I didn’t even visit Kentucky. And quite frankly, they weren’t very good at all, even though they were right down the street from me. 

They had just gotten new coaches during my senior year — Jason Dunn and Edrick Floreal got there, and they quickly started changing around the spirit side of the program, but the distance stuff still wasn't that good yet, so I didn’t even take a visit. 

I went to NC State, and the main motivation for transferring was I felt like I wasn't really getting to the level that I wanted. Coming out of high school, I was racing against McGorty, Langang, and Ben Saarel, and all these guys ran really well freshman and sophomore year. And I was starting to get a little impatient that I wasn't running that great. They were starting to rack up All-Americans and stuff like that at a really young age, which, you know, now, in retrospect, I just needed a little bit more time to develop, I think. 

In high school — because Kentucky high school running is not that great, or at least it wasn't at the time — I took a lot of pride in trying to put Kentucky on the map. While I was still at NC State, a couple of guys started running pretty well for Kentucky, starting to compete for SEC titles. And I really wanted to go be a part of that versus, you know, just being another redshirt freshman out of a stack of others. There were a lot of really talented guys at NC State, which was great, but I wanted to go to win conference titles and stuff like that. I just didn't see that really happening if I stayed put. 

I’d say in most situations the athlete ends up running pretty well after they transfer. In so many cases even a year or two makes things so much more clear for your individual needs in college. 

I think you saw that pretty much with Nikki too, right? They transferred to Arkansas and started running really well there.

Yeah for sure, Nikki had a major navicular surgery with screws early on, so their fitness wasn’t quite where it could have been, but ultimately a change of schools was the best decision. 

Yeah it kind of put me in a little bit of a spot where I felt like I needed to make this work. Everybody knew who I was at Kentucky because I came from there. If I would have gone up in flames at NC State, nobody would have ever noticed, but people were definitely going to notice if that were to have happened at Kentucky. I wouldn’t call it pressure, but I kind of thrived after that. I think that worked really well for me.

 What would you say your best performances were in college? 

So I actually had success really quickly once I transferred. I was a red shirt sophomore that outdoor season and I won the SEC 5k-10k double over some good Alabama guys like Ryan Walling and some good Arkansas guys as well. And then I got 6th at NCAAs. So I made it work pretty well, pretty quickly. But as far as PRs, I ran 3:57, but that was the summer after I graduated, 7:53 over 3k, 13:41 over 5k, and 28:40 for 10k. 

Was your time at BAA similar to your NC State scenario, or what do you think you needed as an individual that made you decide to move out to Flagstaff?

My time at BAA was kind of interesting because I was there for two and a half years, and we had a couple of coaching changes. There were some personnel changes in the organization. There were a lot of athlete changes. So we never really had a super consistent thing going. 

When I went there I was under the impression I was going to be one of the best 5k-10k guys in the country and I was going to run these crazy fast times. I think that was my hope. And I guess it sort of parallels the NC State thing a bit, you know. I did PR, I did run faster. 

I don't know if I was better competition-wise, though. I was just getting my butt kicked a lot in races, kind of like realizing what professional running was. This is a totally different thing. It took me a couple of years to adapt to the college level, now I guess it could take a couple of years to adapt to this professional level because everybody is so, so good on the professional scene. 

Do you think the turnover affected your performances at all? I’m just asking because I’ve seen administration or coaching changes happen that really influence performance, and in the pro world, there's rarely any forgiveness in contracts, regardless of outside influences.

I think the coaching changes were the biggest parts. The coach that's still there right now, Mark Carroll and I got along great. I think if he would have been the coach when I came out of college and I would have worked with him for three years, maybe I would still be at the BAA — I really liked his training. He’s kind of a no bullshit Irish guy. But just the timing of everything didn’t really work out.  

My contract went through the end of the year, and I actually did have renewal on the table, but I was ready to get out of there. I was ready to get out of Boston. I think I needed a change, kind of similar to when I left NC State. I needed to do things my own way and I didn't see my career continuing to go forward unless I made some type of change. 

And that's when I decided to move to Flagstaff. And I think it was the best decision I could have made. Similar to the thing at NC State, where I could have  banged my head against the wall and tried to get better as much as I could in that situation and faded out — I don’t think somebody would ever notice. But if I go to Flagstaff and I'm going to be around all the top runners and agents and coaches and stuff come through, this town is going to put some pressure on me and I’ll have some expectations to get the most out of myself.

