It was before this year’s Boston marathon when I was talking to Greg McMillan about possibility of Mitsui-Sumitomo team (with Yoko Shibui) coming to Flagstaff and having a training camp to prepare for Berlin World Championship, he pointed out; “Wouldn’t that be great if both Shibui and our Paige (Higgins) get to go to Berlin 
together…” Paige is another one of PR breaking runners on McMillan Elite group. She improved her PR by almost 7 minutes to 2:33 at last year’s Chicago Marathon.
Paige was due to run Boston and we were looking forward to getting together. However, right before Boston, the unfortunate news was that Paige developed some knee pain and had to scratch it. Now having to rely on her 2:33 performance from Chicago, possibility of her going to Berlin was up in the air. Just a few days ago, while talking to Greg about Mitsui’s camp, he told me (still quietly) that Paige was selected to represent the US team for Berlin World Championships this August. While some of his runners represented the US team for some international 
competitions already, Paige would be the first athlete from Greg’s group to run in the USA uniform for THE World Track & Field Championships.
Greg has been coaching this group of post collegiate potentials since 2007 to “fill the gap” between college to elite, applying the Lydiard principles of training along with some live-coaching experience he had gained through his own. Lydiard used to say that “what you do this year is for next year; it’s not what you do this year or next year that counts but what you’d be doing in 5 years time.” Every time I talked to Greg, he would explain how they apply the Lydiard principles to their own training: “We try to develop good solid aerobic foundation,” he would say. “It’s amazing how simply sticking to the fundamentals bring about good results" (his training philosophy here). His young runners had been performing very well lately (check out his website here). Now within 3 years of founding, he is sending an athlete to the World Champs.
Greg was telling me that he would “experiment” some of Japanese marathon training philosophies of long tempo runs on Paige to prepare for Boston (some of the insights to Japanese marathon training on our forum here). “She is not very fast but she can go on and on at a strong pace,” Coach McMillan says. “So she would be perfect for training regime like that.” As already well-established coach, Greg keeps his eagerness to learn more and Japanese 
marathon training method is something he is very much interested in. We hope this summer’s Mitsui training camp would be as exciting an experience for Greg, as a host, as much for Yoko Shibui and Coach Watanabe, and also for Greg’s athletes like Paige (though we may have to keep those young Japanese girls away from Martin…his name is tattooed in Japanese on his ankle so he wouldn’t have any trouble introducing himself to them!) – to learn about each other’s training and motivate and inspire each other.
Greg and I always talk about this international circle, global togetherness through running and Lydiard. Paige and Yoko would be a perfect example of getting united through “Lydiard”. It would be to their advantage as well, comes August 24th, when they face each other at the start line, they will feel perfectly at home to have each other there as a member of “Lydiard family”, having trained together through the dry summer air at highland of Flagstaff, and enjoy a BBQ or two at Greg’s house!
Congratulations, Paige and Greg!!
To read more about Paige’s story, click here.
Paige's image from 2008 Chicago Marathon: Victah Sailer. Paige's headshot: Josh Biggs. Yoko Shibui's image, 1km to go at 2009 Osaka Ladies Marathon where she won in 2:23, and her headshot: Rikjo Magajin (Track & Field Magazine of Japan)