The U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials are set to kick off on Saturday in Orlando. Tyler Sickler will be one of the many men who will line up and compete for a chance to make the Olympic Team that will represent Team USA in Paris this summer, and he’s beyond excited.
The road to get to Orlando wasn’t easy for Sickler, who is also a ninth-grade biology teacher in California. After two cracks at attempting to make the U.S. Olympic Trials qualifying standard time, he finally broke through this past fall, which secured his spot in Orlando.
Sickler is excited for the opportunity to have a great day in Orlando, and said that he’s ready to hurt and is willing to hurt a little more than his competitors if needed. I caught up with Tyler, as he was a recent guest on the Lactic Acid Podcast. Here’s a bit of our conversation about his journey to the Trials, teaching, and the impact he hopes to have.
Dom: The Olympic Trials are here. How are you feeling?
Tyler: Getting here was kind of the goal – to qualify for the Olympic Trials. This whole last year, I wasn’t really working, I wasn’t really doing anything else. I was training every single day, two to three times a day. And just giving this my best shot, after two attempts. The first one, I ran 2:18.23. So I missed the standard by 23 seconds. And then I had to come back and train for four more months, and then came back and ran a little over a minute underneath the standard. So I definitely got it the second time. But now where I’m at, I’m just trying to hold it all together. I’m pretty banged up from all the miles that I’ve done this year, but super excited, feeling pretty good about my fitness.
Dom: What has the journey been like for you just to get here?
Tyler: Yeah. I mean, it kind of all started with moving back to California and writing down on paper – I got this school, I’m not going to work for most of this year and I’m just going to go for this. So I was back home and living in my parents house feeling like I’m back at square one, but just kind of like, I’m gonna be alright. I just, you know, this is like my time to do this. So, I mean, really what it was, you know, throughout the training, you’re just building confidence, like little by little, and it really wasn’t gradual. It was you feel good, you feel bad, you’re confident, you’re losing hope, you’re feeling confident again. I had a couple of races along the way, where I was doing 10k races on the track, half marathons. Some went well, some didn’t. But I had this breakout race. I flew out to Eugene, Oregon, and I had this half marathon where I dropped about three minutes from my half marathon time, going from like, a 5:11 overall per mile pace down to a 5:01. And so that was a huge confidence booster. And then it really was that race, that really got me like, I’m gonna get this, I can actually do this.
Dom: What made you get into teaching?
Tyler: So I got my master’s in stem cell research. So I was going into biotech, working in a laboratory doing research. And then part of me the whole time that in those two years, I was kind of fighting part of me, like this isn’t you, what are you doing? You’re not that kind of guy to work in a lab and just be all about that. But then I got this position at Bella Vista just coaching cross country. I don’t know how I found the time to do this. But what I would do is I finish in the lab, go home, eat a snack, and then I would drive all the way out to this high school and coach, and I loved it, man. And at that point I had never coached before. And when I was coaching there, I was like, this is cool, I’m sharing my knowledge, I’m helping kids out. I just felt useful. So then I guess the idea came up in my head that coaches don’t make a lot, so then what else is there? And then teaching came up. Having a master’s degree kind of helps with the teacher pay, but I mean, I might try out teaching. So then as soon as I graduated, a week later, I moved up to Reno, and they had this one year accelerated program to get my credential. I got it, and started teaching right away.
Dom: So how are you able to balance it and how have you found your purpose in teaching? How’s it helped you headed into Orlando, especially throughout the build and all of that?
Tyler: I’m a young guy, I share my education, I share my running with them. I think for a lot of them, some of these kids, I don’t know if they grew up in a single parent household, and maybe they don’t have a dad around, they don’t have a mentor, or anyone like that in their life. So I kind of take it upon myself to be that person for them. Because when I was in high school, my coach was my mentor. Now, he’s a really good friend of mine. And he’s, he’s actually been the one that’s been coaching me throughout this marathon and has become a really good friend. But for me, going to Orlando, it’s like, I got these kids, they’re gonna ask about how it went. And I can’t skimp out on my training now – these kids are asking about my running. I told them I’m going to Orlando and I’m gonna be out for a week, you guys are gonna have a sub, and they’re saying “make sure you tell us about it when you get back.” They’re excited about it. So there’s some of that pressure of knowing the role that I want to play for them as their teacher, and for some, maybe it’s like a positive mentor for them. And to be that person, I got to do these things, I got to show what it looks like to be hardworking, I got to show what it looks like to be focused, to put something down and get work done. These are all these skills I want to teach them.
Dom: What excites you about Saturday? What is it that you’re bringing with you that tells you that I can have my best day?
Tyler: For me looking at Saturday, it’s all exciting. There’s no nerves, I’m going to have a good race. I get to go out there and run against all the best marathoners in the country and just have a blast. I don’t know what the results are going to be, but my goal is to get as many jersey’s as I can and rank up as high as I can. That’s how I’m looking at it.
