The Seasons Are Changing — And Track Can Too! ⏱️

Lap 194: Sponsored by Olipop

This fall, skip the pumpkin spice and embrace the OG autumn flavor—apple! Olipop’s Crisp Apple Soda tastes just like biting into a freshly picked apple with the perfect balance of sweetness and refreshment. Made with real apple juice and prebiotics, it’s a deliciously healthy way to satisfy your fall cravings. Good news: It is now a year-round favorite, grab a case today and enjoy the crisp taste of fall in every sip! Get 25% off your order at DrinkOlipop.com by using code CITIUS25 at checkout today.

Compiled by David Melly, Paul Snyder, Jasmine Fehr, and Audrey Allen.

Noah Lyles And The Speed Limit 📺

A video posted to YouTube last week shows reigning Olympic 100m champion Noah Lyles beating YouTuber Darren Watkins, a.k.a “Speed,” in a 50-meter race. Lyles took home $100,000 for about five seconds of medium-effort running. YouTube megastar Mr. Beast was also there, dressed as a referee and baring his teeth. The video – which is 39 minutes long – has been viewed millions of times. 

If that lead paragraph was basically Greek to you, just know that this was probably the most attention Noah Lyles has received since the Paris Olympics. And between all those eyeballs and the nice six-figure payday, it’s natural to assume this was purely a good thing for Noah Lyles. Lyles, who embraces his self-crafted anime villain persona, easily won the race in what looked like second gear (unsurprisingly for anyone who gets their takes from this newsletter and not YouTube comments). And in the process, he put himself in front of the 33 million subscribers to Speed’s channel for far longer than an NBC highlight reel.

Even if the bulk of those millions of viewers don’t let the name Noah Lyles stick in their brain for more than a few seconds, surely at least a handful will be curious enough to look up videos of more legit Lyles races, right? Well… it’s possible, but not likely. They’re more likely clicking over to more vaguely titled contest videos, not to Olympic replays or six full episodes of SPRINT.

That’s because traditional sports coverage exists within an entirely distinct ecosystem from the modern influencer and YouTuber. It’s pretty damn rare for something from one sphere to break containment and enter the other. After watching any amount of the Lyles vs. Speed video, were you – a track person visiting YouTuber World – motivated to dive head first into Speed’s channel? Were you so charmed by Mr. Beast that you spent the rest of the work day watching his videos?

That ambivalence likely cuts both ways. Take another look at the comments under the video. The prevailing sentiment isn’t awe over Lyles’s almost otherworldly speed. It’s Speed fans noting the closeness of the race while ignoring the fact that it was only 50 meters long, and talking about how if Speed trained seriously he could likely be the fastest man on the planet! 

It’s hard to see how that narrative helps the sport of professional track and field break through to new audiences. To Speed fans, Noah Lyles was basically a prop their favorite YouTube personality used to prove his athletic bonafides. Speed will put out another video in two weeks and his fans will forget about Lyles just as quickly.

So while Lyles may have walked away from this experience pleased with the outcome – he has 100,000 reasons to be – we’re not banking on millions of brand new young, enthusiastic track nuts storming the scene as a result. That’s not to say it’s impossible to reach young would-be sports fans. Nor should the sport abandon video as a means of showcasing track and field and its personalities to uninitiated audiences. 

There’s an important distinction between Noah Lyles racing a popular – but random – video game streamer as opposed to, say, Tyreek Hill. As much as it chafes us metric-system purists to hear foot speed boiled down to a 40-yard dash time, track athletes racing NFL stars (and vice versa) is a much more promising model because it includes both a massive new audience and shared interest: sports. Shameless self-promotion has a better chance of moving the needle if the natural endpoint is “more track on ESPN,” not a seismic apples-to-oranges shift in platforms, formats, and fan bases.

