Maurica Powell is Director of Track & Cross Country at the University of Washington. She specifically coaches the distance women’s team and her husband coaches the men. In 2018, Maurica coached the team to a 9th place finish which was the best finish for them since 2012.  She is off to a great start  helping develop athletes so well.Prior to the University of Washington, she was the assistant coach at the University of Oregon where she helped the women’s cross country program go from not having qualified for the NCAA champions in 5 years to being the team NCAA runner ups in 2007 & 2008 and then becoming the national champion team in 2012 & 2016.In 2016, Maurica was the  NCAA Women’s Cross Country Coach of the Year. (wait until you hear her share about their team winning the Cross Country title that year!)  In 2016 the team also went on to win the triple crown where Oregon won Cross country, indoor track & outdoor track national titles.  During her time there she coached 6 track and field individual NCAA champions, 20 cross country All-Americans, and 79 track All Americans at Oregon.  She coached some great runners during her time there including Jordan Hasay, Nicole Blood, Laura Roesler, Katie Rainsberger, Alexi Pappas, etc.Prior to coaching, Maurica had great success in her own running- she was a 6 time state champion in track in Massachusetts, ran at Stanford and has top 10 all-time marks for Stanford in indoor 800, outdoor 800 & 1500m.  She was also All-American in 2002 where she was 5th in the 1500m & indoor DMR (3rd).In this episode, Maurica and I talk about her coaching career (of course!), how she recruits, how she talks with athletes about both the simple topics AND the hard topics. I appreciated Maurica’s honesty over the course of the conversation and left wanting to go grab a a margarita with her because her energy and her laugh were just so contagious.Photo Cred: UW AthleticsWhat we talked about:Show Notes: Maurica’s Post race interview after the 2016 XC ChampionshipsVideo of 2016 Team finding out they won the XC ChampionshipsOne Flew over the Cuckoo’s NestFollow Lindsey: Lindsey on InstagramLindsey on TwitterLindsey on Facebook Join the I’ll Have Another Facebook GroupSupport the Podcast on PatreonSponsors:PrevinexCode “another” for 15% offCurrexCode “iha15” for 15% offGrit Summer Distance ProjectGRIT is a summer distance project — a virtual event meant to challenge your current distance goals, to go beyond your “normal,” to churn out miles on the hottest days of the year. To do this, you choose a distance tier (25, 75, 150, 225, or 300 miles) and complete that mileage within a 30-day span during the summer months (6/20-9/22). You choose the 30 days. Run every day, or run some of the days. Just finish the miles within a month’s time.Code “Lindsey5” for $5 offCharity Partner: The DONNA FoundationThe post Episode 268: Maurica Powell – Director of Track & Cross Country at the University of Washington appeared first on Lindsey Hein.