Airport Beers with Tim Mickens during the pursuit of higher mountains and faster marathons

16 min readDec 20, 2024

Airport Beers is an interview series. The following is an interview between Bryan Harvey and Tim Mickens. Tim works in IT, lives in the Outer Banks, is an avid runner, and experienced mountain climber. They used to run together.

Bryan Harvey: Um, it’s been a long time. I was thinking about it the other day. I was like uh [long dramatic pause to do complex math] probably . . . it’s 2024 . . . it’s probably been about 20 . . . 22 years . . . .

Tim Mickens: Yeah.

BH: . . . since I’ve seen you or talked to you. But I saw you posted about some of the hikes that you’ve done. And I also saw that you posted about running and that clicked with me because I was like I too have gotten back into running after not really taking it seriously. And that made me want to go and see what Tim’s up to. That’s what made me curious. So you just ran the Harbor Half Marathon —

TM: The Norfolk Harbor Half Marathon — Chartway.

BH: How’d it go?

TM: It was fun, man. It was, okay, it wasn’t as good as the Hampton. The Hampton course is better. But the atmosphere of the Norfolk race was better. More people. There was like sixteen hundred runners for this. So it was a lot bigger compared to 700 runners. But the course had a lot of turns in it. So, when you’re trying to run at speed on turns in um your racing shoes, it just doesn’t —

BH: What shoes are you running in? Cause, yeah, the stack height —

TM: Yesterday’s run I ran — or Sunday’s run — I ran in my Adidas Adios Pro 3s. I bought those for my last marathon, but I didn’t end up wearing them because, when I first started training with them, they hurt my legs. They gave me really bad leg pain, so I switched back to my Saucony Pros.

BH: Yeah.

TM: And those feel much better. But I started running with the Adidas again and they feel much better — there were a whole lot of things I messed up on that first marathon, which is probably why it hurt running in them. But um this one was a good one. It was a good race — a good atmosphere. It kicked my butt the last three miles. Probably started my pace a smidge too fast or — I don’t know — it was either that or I haven’t done enough progressive tempo runs or just didn’t have enough calories.

BH: After you agreed to talk the other day and you had said you were doing the Harbor Half, I did on Sunday, or maybe it was Monday, probably while I was at work — things got slow — , I searched through the results and I saw your 10k split —

TM: Yeah.

BH: And I was like that’s a pretty fast 10k for a half. I mean, I don’t know what you were shooting for, but when you say that you went out fast, I mean, yeah, I agree that you were flying pretty good.

TM: Well, the pace should have been a 1:23 technically.

BH: Okay.

TM: ’Cause technically if you take off a couple minutes from the last three miles, I would have been closer to it. I was around the pace. I don’t know what happened on the last few there.

BH: Was the end of it flat, uphill, downhill?

TM: It was flat — it was all flat.

BH: It just kept going?

TM: Basically, we came around a loop and we were looping down through the city and then we ran down the main street, which is completely flat, and hit a sharp turn and came back on the boardwalk —

BH: Okay.

TM: — but it also was 0.15 longer of a course. So that’s 30 or 40 seconds, almost a minute, if you’re not running up to pace.

BH: Was that by your watch? How’d you know?

TM: That was actually by my watch. Yep.

BH: Okay.

TM: And that’s actually what they gave you the time on too.

BH: What marathon did you do?

TM: Jackson River in Coventry, Virginia.

BH: Okay.

TM: It’a an out-and-back trail run. It’s not a bad one. It was an overall good one. But there was a lot of things that happened before — I probably shouldn’t even have ran it.

BH: [laughs]

TM: I was like I’m just going to do it and see —

BH: You know, um, run and learn.

TM: But I got it out of the way. At least I got the first official marathon out of the way, so now I know where I need to improve at.

BH: Did you — what gave you the — what made you start running or racing again? ‘Cause you, based off your feed on Facebook and the fact that you’ve run a marathon now, I mean, you’re pretty seriously into this. You got two sets of racing shoes —

TM: I actually have ten pairs of shoes.

BH: [laughs maniacally]

TM: It’s actually an addiction once you start.

BH: Yeah, totally, cause then everything in your email is like look at these shoes. My YouTube feed is also like look at these shoes. Like, ah, man, yeah, so I get that.

TM: Constant looking for shoes, um, I mean I stopped buying. Right now, I’m happy with the shoes bought that I have. I’m going to run all these down until they’re done. But yeah, I’m happy with my shoes right now. Well, I’m not truly happy with my marathon shoes, but I’m going to be okay.

BH: [laughs] But what sparked getting back into it?

