Week 19: Devin McClenton

Home state: Michigan
Status: Junior
Year on club: 2
College: College of Social Science
Major: Criminal Justice

Devin's favorite events are the two-hundred and four-hundred meter track races. In addition to training and working out, Devin enjoys playing basketball and football. Devin is one of three sprinting coaches this year on the club. He, with the help of two other members, put together a training plan for the sprinters. After practice one day, Devin sat down with us and let us interview him for this site. Check it out below!
DM: I do go to the gym fairly often. Usually if I’m not practicing, or even days when we have practice, I try to get
in some kind of a workout in the morning, or even after practice. Especially during the summer. The summer was big for me because this season I’m actually trying to beat PRs and actually trying to get a big set goal.
RC: So what PRs are you trying to break? Or what goals do you have that you’re trying to meet this year?
DM: My biggest goal is to win Nationals in the 400. That’s a big goal.
RC: Okay, do you know what time you have do for that? Or are you just kind of looking more at place?
DM: I looked it up. I think the 0:49 was last year’s top run. I hit a 0:50 in high school, but my fastest last year was a 0:52. So I’m just getting back with the shape that I was in high school, since I had a two-year break when I was at CC. But, I think it’s something that if I actually condition and actually get into enough, I think I can actually break it. So I’ve been like really focused. I’ve been trying to get in that mind set to get that goal.
RC: Yeah, that’s awesome!
RC: So is it different being…you and Logan are kind of seen as the sprinting coaches. And this is because you guys have had a lot more experience than a lot of the distance runners have had with sprinting, so do you feel more of a responsibility of how you need to act on the team, or any responsibility toward making sure people are doing the workouts correctly or making sure that no one is getting hurt, or do you still feel just more responsibility on yourself more than for the club?
DM: It’s a little bit of both. It’s nice because we have me, Pat, and Logan. So we spread it out. We all got together to get the workouts together and everything. But I feel like it’s little bit more responsibility. I kind of like it, just because I was one of the main captains in high school, so I’m kind of used to being the person to kind of look out for everybody on the team and whatnot. So, it’s nice to have that position. I like to see my teammates do good and do well in everything. So if I can motivate them in any way I can, I think that’s cool.
RC: Do you have any sort of ways that you motivate them? Motivational speeches or any sort of thing?
DM: Scream.
RC: Oh, you scream at them. Okay.
DM: No, I don’t scream at them. I give people pep talks. They may not work sometimes, but I try my best.
RC: I mean, that’s all we can ask for, right?
DM: Exactly.
RC: How do you stay motivated if you’re busy motivating everyone else?
DM: Basically just by seeing how good people I’ve ran with in the past, seeing how good they are doing. One of my friends who went to Kellogg (which is a school within Wyoming), his name is TJ. My senior year, he was a junior. And he beat me in the 400 at our conference. I think he ran a 0:49 or a 0:48, I think, and that’s as a junior in high school. So that’s pretty fast. So he was a big motivator for me. So whenever I saw him do good, it was one of those “I need to kick it into gear” and I would basically try to go on that same level as him. So it’s kind of like, if I see teammates doing good, it kind of motivates me to also be up at that same level too, so that’s why. I mean, I want people to do good as well, but it motivates me to get up and do as good as them.
RC: So that has kind of carried over to running club? So when you see people on the team doing well, it helps you too?
DM: Yeah.
RC: That’s cool! And then, a lot of people kind of view us as…I mean, we call ourselves the running club. So, is it weird…what do you do during the fall, I guess is what I’m trying to ask. Is it different because you aren’t necessarily competing in the meets with the rest of the club? Or, are you okay with that and you still come to practice and social events and everything?
DM: I’m okay with it. Just the fact that we have the social events and everything. It can still get sprinters if sprinters are interested in joining. But we don’t actually start track, of course, until the spring. The social events and everything are really nice because you can still get together with people, and still meet everybody, and still build actual friendships. So when spring starts, you still know everybody. Despite them being distance runners, you still know people, so you’re not coming into the practices blind, like you don’t know anybody. That’s kind of how it was the first year. I kind of got to know a couple of people—despite me not doing cross country—going into track. I knew a few people, and from there I expanded into knowing a lot of people. So that’s how that worked, and then this year since me and Logan were the sprinting chairs, we tried to actually host workouts for sprinters during the fall. And I think that worked out a little bit. We didn’t have a ton of people show up because as the fall semester went on, I think people kind of didn’t come out as much because it started getting cold or whatever, but we still had a fair amount of people  come. And I think that it’s nice to have that balance: to have sprinting practice once or twice a week so sprinters can come and get a little bit of conditioning in so once the actual season starts, they can come jump right into it. I still felt engaged. I still came to cross country workouts, despite me being a sprinter. It actually helps doing the four eight-hundreds. I mean, you can always put on endurance, so I think doing a cross country work out is really big for sprinters too.
RC: Well especially just as base, maybe, for you guys, so that way, like you said, you can just jump into the sprinting season and have something. This would be instead of just coming off of the holidays and everything and being like “oh, maybe I shouldn’t have eaten all of that.”
DM: oh, yeah, just chilling at home eating a lot. I basically came back. But yeah, if you come straight into the spring, you’re going to be unconditioned. So actually coming to the cross country workouts will really get you conditioned. If you can’t carry it on during break, at least run a little bit. You could then come to actual track and then be somewhat in shape.
RC: And then what is your favorite story from running club?
DM: My favorite for running club probably was Nationals last year. Our 4x4 team, we took seventh overall. Which might not be great, but with all of the other teams in there, we still placed All-American, so that was cool. And just the fact that everyone…I’m not sure that everyone PR’d but our relay team as a whole that year PR’d. And just seeing everyone on the team do really well and just all of us as a team did good. It was just fun. When we all got done, we were just all peppy and happy about what time we got. I think it was a 3:32, which was easily the best time we had had all year. So I really liked that. And also it was a base to carry on until the next year, knowing that we were able to hit a 3:32. And now that we have more people this year to even build on the team, depending on who wants to do it and who doesn’t want to do it, I think that we can easily beat 3:32 this year.
RC: Who was on last year’s team for Nats?
DM: It was me, Phil…Phil! I don’t know what he said. But anyway, it was me, Phil [Baeza], Jaaz [Catterall], and Crek [Andrew Crechiolo]
RC: And since no one’s graduated, do you think that team will still be a thing if everyone is interested in doing it, or do you think it might change up a little bit this year?
DM: I’d hope so. It may change up a little bit because we have a couple of new guys like Chris [Keyes] and Denzel [Harris]: they’re really good four-hundred runners too so that may just depend on who gets the four best times which would be the top spot. If anything, I see it as motivation to get the times.

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