Breaking out of the Olympic cycle and onto television sets, TikTok algorithms, and social media discourse is an admirable goal. But before track and field stars can realistically aim to bring in new viewers from a totally unconventional direction, let’s double down on some of the more winnable ones. While Gabby Thomas might pick up a few followers by going on Call Her Daddy, she’ll probably have a better shot at bringing in lifelong fans by running drills at a USWNT soccer practice. When we’ve squeezed the juice out of all the more popular sports, we can start thinking outside the box – but in the meantime, let’s have every second-team All-American sprinter break the NFL combine record one after another until they stop showing it on Sports Center Top-10.

Time To Try Something New – But What? 🔀

You may not know the name Alica Schmidt (unless you’re one of her 5.7 million Instagram followers – yes, you read that right), but earlier this week, the German 400m runner sparked an interesting conversation with her announcement that she’ll be shifting her focus to the 800m in 2025. After the Paris Olympics, Schmidt dabbled in the longer distances, and given that she ran 1:24.88 in the 600m in September (behind Mary Moraa’s world best in Berlin), the potential is there.

But Schmidt’s 800m ceiling isn’t a hypothetical that gets group chats a-buzzing. Following an Olympic year where several gold medalists had no trouble repeating or even threepeating and some events were very top-heavy with talent, the question that naturally emerges after someone has maxed out their potential in their specialty event is “where to next”? The most obvious one has already been tried, and although Sanya Richards-Ross’s 400m American record lived to see another track season, it’s at best a lukewarm take to suggest that Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone can and will find more excellence in the flat event soon.

But what about some more off-beat options? If we give the deck of track and field stars a good shuffle, what new combinations are most promising? Here’s a few suggestions:

Marileidy Paulino to the 200m: Paulino is the World and Olympic champ at 400 meters, but the 48.17 runner with seemingly invincible strength down the homestretch “only” has a 22.36 PB in the 200m. Now, it’s a little unfair to say she hasn’t given the shorter event a shot as she’s the reigning Pan Am Games champion, but focusing on her speed might give her a fun new challenge in an event with no clear top dog.

Grant Holloway to the 400H: The 110m hurdles Olympic champion has made no secret of his desire to run the 4x400m for Team USA and used to split sub-44 in his days as a Florida Gator, so why not combine your skill over barriers and strength around the oval to give Rai Benjamin a run for his money and strengthen your case for a relay spot?

Britton Wilson to the 800m: It was a bit of a season to forget for the 2023 NCAA champion, who has dealt with injuries for much of the past year and ended her season in April. Given that she’s run 2:02.13 in the 800m without much focused effort and long-sprints training has taken its toll on her shins, a shift to the middle distances might be just what the doctor ordered.

Mondo Duplantis to the decathlon: It feels highly unlikely that the greatest pole vaulter the world has ever seen would walk away from an endless string of appearance fees and bonus paychecks to take up nine other grueling events, but given his undeniable athleticism and willingness to try new things with the right audience, an exhibition decathlon against other multi-talented stars (Warholm again? Miltiadis Tentoglou? JuVaughn Harrison?) would certainly be entertaining television.

Keely Hodgkinson to the 1500m: Hodgkinson has always been a speed-based 800m runner: a 51.61 400m PB from May 2024 and a 4:30.00 1500m from September 2017 really says it all. But the 22-year-old Brit is still coming into her prime as an athlete and it wouldn’t be a total stretch of the imagination to suggest that the Olympic champion could put in a few base miles this fall, try and stick on someone like Georgia Bell or Jemma Reekie in a domestic meet, and then see what kind of damage her epic footspeed can really do. Maybe Hodgkinson will one day be the kryptonite to Faith Kipyegon’s Superwoman – because no one else has been yet.

Drew Hunter to the marathon: You might be thinking, “Didn’t Drew Hunter barely even try the 10K? Shouldn’t he focus on that for a while?” And you wouldn’t be wrong, but the track 10,000m is a brutally unforgiving event with a fairly narrow path to international success (and prize money). The marathon, on the other hand, is rich in cash and opportunity, and the 2015 Foot Locker XC champ has always shown signs that the 1500m is on the shorter end of his capabilities. Maybe we compromise on a half marathon debut in 2025, but one way or another, the roads are calling.

