Cal Bear sophomore Michael Coe, a former high school mile juggernaut, has set his goals high and looks for this big outdoor track season to reach them. Training under Coach Tony Sandoval he looks to make the 1,500-meter final at the US Olympic Trials.

Did you do anything other thing other than the 3K this past weekend?

Yeah, I ran Friday night in the DMR. I anchored and ran the mile relay leg.

Did you guys hit the provisional time?

We hit the provisional time, 9:38. We were a little disappointed with that. I ran like four-flat for my split, but it wasn't enough. We had some trouble with hand offs early on and in the first 1,200 we didn't do as well as we wanted to. It happens.

Does it look like you're going to be able to get in?

No, I don't think so. Right now were are sitting about 10th. But I think at Notre Dame there are going to be some DMRs that will go faster than ours. We aren't expecting to make it. I don't think we are going to take a team there, that will be too many race weekends in a row. Even if we did make, we wouldn't be that fit to run at nationals.

So, even if you did make it, you wouldn't go...ranked 10th or so?

If we would have got in now, we definitely would have gone. We just don't see it as worth it to at qualify this weekend's last chance meet.

Are you calling it an indoor season and looking outdoors?

Yeah, I think so. Which is fine. I mean indoors is cool, it's fun to run fast, but it's really just a training ground to get ready for the outdoor season. Especially this year, since it's an Olympic year. We really want to peak in June. Late May or June.

Hey, you're the one who brought it up, can you talk about your goals come the late outdoor season?

I want to make the Trials in the 1,500. That's my simple, straight-forward goal. I don't care if I lay an egg in my prelim heat and get killed in the finals. Just to have that experience there would be fine. That would be big and helpful for 2012. I figure it would take about 3:41 mid, sometimes 3:42 low, you can get in. It would take something equivalent to a sub-four minute mile. I think I can do it. I'm feeling good right now. The type of training I've had so far, I'm encouraged.

Can you talk about that training and how are you setting things up to have that kind of outdoor season?

I did a couple good workouts a couple weekends ago. I did a solid 1,500 workout where I surprised myself because I was battling a little knee injury about a month ago. I thought I was going to have to be playing catch up all indoor season. Then it got better and my fitness was better than I thought it was. I ran a 4:03 mile at the Husky Meet, like three weeks ago, then, like I said, got some good 1,500 workouts, and split four flat and 7:59 in back-to-back days this weekend. I think I'm on the right track. I don't think my 7:59 will get me into nationals either, I think the cut off is about 7:56. So, I'll probably take the next four weeks to get some solid training in before outdoors.

Do you have any specifics on that training?

I haven't spoke to Tony (Sandoval) yet, but I know he has a good plan for me. He basically just said we will be working hard, doing some hill work combined with good track intervals to get the speed up. It's a combination of things. I've just got to stay healthy. That's the key.

Have you had any injuries since you've been in college?

Nothing serious, where I'd say I lost a lot of training. Every runner gets this and that, and they have to work on it. I've been pretty good about staying healthy. I usually get little calf injuries early, that way when championship season comes around I'm ready to hit it hard and race hard. The worst one I had was over a month ago, with my IT Band. I had some issues for about two weeks. Then they just kind of went away. I credit it to my trainers and I work hard to stay injury free. I'm not just resistant to injury. A lot of runners don't take care of themselves as well as they should and that's why a lot of them are more prone to injuries.

What do you do specifically that keeps you injury free?

There's a lot of stretching and icing. But I would say stretching is the key, like little static stretching. But dynamic stretching as well. I did Yoga once a week during the cross country season. I think that helps. I became more flexible in a lot of groups that you might not think are important for running. And also when you feel something coming up, using your trainers to give you rehab exercises. I do those faithfully, not just half-assed. Little things like that really make a difference.

I'm sure the girls don't mind you doing Yoga either.

(Laughs) Yeah. Definitely. There are other reasons to do Yoga too.

There was an article about your fellow Californian runner, AJ Acosta, having trouble adjusting to college, did you have any hard times adjusting?

