Katie Mackey: Keeping it in the Family
By Jessica Gabriel
(Twitter: @jessicadgabriel)
Long before Katie Mackey was even born, her father made a
pact to himself. In 1977, while still in high school, Kevin Follett decided he
would run 100,000 miles by the time he turned 50. The discipline and meticulous
focus he applied to this goal would carry him through the next three and half
decades. He is now 54 years old, and just 5,040 miles away from breaking a
barrier most of us will only see on a car odometer.
I can say that with confidence because Mr. Follett has
laboriously catalogued every mile of his journey. Every single step is
accounted for: where he ran, with whom he ran, what he saw along the way. There
are graphs and spreadsheets of the day-to-day and year-to-year progressions. It
is all documented and outlined on his website, ‘
Running with Follett’.
Running, in and of itself, is a sport that easily clings to
statistics: times, heart rates, and personal bests. It revolves around exact,
wheeled-out distances. It concerns the measurement of self in addition to the
measurement of space and time. Combined with the numeric fervor of a math
teacher (which, unsurprisingly, is Mr. Follett’s profession), it becomes a detailed
accounting of one’s own life.
Katie recalls her childhood – an impatient six-year-old dragging
a lawn chair into the front yard to wait for her father to come home and begin
the daily run. This was Katie’s first exposure to running and it speaks volumes
to the type of athlete she has become.
Mr. Follett would tie his shoes up, hit the road, and make
sure he left a mile on the end to run with his young daughter. They would
sprint the last 100 meters, racing back home.
“In the beginning, he let me win. But by high school, I remember
thinking, ‘Maybe I really won that one.’”
Katie tells me, “We were that
family.” Sometimes the Folletts (Kevin, wife Karen, and daughters Katie,
Kelsey, and Kirsten) would all run together, 5-wide across a trail. But Katie has been one of his most faithful
running companions – again, a statement that can be corroborated by Mr. Follett’s
data. She is just 96 miles away from being her father’s top running partner
ever.
“He is the one who got me started on running,” Katie says,
her admiration for her father radiating from her face.
Little did Mr. Follett know that Katie would eventually
emerge as one of the most promising young talents in U.S. middle-distance
running. Her breakthrough performance came at the 2014 Payton Jordan
Invitational, where she ran a blistering 15:04.74 in the 5000m – a distance
more than triple that of her preferred 1500m.
When Katie tries to describe that race, she still seems in
shock about her performance. “I had never really thought of myself as a 5k
runner,” she says. “I didn’t know what the splits meant, I was just trying to
stay close to the leaders…when I crossed the line and saw the time, I honestly
could not believe it. My PR going into that race was 15:23.”
That moment proved pivotal in Katie’s career – she went on
to compete at the World Relays and the Continental Cup; she also placed 3rd
in the 2014 US Outdoor Championships (1500m) and 2nd in the 2015 US
Indoor Championships (1 mile).
She attributes much of her success to her husband, Danny
Mackey, who is the head coach of Katie’s training group – the Brooks Beasts
Track Club. Danny is a coach who
explains all the details of what he is doing and the reasoning behind every
step of his training process. “When I run well,” she says, “I can see the work
he put in behind the scenes to get me there.”
Of course, it isn’t always easy to be coached by your spouse.
Katie concedes that she has had to learn to be less reactive during training
and competition, and that she works on controlling her emotions. While this is part of the normal growth process
of a professional athlete, it takes on a new dimension when your husband is the
person timing you, critiquing your form, and planning out your workout and race
schedule.
Figuring out social intricacies when the team went to
Flagstaff this spring also took some time – the whole team was in one house,
and suddenly Katie was all athlete, all the time.
She counts herself incredibly lucky, however. “Every time
you are an athlete, you form a really close relationship with your coach –
whether or not it is your husband. So whenever you achieve something, it feels
like you are accomplishing a goal with them. It brings a whole new level to the
relationship.”
It is clear that Katie seeks out a sense of community in track and field. She
has surrounded herself with people who, like herself, find a family in the
sport. The Sports Marketing team at Brooks wanted the Beasts to function as a
complete, cohesive unit. “We meet 6 days a week, we practice together, and we
do all of our workouts together. We are all here to make each other better. We
want to see each other succeed.”
From her younger days running with her father through her
time being coached by Danny and training with the Beasts, Katie has found
purpose in her sport through those around her. “The meaningful part of track
and sport is building relationships with people. Otherwise, our whole lives are
about how fast you can run in a circle.
Katie ran the World standard in the 5,000m at Saturday’s
Payton Jordan Invitational with her family cheering her on. The accomplishment is
another step toward the main goal of the season: earning a bid to represent the
USA at the World Championships in Beijing. Perhaps then Mr. Follett can log
some miles in China – something tells me he would be very proud to add the
country to his list.
Follow Katie Mackey on social media:
Website: www.katie-mackey.com
Kevin Follett’s ‘Running with Follett’ website:
All photos used with permission.