Nafi Thiam to the high jump: Like Paulino, this shift is also hardly groundbreaking as Thiam, the 3x Olympic heptathlon champ, already has the world multi best in the high jump at 2.02m, set in 2019. But given that Thiam is 30 years old and 6’2”, focusing on one-seventh of her specialty could be a way to stretch out her career another decade, put a little less wear and tear on her body, and still accomplish amazing things on the infield.

Ryan Crouser to the discus: There’s quite simply not a lot left for the 3x Olympic shot put champ to accomplish. World records? Check. Global championships? Check, x6. But the Oregon native started his career as a two-event thrower, and it might be time to dust off the disc and put his 10-year-old PB of 63.90m to bed. He’s still got the American high school record, is the coach of reigning Olympic discus champ Rojé Stona, and the highly-unpredictable event has podium spots up for grabs.

With the World Athletics Super Duper Ultimate Extravaganza World Championship set for 2026, there are no more “off years” on the schedule, and so the best time to try something new is now right at the start of an Olympic cycle. Worst case, you play with fire and get burnt, then retreat back to the comfort of your main event and pretend like nothing happened. Best case, you find out your “main event” was actually a stepping stone on the way to greater things – just ask former decathlete Karsten Warholm or junior sprint star Mary Moraa. You never know until you try.'

What We’re Looking For During NCAA XC’s Regional Meets 👀

Say so long to discussions of conference reshuffles, gawking at “8K” times, and speculation over rankings. We’ve reached the penultimate weekend of the NCAA cross country season, which means only one thing: we’re about to witness true championship-style racing at its finest this Friday, November 15th. 

As we keep our eyes glued to nine tabs worth of live results pages all day long, here are some of the subplots we’ll be dorking out on. 

Who’s playing it cool, and who’s gone cold?

For the country’s top squads, regional meets are merely a box to check on the path to a podium finish. Only a handful of teams – through a combination of talent and fortune with regard to the depth of their region – will have the luxury of resting top runners or instructing them to run a more restrained regional race. But those teams will theoretically have a slight edge when in eight short days they square off in Madison against foes who have a harder effort still weighing down their legs.

Part of the fun of watching regional results roll in is speculating over which upsets are due to strategic maneuvering, and which ones merit smashing the panic button. With individual title threat Doris Lemngole at the helm, a team like Alabama might get beat by a regional rival like Tennessee, only to turn around and vie for a podium spot at nationals when Lemngole turns it on. Or maybe a Tennessee win actually means the Vols are ascendant, and their scant 1-5 spread will hold up at natties…

Life’s not fair, and neither are regional alignments.

Speaking of upsets, a well placed one in one of the more stacked regional meets can have broad sweeping ramifications for at-large team selection. Take the men’s Mountain region, for instance. With just two guaranteed national berths, one team out of BYU, New Mexico, and NAU in both races is going to have to qualify at-large. There’s basically total assurance that – barring calamity – a team of that caliber is selected, based on their resume thus far. But suppose NAU has an off day and slides to fourth behind one of the many other solid teams in the mountain region. Maybe Texas Tech’s low sticks, Solomon Kipchoge and Ernest Cheruiyot, give them the edge in a tightly bunched pack-style race, and they take third. That could push Wyoming – who beat Tech at Joe Piance – into the at-large conversation, and if Colorado State finishes ahead of Wyoming at regionals, we could very realistically see six teams qualify from this region, in this hypothetical!

That’s four fewer at-large bids to go around for the other regions, especially if the favorites perform up to par elsewhere. And if you thought 10,000m rankings were complex, the NCAA selection process makes World Athletics look like Sesame Street.

How much does momentum really matter?