Yes, it was a tough transition. No question. I think the running part came a lot later than I thought it would. The whole transitioning to the lifestyle, I adapted to pretty quickly. I think academically, I prepared myself pretty well for doing things on my own. But, as for running, it was really tough for me my first season. I wasn't sure, coming in, if I was going to redshirt or run straight up. Tony decided to throw me in there and I thought I was ready to go. My cross country season was just a disaster. There's no other way to put it. I ran like crap. I didn't dwell on it, it just kind of humbled me. The long process of getting used to the longer distance in cross country, because it's like twice as far as in high school and then letting the training system come to me. The training program here is a little bit more sophisticated than it was in high school and it takes a little while to adapt to. Once I did I started to realize the progress I made since last track season and this cross country season, I started to feel like my old self again. And this year, in indoors, I've definitely seen signs of my former self from high school.

Even though you don't have a qualifier to go to nationals, would you still consider this a great indoor season?

It was good. I wouldn't go as far as to say it was great because we didn't get into nationals. That's a little bit of a bummer. I was never really aiming to get into nationals in the 3,000. The one I was trying to get in was the DMR. That was our goal, to get in the distance medley. I only had so much control over that because it's a team event. We just didn't have our best day and that's the way it goes. I feel really well about the way I've been running personally. So, yeah, I would say I'm right where I want to be. At the end of this track season...I kind of realized that indoors doesn't really mean that much. It's just fun and games and outdoors is what people really remember. I'm hoping to really improve, because there are some really good 1,500 runners that I have to run against this year. I definitely have my work cut out for me with PAC-10 and regionals and obviously the higher level.

You're up to the challenge?

Oh, yeah! Definitely. I'm ready to go.

Are you a Laker fan?

I'm a huge Laker fan. I don't think there's a bigger Laker fan than me.

Have you got to go to a lot of games?

Yeah, I've been to about five. I went to a Warriors-Lakers game last year, because it's like 15 minutes away. That was a lot of fun.

When are you guys supposed to get Andrew Bynum back?

I don't know, man. They're playing well without him. I say give him his rest until he's really ready to come back. They seem to be doing fine without him, then when they get him back they're the best team.

I'm a Laker fan myself, but let's talk about the PAC-10, how would you say it is to run in that competitive conference?

The 1,500 is so stacked this year it's not even funny. Some people might get scared from that and dread it, but for me I look at that as an opportunity. I think it's the best conference there is in all of sports. I thrive on the challenge. Being able to compete this year against guys like Russell Brown, Garret Heath, AJ Acosta, (Mike) McGrath...and I've got some good mile teammates myself. It's pretty cool. Then in cross country it's one of the toughest conferences too.

There's not really a bad team out there.

No. And pretty much everybody from this year's PAC-10 finals is coming back. It's amazing. That's why you've got to step up your game. It will be good at regionals for nationals. I'll be used to running at a high level.

What are you doing when you're not running? Hopefully not doing school work.

Umm...hopefully not school work (laughs)? Yeah. I do have a lot of that. I hang out with my teammates a lot. We're really good friends at Cal. I don't know about other schools if they get along like we do. But we do everything together. We'll hang out, go to movies, have parties. This and that. We're just a really close family. I live with three guys from the team and we like to go out, do random things, and have a good time. We don't let running stress us out, because running is just running. We spend enough time worrying about that.

Can you give me a crazy story from your running history?

At Cal, we like to do a lot of fun, random competitions with each other. Like how many burritos we can eat in an hour, or in track terms, we create events like the 800m steeplechase and the distance decathlon. The one that stands out the most though is the annual "Downhill mile" that David Torrence created a couple years ago. We run a full mile down Bancroft in Berkeley at like 2 a.m. in the morning. It's pretty fun because we get pretty much the entire distance track team to come out and help out with video taping, lights, monitoring cars, etc. The funnest part is that it's so late, so people walking out at night look at you really weird like, "what are you doing running right now?" But I guess Berkeley is known for weird people anyway.