Meet The Inventor of The Original PaceWheel™

Michael Pollard is a USATF Level 1 Certified Coach, a (sort-of) competitive middle-distance runner, the Boys' Head Cross Country Coach and the Associate Head Track Coach at Pine Creek High School in Colorado Springs, and a private running coach.  He has coached state finalists in the following events: 100m dash, 110m hurdles, 200m dash, 300m hurdles, 400m dash, 800m run, 1600m run, 3200m run, 4x100m relay, 4x200m relay, 4x400m relay, 4x800m relay, long jump, high jump, and Cross Country (5km). He has coached age-group winners in 5k and 10k road races as well as having won his age group in several road races including the Garden of the Gods 5k race.  In 2006, he was recognized as the Colorado Springs Metro League Boys' Cross Country Coach of the Year.

 How Did it All Begin? 

      "For my first seven years as a high school Cross Country and distance coach, I sat in my office, staring at different spreadsheets, figuring out which athletes should be running what speeds during workouts.  It always worked very well, but it was inefficient to look at race times, then at another chart of training values, and then at another chart to fill out the results.  I started work on a spreadsheet program that would automatically calculate all of the information I was looking for, but I couldn't figure out the equations in the program.  Then at church on Sunday morning, I had a revelation: use a circular calculator with all the data already figured out!"

       "I started designing the wheel using the spreadsheets I already had, and made a simple wheel for my cross country team and introduced it at practice the next day.  I made paper copies with brass brad fasteners, and handed them out to each ability group and had them figure out their own intervals.  The kids asked where I got it, and when they found out that I made it myself, they encouraged me to market it.  With the input of several other running coaches, runners, artistic-types, and my wife, I recalculated the data based on the research, redesigned the face of the wheel, and started printing them." -Coach Michael Pollard

Coach Pollard Talks About The PaceWheel™