It’s hard to ever call a program like Oregon an underdog, but their comparatively quiet early season had some observers overlooking the Ducks. But after claiming the team title at Big Tens, it’s clear that coach Shalane Flanagan wasn’t showing her cards until now (There’s no bigger flex than using your rust-buster race to claim a title and all-conference honors, like Big Ten champ Şilan Ayyildiz and 11th-place finisher Klaudia Kazimierska did). Oregon now heads into the postseason with more momentum than any other program in the nation, and securing an auto spot at Regionals against the likes of Washington and Stanford would only increase the hype.

But cross country isn’t necessarily a sport like basketball, where psychologists have validated the existence of the “hot hand.” It’s been two weeks since their last race, and now they’ve got a target on their backs. As team results do tend to regress to the mean over time, it may actually turn out better to be a team like Utah, which has flown under the radar for much of the season but consistently chipped in rock solid showings.

What’s your favorite spread?

It’s always nice when cross country – a team sport! – actually looks like one. The season’s first Goliath vs. Goliath matchup between the BYU and OSU men proved just that, with the Cougar men doing what they do best: pack running, finishing with a tight 10-place spread across their five scorers. Another impressive spread on the cross country charcuterie board came from the Wake Forest men, who claimed the ACC title. They had – pardon the oxymoron – the highest low stick of any Power 4 champ, with Luke Tewalt finishing 7th, but their next four finishers came within the next nine spots, giving the Demon Deacons the win over Stanford. Another potential sign of hope for Wake Forest? Nuttycombe runner-up Rocky Hansen had an off-day and finished 32nd.

Whether your focus is on sussing out which team performances are 24-carat versus fool’s gold, praying for the chaos of over half the at-large qualifiers coming from two regions, or looking to validate your own personality via a fast-rising team or a steady-performing one, buckle up for 18 top-notch races this Friday.

The Vinterview, Part One: Building A Powerhouse At UVA ⚔️

In the leadup to the 2024 NCAA Championships, Jasmine chatted with Vin Lananna, Director of Track and Cross Country at the University of Virginia. In addition to his role at UVA, Lananna serves as the President of USATF.

Before joining Virginia, Lananna spent seven years at the helm of Oregon’s program and another eleven years leading Stanford’s program. Under his guidance, Stanford won seven team titles and Oregon won six for a total of eleven team championships. Over the course of a coaching career that began in 1975, Vin has solidified himself as one of the most influential figures in the sport.

In our interview, Vin shares how UVA is shaping up pre-NCAAs, what excites him about college coaching compared to professional coaching, and what keeps him fully committed to the sport.  We’ll share the second half of our interview with Vin following NCAAs.

This interview has been edited lightly for length and clarity. You can find the full interview here.

Jasmine Fehr: To kick things off, let's start with conference weekend: Gary Martin won ACCs individually and led the men's team to a fourth-place team finish. The women's team also finished fourth. Can you share a little about how the weekend went? 

Vin Lananna: It was a positive weekend. We were able to accomplish what we needed to for ACCs. We always try to win the conference meet and put ourselves in the best position to do so, but this conference is unbelievably talented and deep. So finishing fourth was good on the women's side. It was great to get Margot Appleton back in the lineup and Gary Martin did a fabulous job of beating some very good people. That was not an easy task for him. 

No kidding! Heading into the postseason, what sets Virginia apart from other top cross country programs? 

Everything is all about the athletes. We’ve got great athletes and we're very fortunate to have outstanding staff in assistant coaches Trevor Dunbar and Joelle Amaral. They do a great job of getting our student-athletes prepared. 

We have great kids who enjoy winning together but can also navigate things that don't go exactly the way they want them to. They rebound together, too. I think that’s the beauty of what defines Virginia. 

Can you describe your coaching philosophy and how it’s evolved throughout your career? 

For me, it's always been about being technically sound and on the cutting edge. I try to know what everybody else is doing around the world and then evaluate to see whether it applies to what we are doing. 

