Podcast: Episode 169 with Fred Huxham

Mario Fraioli | July 26, 2021

“If you get me talking about things that happened in college or I think about races in college I can just spiral in my own head and get frustrated and kind of disappointed with myself in the way things turned out. It’s definitely in the back of my mind. I would like to prove to myself that I do belong, whether it be at the NCAA level or the professional level, I just believe inherently that I am talented enough to do it. I just have to be patient and let it kind of come to me rather than go searching for it…I think Peachtree, although it’s just one result and doesn’t mean all that much in the grand scheme of the running world, it has meant a lot for me and validating what I’ve been doing for the last year and half, two years.”

This is Fred Huxham’s first podcast and I am super excited to introduce him to you. Fred, who is 25 years old, just placed second at the Peachtree Road Race on July 4 in 28:45. That race was the 10K national championships and he finished just two seconds behind Sam Chelanga and a few places ahead of Galen Rupp, Jake Riley, and Abdi Abdirahman, the three men who will represent the United States at the Olympic Marathon in Tokyo.

In this conversation, we talked about Peachtree, how it went down, and what that performance means to Fred at this point of his career. He told me how he ended up in New Hampshire, training with Ben True and Dan Curts, and what the next few months look like for him from a competitive standpoint. We talked about his high school career at Redwood in California and his relationship with coaches Laura and Jake Schmitt—both of whom I’ve had on this podcast, so check out those episodes if you haven’t already. Fred described the process of overcoming periods of frustration and disappointment during his collegiate career, explained why he’s got a chip on his shoulder, how he uses that to his advantage, and a lot more.

There is no sponsor for this week’s show but if you’d like to support my work directly, you can become a member on Patreon at themorningshakeout.com/support, where, for as little as a buck a week you can help keep the morning shakeout sustainable and also gain access to some exclusive content like The Weekly Rundown, my Patreon only podcast that I co-host with my friend Billy Yang, the occasional “emergency pod,” and other perks that pop up from time to time. A big thank you to all of you who are already members—your support means so much to me and I cannot thank you enough for it.

Fred Huxham: Instagram

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Music and editing for this episode of the morning shakeout podcast by John Summerford.