“EIGHT ONE-HUNDREDTHS of a second!”
An enthusiastic conversation with UNC coach Chris Miltenberg about the jaw-dropping, record-smashing 1–2 finish by Tar Heels Ethan Strand (7:30.15) and Parker Wolfe (7:30.23) over 3K at the Colyear-Danville Invite in early December is wrapping up. But first, he wants to make sure you know what’s the real story as far as he’s concerned.
“Even just the amount of press Ethan has gotten for breaking that record, I’m like, to me, the coolest part of the story is 8/100ths of a second,” he continues, enthralled that his seniors were separated by just that tiny fraction in their battle to the finish. “It’s the power of them doing it together. Them going at each other over the last lap, like pure joy, it’s as fun as it gets.”
Both smashed the previous Collegiate Record of 7:36.42 by more than 6 seconds, moving to Nos. 4 and 6 all-time U.S. But the irony is that chasing fast marks is precisely what the Carolina program has not typically done under Miltenberg.
“We used to joke every Monday in our meetings about never going to BU, that everybody goes there and just wants to chase times,” he confesses, “and that we were going beat all the BU people later in season when we get to the championships. That was a deep thing in our program.”
Obviously, there’s been a bit of a change of heart, but even then, “We never, ever talked about running the time. We said let’s go compete with an open mind, see what we can do and have some fun with it. Let’s beat everybody else.”
Meanwhile, with a month having passed and their current holiday break from school to soak it all in, Wolfe and Strand have absorbed the experience as a confidence builder and a stepping-stone.
“We don’t get out and time trial that often, so you only get a few chances to see what you’re really capable of, timewise,” says Strand. “I hadn’t necessarily seen that over the last two years… but now I actually get to see it on paper for once. It gives me some confidence to go out and know that, yeah, it’s a World Champs year and I can compete with the best in the U.S. and hopefully go compete with the best in the world.”
“It’s been really cool,” Wolfe confirms. “With this year being a World Champs year, this just validates that’s on the table [making the team] and we can really make that a reality, so it’s been a big confidence booster to get ready for more to come.”
Of course, the immediate springboard to the Boston success was what happened at the NCAA XC Champs two weeks earlier: Strand improving 37 places from ’23 in taking 8th, just behind Wolfe— whose 7th-place finish wasn’t what he’d hoped for this fall after his NCAA 5K title in the spring, but represented a valiant rebound from a mid-season foot injury. The Tar Heel harrier squad placed 6th, reprising its ‘23 finish but in very different circumstances. It spoke, Miltenberg says, “to what we all believed we could build here.”
But this story is not just of one or two breakthrough races, but all of ’24, with its ups and downs and adversity. And, really, of two deeply intertwined careers that began when the UNC mentor — shortly after launching his new stint in Chapel Hill following tremendous success over 15 years at Columbia, Georgetown and, famously, Stanford — recruited Wolfe and Strand from afar during COVID.
They were in Miltenberg’s second recruiting class, connections that began during their prep junior seasons and the spring of the pandemic. “It was very clear to us back then that there are two core guys that are going to be a big part of our future,” the coach reflects. “But of course it didn’t all start off great right away… it’s been development, belief in the system and steady time in the game.
“These guys had different XC seasons,” he continues. “Parker missed three full weeks of running in the middle [foot injury] and if you’d asked me then I would have, in good conscience, said I’m not gonna run him the rest of the season. He has way too much in the future at stake. But we really had a miraculous turnaround, his foot got figured out really well and so he did that [7th at NCAAs] on love for competing for the team. He said, ‘Let’s see how few points I can score.’”
“It’s definitely been an up and down year,” confirms Wolfe. “Coming off the outdoor season was probably the highest high I’ve had in the sport. Thinking that I was really close to making the Olympic team — I was good enough to be on that team — gave me a lot of confidence coming into the fall. Then getting that injury was having to pivot, and kind of taking a step back and realize why you do the sport.
“I think it was a really valuable season for me, and Coach Milt kept saying that to me during the time. I didn’t really process that while I was sitting on the bike injured, but I think it was a really good thing in my development… to go through this and face adversity and really try to find a way to come back. I was really proud of how I finished the season.”
Still, Wolfe was “content,” but not “super happy” with a 7th-place cross finish considering what could have been. “So going into Boston I definitely wanted a little redemption and really wanted to prove to myself that I was still that runner I was at the Trials last year. And I was able to do that.”
As for OT 1500 finalist Strand, for some the ascension to 8th at NCAA XC and 7:30 for 3K might seem sudden, but the Alabama native says that he always “really wanted to run well in cross country,” and it’s been a process throughout his career.
“There was a point sophomore year where I wasn’t gaining as much traction on the cross course as I wanted to and I was like, ‘Coach, I need this to happen,’” he recalls. “And he’s just like, ‘Wait a second, give it some time, it will come.’”
I’ve slowly chipped away and this fall I gained some confidence, got up in the front of races and it’s just allowed me to actually go up and compete and do what I want to do. In the past I’ve run decent XC and been able to translate that really well to the track. So now that I’m running really good cross country, I can probably translate that even better to the track and what we saw a little bit at Boston, it’s exciting to keep working on that.”
Miltenberg says that while Wolfe and Strand have an “awesome synergy,” plus mutual respect and admiration between them, they also have different skill sets — a good thing. “If you saw how we train… the secret sauce to this has been they don’t do everything together. They come at things from very different sides and help each other a lot.
“Parker has certainly driven and pushed Ethan on the strength side of things. But I can’t put them there all the time or he’ll break Ethan at times. And I messed that up at points along the way. And Ethan has so helped Parker go from a guy who wasn’t always finishing that great a few years ago to now can finish with anyone in America and maybe the only guy he can’t beat is the guy he practices with every day — and some days he can beat him!”
Who Strand and Wolfe both beat in Boston was what really impressed Miltenberg. Like Arkansas’s Yaseen Abdalla (7:34.17) and Virginia’s Gary Martin (7:36.09) in 3rd and 4th for starters. “How did they blast those guys by that much over the last 800m? It’s still mind-blowing to me.”
The image and memory of how his senior duo ran their 7:30s was so impactful, “It’s actually rejuvenated and inspired me,” he adds. “They’re like two kids playing soccer, like ‘just shoot the gun and let’s compete.’ These guys just love to compete.
“I’ll tell you, the two people who are least surprised are the two of them. They’re two guys who that from the minute I met them, they believed they could be world-class. They always believed in themselves, and that what we do could get them there.”
Of course, both coach and athletes know that ’25 will be “about what you do in May and June and, this year, deep into the summer. We’ll stay grounded and keep going.”