TM: I was working on my training for hiking — for my trips —

BH: Okay.

TM: Kilimanjaro. Got altitude sickness on Kilimanjaro. I feel like I was already pretty healthy and pretty solid. I did a lot of strength training. At the time, I was able to squat what 360, 370, and I was bench pressing um 255 to 270. I was up there in my weightlifting, but when I did the actual hike, um, I felt totally fine until I got to that day. But learning more about what high altitude does to the body —

BH: Yeah.

TM: I realized that most likely that my cardiovascular endurance is just not there and I’m not able to process the oxygen — the little oxygen I have as I get higher up in elevation. As your VO2 gets higher, your body is better able to regulate and process oxygen, so that helps a lot when you get into high altitudes, there’s less oxygen, and you need your body to still work at a high work rate but with minimal oxygen.

BH: Gotcha.

TM: So that just kind of got me. I seen they were running a 5k in the neighborhood. I ran for like two days that week in the shoes I had from high school —

BH: No!

TM: Then I ran the race and then they fell apart. And I was like —

BH: Yeah, ’cause they’re like 20 years old.

TM: I took them to the running store, and he was like these are dinosaurs, and I’m like, yeah, I’m a dinosaur.

BH: Yeah.

TM: But I respect where I came from and um so I ran and kind of got hooked. Once I ran that first 5k and getting beat by a twelve-year-old and thinking, yeah, this ain’t happening — this is not happening again. I was like, yep, sparked the juices and I’m like I think I can do this and realized how much it helps with my hiking — and it was game over.

BH: Did you hike at all in high school or when you were younger?

TM: No, I mean, I always liked hiking.

BH: Yeah.

TM: But never understood . . . or went whenever I could . . . but . . . when I got married, I started going out to the Shenandoah more to hike. And then once I seen like Kilimanjaro and like Aconcagua and Everest — I used to watch lots of shows on Everest.

BH: Uh huh.

TM: This looks like the greatest physical challenge — ‘cause I love physical challenges.

BH: Yeah.

TM: And so I took the whim and just climbed Kilimanjaro. Okay, I really love big mountain hiking. And so it kind of just went from there.

BH: What other big hikes have you done?

TM: So this past January I did um into February — three weeks in Argentina — I climbed Aconcagua.

BH: Okay.

TM: Um, that was awesome. Basically, the second highest — I’m planning on doing all seven summits —

BH: That’s kind of what I was wondering.

TM: Highest mountain outside of the Himalayas.

BH: Yeah.

TM: It was tough, though. The way down was tough, but it was a good trip.

BH: So how did you — I’m just thinking about the amount of mountain gear you would have to have for mountain climbing, especially these serious peaks and not having much of a hiking background growing up — so how did you like — and we were talking about with shoes, with shoes you can watch a ten-minute YouTube video and you get a feel of I need this shoe for a marathon — but how did you know what gear to have for all these hikes?

TM: Similar thing. Research. Research. Watching videos. Um talking to people, just communicating, hey, tell me what your thoughts are on this. Also, going out to Colorado and climbing fourteeners. So I was getting a feel for what I like for shoes and stuff. There is no replacement because I had to buy 8,000-meter boots — or I bought actually 7,000-meter boots. When you buy those, you just put ’em on and go walking out into the woods. See how they feel. ’Cause we don’t really live close to a place where you can just try out stuff. Buy it online. Don’t like it. Return it.

BH: Okay.

TM: If it doesn’t fit, return it. Learning the layering system. I had to trial and error on that first Kilimanjaro climb.

BH: [laughs] Were you ever living in Colorado?

TM: No, I never did. I’ve always been living at the beach. It’s a place I want to move to —

BH: Okay.

TM: — but kids would have to graduate from school before we do that.

BH: How old are your kids?

TM: 17 and 9 and another one that’s fourth grade.

BH: Mine are third grade and first grade.

TM: Oh, nice.

BH: Yeah.

TM: Some wild stuff to wrap around.

BH: I know, it’s a lot of stuff. You know, lost time. How many miles a week are you doing?

TM: So I think I’ve been averaging ever since the marathon — ’cause I peaked at about 55 miles for the marathon training in May — probably around 30 to 40 max, in between that range.

BH: Yeah.

TM: Nothing too crazy ’cause I was really focusing on my overall strategy to improve my 5K time as much as possible over the summer. Then kind of after your last 5K in August you kind of start dialing in on your half marathon or marathon season, depending on what you’re doing. So I ramped up the mileage a little bit. And then once I peaked at my half marathon start a twelve-week program — I’m about to start a twelve-week program for my marathon that’s in February.