Who is coaching you right now?

Hakon DeVries, who was my coach at Kentucky.

Do you have a training group out there in Flagstaff or are you just trying to sync up with all the other solos out there?

That's the one good thing about not being affiliated with a training group or having a contract where I have to train certain people. As you know, Flagstaff is a city where almost every good American and really good international runner comes through for training camps or extended stays or even to live here full-time. I've been here seven months now and I've gotten to work with a lot of really good athletes and coaches. But most frequently I work out with Simbassa and Matt Llano and John Raneri. Now that I’m focusing on the marathon I’ve done a ton of work with those guys.

Was your plan to always debut this year in the marathon? It seems like you had an increase in longer races last year, building you up for this fall. 

I did not know I was going to do this, for a fact, until probably the Trials. I think I always knew I would end up in the marathon eventually, but I didn't really know when. Actually, when Covid hit last year and the marathons all got moved to the fall at first before they eventually ended up getting totally canceled, I was going to try to run Boston. At the time I was training on the Boston course a lot and I was doing my long run on the course and doing hills. I was like, I think I could do a marathon if one of these races actually happens, like I'm gonna try to do it. 

And then they all got canceled. So I kind of just put it on the back burner to totally focus on the Trials and basically as soon as I crossed the finish line at Trials I was like, I think it's time to go run the marathon. 

American distance running has gotten so good that even if you run 28 minutes in the 10k, you know getting 17th place at the Trials, it’s not really doing me any good. That's not what I'm doing this for. Fast track times are cool but I think I'd rather go try to compete and be a top American in an event.  My goals for Chicago are to be a the top-three American. I think if you’re a top-three American at Chicago, you’re probably pretty close to the top 10 in the US. And that's something that really motivates me. I think I run way better when I'm actually competing versus on the track time trialing.

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How has your buildup been for Chicago? Has anything been surprising about the load of marathon training?

I don't think anything has totally jumped off the paper and surprised me. The buildup has been going extremely well. You know, knock on wood, I've never really had a serious injury in my entire life. I've been running 100-mile weeks since sophomore or junior year of college. I really thrive off of strength work and threshold work. And speed I was decent at but it wasn’t there at an elite level, you know, like a 1500m runner. I think my consistency has been huge. 

I think I heard Chris Derrick or somebody say this at some point. Being able to train really hard for a really long period of time, and being durable is a skill. People think of like a talented, skilled runner and you think of like Evan Jager, perfect stride going over a barrier or something. But I really think that being durable and being consistent and being able to train really hard for months on end is a talent and skill in and of itself. And that's probably my biggest asset or weapon that I'm leaning on through marathon training. 

That's awesome. What do you anticipate being the difficult parts of Chicago? Have you broken the race down into sections mentally? And what do you plan to execute in the race? 

I think my plan to execute will actually be nice because Matt Llano, who I've been training with, is the pacer for that 2:10 group, so that’ll give me a little bit of comfort just knowing that I work out with this guy and am used to sitting behind him. I hope I can do that for the first 30k in the race and try not to think too much. And that's really my biggest goal:to find the top American group. It’s going to be six or seven of us in that group just sitting in there. 

And I kind of break the race up into 5k chunks because you hit a table and get a bottle every 5k. I mean, once you get to 30k, that last 10k, 12k is a little bit unknown and scary, but that's something that I'm excited about seeing, what I can get out of myself deep into a race.

 I try to not talk too much about training but what have been some of the longer efforts that you've done that have prepared you for when you get to the edge of your experience?

I’d say the biggest session I did, which is 24 miles total: 3 mile warm up. Then I went 5 mile, 4 mile, 3 mile, 2 mile with a mile float in between each one, and I ended up averaging 5:02 pace. So that's 14 miles of work with all the floats around 5:55 pace, that’s an 18 mile session plus three up and three down. It was nice to get practice taking fluids at that pace and effort.

So the fluids thing — marathoners can treat it like it doesn't matter or treat it like nuclear science, where are you on that spectrum?

I pay quite a bit of attention to it, because obviously it’s something I've never done before, even on long runs. During track training, I would do 20 mile long runs, but I'm not taking fluids or anything during it. Unless I stop and go to the bathroom and hit a water fountain or something like that. 

So it's definitely something that's totally new. And I knew it was important because, I mean, they've learned so much about it from cycling and the breaking 2:00 project, like all the research they did. They pretty much know when your body is going to shut down, where glucose levels and all this stuff are going to be and when. Basically, you gotta keep your tank topped off or you're going to run into a wall at some point, which is usually around that 90-100-minute mark. 

You don't need to take any fuel for a half marathon, but for a marathon, you definitely do. I’ve practiced a lot. Tried a couple different things. Nick Willis from Tracksmith actually introduced me to a really good resource in Geoff Burns. He’s got a bunch of degrees and has studied a bunch of endurance sports and all this stuff, and he kind of broke it down for me and basically said, “it's really simple, you just have to get it right.” 

It's one of the things you can really mess up but it shouldn't be too complex or you don't want to make a huge deal out of it. You're probably going to drop a bottle, something's going to happen, don't freak out. But I've been practicing pretty much every long run and even in workouts because taking a bottle at 6 minute pace is pretty easy, but taking a bottle at 4:50 pace is very hard. I’ve been working on maintaining pace and rhythm and all that stuff just because those are in my control.

Do you have any plans after Chicago?

My plans after Chicago are to run the 25k Championships, and then I'm actually going back home to Kentucky where I've started a youth running camp. We'll probably have 40 to 50 kids and I'm going to go coach them in-person with my business partner, Thomas Cave. 

That's how I’ve been able to support my running without a contract. We started this coaching business and we've kind of built all these branches out of it. So like we're putting on a race in November. We're having a youth club team that's eighth graders. I've got high schoolers all over the country and we have a big running camp in the summer as well. This past year was the first one.

That's Bluegrass Running Camp?

Yup, Bluegrass Running Camp. That's sort of another thing, kind of going back to why I transferred to Kentucky — Kentucky high school running, if you look at Indiana and Illinois and Ohio and Virginia, all these states that are right next to it, they're really good very consistently. 

I think Kentucky has maybe one or two Footlocker qualifiers in the last, I don’t know, eight years since I was there, so I really take a lot of pride in trying to help that community, the running community. Basically everything I do through the business is to help Kentucky runners. I coach high school kids all over online, but the majority of our kids are in Kentucky. There wasn't a training camp in Kentucky. If you wanted to go to a running camp, you had to drive down to Tennessee or fly to North Carolina or just something that was eight hundred to a thousand bucks for a training camp. So we basically came in and said, our price is half of that. We got a hundred and thirty one kids in our first year. It was incredible.

That’s amazing. 

Yeah, it really is, because it all happened in like four months. We’re also putting on a postseason 2-mile because there's no races for a month from the state meet until NXN or Footlocker. I think we’ll have 300 or 400 kids out of that. 

We’re also focused on building out this youth club to compete at USA Juniors. I want to get them out of state — take them to get their butts kicked by a team from New York or something like that. I think a lot of people stay in their bubble and they don't realize that they can be really good too, like kids from, Illinois and Ohio and other states are so good. If I can expose them to that really early and get the best runners in the state at a young age to be friends and do cool downs together and talk about training and stuff like that, it's just really going to help them two, three, four years down the road and hopefully get them to be good enough to go run in college. 

Dude that’s so fucking cool. How did it start?

It started as an accident during Covid. One kid just hit me in the DM’s like, hey, my track season canceled, you happen to be from my hometown. I never met him before. And he asked me if I could give him some workouts. And he went from running 9:54 in the 2-mile, — which, you know, in Kentucky that probably scores points at the state meet. — to running 9:14 six months later. I think he just ran 15:02 and is he's looking at a lot of really good schools that probably wouldn’t be offering him scholarships six months ago. 

And I enjoy it. I mean, it’s growing really quickly which is exciting. And if you really want to know why I left the BAA, or why I was able to leave the BAA, it was the coaching business. I was making more on the coaching business than I was from my contract. So I was like, I don't need to stay here in Boston to survive anymore. If I want to set myself up to have the best chance at success, where is that? Let's go to Flagstaff. 

We’d like to thank Jacob for joining us this week and wish him the best of luck in his debut marathon in Chicago on October 13th. Follow his training and coaching on Instagram, Twitter, and Strava and be sure to check out Bluegrass Running Camp!