Posted 9/30/05
UW-Platteville's Tyler Sigl is a sophomore from Seymour who is already an all-American in cross country and track. He has won his first two races of the year, the UW-Whitewater Invitational and the 411-man Griak Invitational at the University of Minnesota.
When do you usually like to take the lead in a race?
"I usually like to take the lead after 5K (5,000 meters of an 8,000-meter race) and let other people do the work of setting the pace. I can feed off them and see what pace the race will be at and how good the race will be."
You won the UW-Whitewater Invitational in the first meet of the year. When did you take the lead?
"At Whitewater, I pretty much took the lead the whole way through. It was a different experience. It was great coming in knowing I was in that good of shape and good take the lead right away."
What kind of shape did you get into this summer?
"This summer I did a lot of mileage work. Usually in high school I wouldn't do a lot of mileage. Last summer I ran maybe two and one-half hours per week, and this summer I ran about seven and one-half hours per week (translating into about 70 miles per week). It was a big jump."
What kinds of things do you think about when you run?
"It's pretty much a stress reliever. If I have any troubles, I can think them out during the run. If something big is coming up, I can focus on that, trying to keep my mind occupied."
You've had extraordinary success in a year plus a month, basically. Has it surprised you how much success you've had early on?
"Oh yeah. I wasn't expecting this at all. In high school, I was OK, but what Coach (Tom) Antczak has done is unbelievable. I wasn't expecting any of this until maybe my senior year."
Has this forced you, in a good way, to re-evaluate your goals?
"When I started off, I wanted to be an all-American. Now I want to possibly be the national champion. Right there is an adjusted goal already."
What do you have to do to take those next steps?
"The next steps are keep listening to coach, keep working out and keep pushing myself to the max and see how far I can go."
What's the best advice coach has given you?
"Don't know better. If you don't know, during a race, the people who are racing with you, you're better off. If I don't know I'm running with the national champion, I'll just go out and run with him as long as I can. If I know who the other runners are, I may not think I can run with them. So I don't know any better."
Interview by SID Paul Erickson