BH: Yeah, do you feel more disciplined running now than you did back then?

TM: Man, I wish Bane was more on us and understood the science behind — our team probably would have been way better. Um for me myself I’m like kicking myself ’cause I’m like, dude —

BH: [laughs]

TM: I was quicker and more resilient back then and I was doing half the work. Now, I’m doing a lot more work and it’s taking forever to slowly dial it back in.

BH: Yeah, I’ve had a similar conversation with Russell cause Russ and Brittany are married, so I see him all the time.

TM: Yeah.

BH: Uh, and . . . because you brought up Bane . . . I appreciate everything Bane did for us . . . .

TM: Yep.

BH: . . . and not to get too lost in the past, but I do have a similar thing where for me — and you’re talking about the science of it, the chemicals in the body, VO2 max, and everything — but if I had just known like from freshman or sophomore year how many miles to put in over the summer —

TM: Yeah.

BH: — the importance of building a base. I only had one summer where I think I took it remotely seriously. The summer before senior year — and I remember how different that senior year felt for me than the years prior. So now when I run I think about the discipline or the consistency —

TM: The consistency. Yep.

BH: — and just like the importance of building the base and also what’s needed for different distances.

TM: Yep.

BH: Like you were talking about transitioning from 5Ks to half marathons and dialing it in so the training is specific to the distance. I felt like we had a decent amount of talent, but there was nothing focusing us really.

TM: Yeah, it was come run, do these couple of things, and —

BH: Yeah, but I do find — and you might not have had this because of your mountain climbing background and the weightlifting you were doing. You probably got back into running with a much stronger, literally physical base. When I started running seriously again, I was getting — I went out and did a half in like 2021 or two —

TM: Mmhmmm.

BH: — and injured my high hamstring on the half. Never had an injury like that. And it lasted — the soreness and pain — for the next two years.

TM: Wow.

BH: And I know it’s because I wasn’t doing anything — like strength wise I didn’t have anything. I had to learn how to include bands and kettlebells and just slowly absorbing all that into the running habit ‘cause I was trying to do too much distance without any strength.

TM: Yep.

BH: So I’m back to doing the form running stuff coaches had us doing back in track.

TM: Yep.

BH: I was telling Russ the other day about warming up how back then I was like, I’ll do it, but I also wasn’t sure why we were doing it. Now I’m like, ah, this is a key to lifelong running.

TM: There’s a lot of things that maybe coaches didn’t know at the time or to give us advice on exactly as in, if you do this over the summer, this is how much faster you can be, as in examples of this is what’s going to happen to your body physiologically if you do this, if you continue running over the summer.

BH: Yeah.

TM: Even if it’s easy miles, if it’s fast, this is the physiological difference coming into the new season. You’ll already be way ahead.

BH: Yeah. Yeah. And, on that point about easy miles, I think I thought when I was younger, and this is typical of like young competitors, athletes, whatever — but like everything’s got to be fast, everything’s got to be your hardest, or it’s not helping.

TM: Yeah.

BH: The big epiphany coming into this later is — and I have a friend in Georgia, Kayin, who I’ve talked a little bit about running with — and I was telling him you can really just increase your mileage by running easier and slower —

TM: Yeah.

BH: — that was like eye-opening for me. But it takes an amount of trust. You gotta trust that.

TM: Yep. Trust the process.

BH: Yeah.

TM: Only way you’re going to get that aerobic base is to take it easy.

BH: Do you have a distance you find yourself liking the most right now?

TM: I gotta say so far the half is my favorite —

BH: Yeah.

TM: — ’cause it’s a mind game. The marathon is definitely slower paced and thoughtful race for me, but the half marathon is not a 5K or a marathon — it’s that pace that is just a pace where you feel like you’re cruising and then you have to try and amp it up towards the end. That’s the overall goal.

BH: Yeah, you said in your note to me earlier that in your Norfolk one —

TM: Yep.

BH: — that you got to mile ten and it changed up. And you’re right there is that sort of logistical play within the half.

TM: Yep.

BH: And you are cruising along. There’s a course around here that does — and they’re going to run it in a couple weeks — does like a five-mile loop that’s fairly flat down around Old Mill Park —

TM: The Blue and Gray.

BH: — and then you hit Fall Hill, but it’s in the middle of it, which is a weird spot. A lot of races would put that big hill um in a more dramatic place —

TM: Yep.

BH: — but you come back down it and you still have a 5K to go. That’s totally different than Richmond where I just ran that has the dramatic downhill at the very end and there’s no hills before that.

TM: Yeah.

BH: Have you done any 10Ks?