My philosophy has always been that degrees matter. Your academic experience is important. We try to be psychologically and mentally prepared to compete and at the same time be able to find balance and enjoy the process. That's the basics for me. 

How it's evolved…. I think it depends on where you are and the kind of student-athletes with whom you work. It's about getting really great kids in the recruiting process that understand what they're stepping into and making sure that we can deliver on what we promise.

I'm sure it must look different from Virginia to Stanford to Oregon. You have to adjust your approach based on where you are. 

We're not a professional track club. We’re a collegiate program and I believe in the collegiate system. The experience that student-athletes get is not comparable to any other experience they have. They have a chance to be part of a team. They have a chance to work hard together, learn how to win together, and accept when they don't have a great performance. That's all part of what you do when working with 18 to 23-year-old women and men. 

The team element of coaching is clearly important to you. What do you do to build a positive culture among your team?

The basis and foundation for every program is the type of student-athletes that you recruit. Virginia is a place that values education. The student-athletes choose here because they want to get a degree, a circle of lifelong friends, and they want to be a part of the culture and the community that is present here. 

At Virginia, it's all about working hard together. And there's a difference between working hard and working hard together. I’ve tried to create an environment where every young man and woman has a role to play. 

That has never been more evident than when our men won ACCs outdoors last year. It was a team where shot putters and discus throwers were cheering for sprinters, the sprinters were cheering for the distance runners, and everybody was cheering for the 4x400m, which it came down to at the end. That's what is powerful about our sport. I try to be very dedicated to caring about the entire sport and not just one area. 

Speaking of which, how do you balance your roles between being the Director of Track and Cross Country at Virginia and the president of USATF? 

A lot of people have hobbies like playing golf, gardening or whatever one does. I don't do those things. My hobby is track and field: on the collegiate level, on the professional level, on the administrative level. Hosting big events, big meets, and making them the best they can be. 

I love building programs. It’s something that excites me: hiring a staff and getting everybody working together. That's a massive project at USATF because there are so many people whose passion is our sport, and typically those passionate people are passionate about one aspect of the sport. What I try to do is provide an overview of what is important for the entire sport. 

Read the full interview here!

Rapid Fire Highlights 🔥

– Grand Slam Track has shared the location and dates of another two slams: April 4th through 6th at National Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica, and May 2nd through 4th at the Ansin Sports Complex outside of Miami, Florida. Los Angeles has also been announced as a location with an exact date TBA. GST will share the final host city later this week.

– The Night of the 10,000m PB’s meet is taking 2025 off before returning in 2026. That’s one fewer opportunity for athletes to take a shot at the 2025 Worlds 10,000m standards (which are quite lofty: 27:00.00 and 30:20.00) or, more realistically, improve upon their World Rankings.

– Tokyo Olympic javelin champion Neeraj Chopra has announced a coaching change. No word yet on how mischievous new coach Jan Źelezný is, but he is the world record holder in the event. 

– In grown up cross country news, at the Cardiff Cross Challenge, Keneth Kiprop of Uganda held off the men’s field over 9.6K to break the tape in 27:06. The women’s 6.4K race was won in 20:15 by Charity Cherop, also of Uganda.

– Yemane Haileselassie (1:01:46) of Eritrea and Fantaye Belayneh (1:10:26) of Ethiopia took home top honors at the B.A.A. Half Marathon. Pretty fast times for a race that runs through the historic Franklin Park cross country course.

– Over in Indianapolis, a.k.a. “Circle City,” a.k.a. “Naptown,” course records abounded at the Monumental Half Marathon. Hometown hero Emma Grace Hurley went 1:08:25 to beat the field by almost two minutes, and Chandler Gibbens clocked in at 1:02:25. 

– And in other half marathon news, at a live CITIUS MAG podcast recording, Joe Kleckershared his plans to debut in the half marathon. No official word on where, but signs point to Houston in January 2025 being the target half, as part of his eventual “journey to the marathon.”

Interested in reaching 16,000+ dedicated runners and track and field fans? Advertise with us here.