Athlete of the Week: Joe Kortenhoff

Photo by Victor Nguyen.

 

 

***This week I had the opportunity to sit down with Joe Kortenhoff who recently had the best finish of his career and was also named the MWC Performer of the Week.***

 

Sarah Grubbe: Congrats on the finish, how have you been working on speed?

 

Joe Kortenhoff: The first part of the season is about working on endurance and strength between race and recover paces. Now we’re at the part of the season where we have conference meets and so we pair that foundation of endurance with increasing times.

 

SG: You said you spend most all of your time with your team, what’s your relationship with your coach like?

 

JK: He’s very funny. What I love about him is that he can be your friend but when he’s talking about running he’s professional and very knowledgeable. He’s done it himself before. When he was in college his team at Oshkosh placed first in the nation. He was a helpful factor in choosing LU and I’m the 30th member of my family to come here.

 

SG: It seems that you also come from a family of runners. What keeps running a prevalent part of your life?

 

JK: The cool thing about running is that most runners that I know are really good students and you can be an athlete and a good student – I think it’s the regime – running shapes my personality and that compliments other areas of my life.

 

SG: Do you have any season goals?

 

JK: As a team placing as high as we can in the conference and individually I’d like to place top three in the conference. I think based on the times I’m running right now I think it’s definitely achievable. My coach has been telling us for the past week to focus on every aspect of our lives to give ourselves the best chance of finishing with our best times.

 

SG: So what do you do as soon as you cross the finish line?

 

JK: When you finish they force you to walk away so you’re out of the way which is painful because all I want to do is lie on the ground. Then I wait for the rest of my team to finish.

 

SG: Any words of wisdom?

 

JK: Go for a run I guess!