TM: I did one last year, the Leprechaun 10K, but my body was done. I had just gotten back from Aconcagua —

BH: Okay, yeah.

TM: — I just went out there and raced it. I was not ready for it. I ran a 40:30, but it should’ve been faster.

BH: But that distance —

TM: — that’s a hard distance.

BH: Yeah, and I think that’s why I like the 10K. I like the — and I haven’t done anything above the half — but I do like that 10K distance because of how it holds onto you and you’re holding onto it. The 5K feels tight. The 10K is just stretched a little bit where it has that elasticity without being loose.

TM: Yeah, it’s um probably one of the harder distances, but if you do want to be successful in the half marathon, you need to master it.

BH: Yeah.

TM: ’Cause it’s almost there.

BH: The 10K makes you, or forces you, to think about the 5K as a block —

TM: Yep.

BH: — and then mastering that 10K is really important to the half because you need those splits and stretching what the brain is able to think of as a compressed time, or moment, is really fascinating.

TM: Yep. And it works that lactate threshold a lot. You’re in your lactate threshold basically the whole race, so it hurts.

BH: [laughs]

TM: Like tomorrow’s going to be a mental battle. My goal tomorrow is I would like to hit sub-18.

BH: Yeah, and you’ve been close, right?

TM: Yeah, technically, I had an 18 flat on the course, but the course was short —

BH: Who’s measuring these courses you’re running, Timmy?

TM: Well, the Outer Banks courses always don’t measure right —

BH: Okay.

TM: — so I try and run further. But running at pace it would have been an 18:15.

BH: Yeah.

TM: So I’m hoping that I have improved slightly enough to run a sub-18. That was my goal this year: a sub-18 and at least — I wanted a 1:25 half. But I’ll have to suffer with me shittin’ out the bed the last three miles of that race.

BH: It was still pretty good. I think you’ll get those times. Those times will come for you.

TM: Yeah, it’ll come in time.

BH: So you’ve got the Wilmington coming up too after the Turkey Trot?

TM: Yeah, in February . . . February 22nd.

BH: So tomorrow you go close to 18:00 — you go under 18:00 — what are you doing next week? Are you doing any 5Ks between the Turkey Trot and Wilmington?

TM: Nah, Wilmington is the 12-week straight shot of —

BH: Okay.

TM: — just going balls to the wall ’cause I was using Runner as my training thing for how I train, but now I’m switching it up and using this dude named Pfitzinger —

BH: Yeah.

TM: — I’m using his plan for this next 12 weeks. It calls for 55 miles a week, but I’m not going to push it mileage wise.

BH: But from an intensity aspect?

TM: Yeah, but it’s going to introduce a lot more medium long runs, because what I think what I missed in a lot of my training that I don’t do — that I didn’t do with Runner — is that they didn’t focus on tempo runs.

BH: Okay.

TM: So I think for me as I’m learning more and more tempo runs, or medium runs, in the middle of the week along with another long run on the weekend. I need more aerobic mileage, but I also need more lactate threshold mileage. So just sitting in my lactate. I’m only going to run my marathon pace three times in these twelve weeks. Most of the other times that I do tempos are going to be at around 6:20, so when I get to the marathon, that 6:40 shouldn’t feel hard at all because I’ll have spent so much time sitting in my lactate threshold.

BH: Gotcha. Yeah. [nods]

TM: I don’t know. We’ll see. It might work. It might not work.

BH: I mean, that’s one thing it’s like a science experiment where your body is the lab —

TM: Yep.

BH: — and how much of that is long distance running. You have the hypothesis. You’re testing it for a number of weeks or a training block —

TM: Yep.

BH: You have whatever race you do and you find out what I thought would work —

TM: What I thought — yep — didn’t work!

BH: Or what I thought would work did work for that time, but how do you get that next time, that next step, or more consistency?

TM: Yep. That’s what I’m looking for — consistency. That Runner app worked for me when I was just getting started, but I think that obviously as I’ve gotten back into pretty good shape that I need something else to targert different areas that I might be weak at.

BH: Yeah.

TM: So that’s what I’m attempting because this is supposed to a be a sub-2:55:00 marathon, so I can qualify for Boston.

BH: Is the goal Boston?

TM: That’s the goal. I only want one world major and I’d be satisfied.

BH: I didn’t know if you were going to try and match marathons with mountain peaks, you know.

TM: Nah, I don’t care. I like running a lot. I don’t care that much. I care about the hike more than that.

BH: So when’s the next peak?

This conversation took place over a Zoom call. Airport Beers is a poorly named interview series. Past sessions include: