Cally Macumber and Chelsea Oswald were both blue chip prospects when they arrived at the University of Kentucky in August of 2009. Oswald, from Medina, Ohio, was one of the nation’s best prep cross country and track runners while at Walsh Jesuit High School in Cuyahoga, Ohio. She advanced to Foot Locker Cross Country Nationals twice, finishing 14th as a senior in 2008, and won the 5,000m at Nike Indoor Nationals in March of 2009.   At Rochester (Mich.) Adams High School, Macumber was outshined by cross-town rival Megan Goethals, now a standout at the University of Washington, but Macumber has since surpassed Goethals’ best marks at 3,000m and 6K cross country. Macumber was a three-time All-State section in cross country with a best state championships finish of third as a junior.

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Macumber and Oswald made an impact in the Southeastern Conference their first fall in Lexington, as both garnered All-SEC freshman team honors in 2009. But it has been a rocky road for Oswald in the three years since, as she has suffered several season-ending injuries and has improved on her Nike Nationals 5K time by a meager 13 seconds. Macumber has for the most part stayed healthy and progressed, but her improvement has lagged behind expectations.

This past fall, however, both Macumber and Oswald got on the right track, thanks in part to a new training regimen that involved more miles and greater intensity. Following Don Weber’s retirement after 34 years on the UK coaching staff, Hakon DeVries now heads the women’s distance program. The Wildcats made significant improvements at SEC and Southeast Regional championships. Macumber and Oswald went 1-3 at both of those meets and went on to become NCAA Division I All-Americans by finishing sixth and 37th, respectively, at nationals last November in Louisville.

During the current indoor track season, both have lowered their 3,000m bests, and they currently hold down the No. 3 and No. 10 marks on the national collegiate list. Most recently Macumber broke Valerie McGovern’s 24-year-old school record with an 8:59.98 in winning the Feb. 9 UW Husky Classic. Oswald wasn’t far back, finishing eighth in 9:06.64. The top 16 athletes in each event will advance to NCAA Division I Indoor Nationals in Fayetteville, Arkansas, March 8 and 9. Running Times caught up with Oswald and Macumber on successive phone calls in early February.

Running Times:  Both of you were clearly very accomplished runners when you arrived in Lexington. Tell me a little about your start and early years in the sport.

Cally Macumber: I started in elementary school, in third grade, and continued with track in middle school. But high school is when I really started getting serious about running. I had a great coach, Budd Cicciarelli [who stepped down this past fall after coaching 32 years at Rochester Adams HS]. He really worked us into it in a good way. Freshman year I was running only about 25 miles a week. Sophomore year I was up to 35, and by senior year I was up to 50 miles a week. I was more of a cross country girl back then, that was my favorite thing. But now I really like track.

Chelsea Oswald: I began running my freshman year of high school, originally to stay in shape for basketball. I immediately enjoyed it a lot better than basketball and excelled more at it, but I continued playing basketball until my junior year when I gave it up to focus solely on running. I knew that was what I wanted to do in college and it just took off from there.

RT: What brought both of you to the University of Kentucky?

CM: I was actually recruited by a different coach [Don Weber] and when I came here I really loved the campus and everything about the school. The team was super nice and, I don’t know, it just felt right. My parents loved the coaches and everything about it, too.

CO: I didn’t want to go too far from home, and I liked the coaches and the girls on the team. I knew I wanted to go on in a medical field, and UK has a very good medical program so that was an important deciding factor.

RT: You’ve certainly progressed while here and had some good results, but clearly everything has stepped up a notch beginning with cross country last fall. Coach DeVries has taken a different approach from what you were used to — higher volume and more intensity — and I’m wondering what you thought of it initially? And in general, was the transition and adjustment to a new coaching staff difficult or relatively easy?

CM: When we found out mid-summer we’d have new coaches it was a big surprise. We loved our old coaches, of course, but we were anxious to find out who would be coming in and it was exciting. The way we’re training now is the kind of training that I’d been wanting. It was a lot more mileage but I think we all adapted to it pretty easily and it’s worked out really well. The whole team improved a ton in cross country.

CO: You know, at first it was kind of startling but then it was really exciting because we heard that the coaches were coming here from Stanford, and I think we needed to make some changes. My freshman year of cross country I made it through the whole season without an injury but since then I haven’t made it through any other season without getting hurt, until this last fall. I think part of it was just learning how to train smarter, and coming into college you want to be the best you can and sometimes motivation can catch up with you, so you just have to find a happy medium. Once we got back here in August and started training we all could tell how much better the different training was going to make us. We started doing doubles and long runs and more core work. And we have clear goals in mind before each race now, and that really helps me a lot because I’m very goal-oriented.

RT: Was there one race or a particular point in the season at which you realized you’d reached a new level and that things were going to go really well from that point?

CM: I think it was at the Louisville Classic [on September 29]. I got second there and was really excited because it’s a big meet and Nationals would be there. I think that’s really when I started thinking more about what I wanted to do on a national level. Coach Hakon obviously was talking with Chelsea and me about it and what we wanted to accomplish, so I think that meet is when things started to change.

CO: At the beginning of the season I was coming off an injury and was a little behind and lacking a little confidence in myself. But as the meets went on I just started believing in myself more, and having Cally right next to me for workouts gave me a sense of confidence, because I knew she had been doing really well in meets, and if I could keep up with her in workouts I should be able to keep up with her in races. At SECs it was really cool when we were running 1-2 at the 3K mark and heard the announcement that we were leading. We’re always pushing each other in workouts and in races and it’s great to have a teammate right near you.

RT: You went 1-3 at SECs and then 1-3 again at the Southeast Regional, pretty remarkable. And then you got to return to Louisville for Nationals. What was your goal going in? Was it All-American (top 40)? Top 20? What were you thinking?

CM: I really had no idea how it would go because I’d never been to a national competition. If I wanted to be All-American I knew I had to be top 40 but in the back of my mind I was thinking maybe top ten. But again I had no idea what to expect. And I was really nervous but it turned out well.

RT: The indoor season has been more of the same — running at a higher level than previous track seasons and seeing your names up among the best in the country. You’ve both raced three times indoors and have set personal bests. Can you keep improving?

CM: Obviously there was a lot of momentum at the end of cross country season and we didn’t really want to take a break, but we did take a week off and then kind of picked up where we left off. I feel I can definitely improve because I’ve finished all my races feeling that I have more to give.

RT: Both of you will be back for two seasons during the 2013-2014 academic year, Cally for cross country and outdoor track and Chelsea for both indoor and outdoor track but not cross country. You’re obviously a successful training duo and must be looking forward to keeping this going a while longer, right?

CO: We both have our strengths and our weaknesses, but luckily my strengths are her weaknesses and her strengths are my weaknesses. So we definitely complement each other a lot. We’re both very competitive people, but we don’t get upset with each other if one of us does better than the other. Everyone has good days and bad days. I’m done with cross country but I’ll definitely be back and ready for action on the track.

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