The Victory Lap: Colby Alexander 🏆

Before we dive into the interview, I’d be remiss not to thank everyone reading this for subscribing to The Victory Lap. It’s obvious there are heaps of enthusiastic Track and Field fans who are eager to not only learn more about the athletes, but to lend support to them. We are excited to share their stories with you and please — if there are athletes who you want to hear from, let us know!

The following interview was conducted by Mac Fleet, a 2x NCAA Champion at the University of Oregon, later a miler competing for Nike’s Oregon Track Club and now a professional coach. It was condensed and edited for your reading pleasure.

Running for Empire Elite, unsponsored Colby Alexander put up a 1500m personal best of 3:33.65 at the Sunset Tour this past week, the 8th fastest time ever on U.S. soil, and making him the 17th fastest American ever at the distance. Colby and I have been friends since we first met as teammates at Oregon, so listening to him discuss his new physical and mental approach to racing makes me ecstatic he’s still in the sport and experiencing massive success. 

Colby’s 1500m PB is 5 seconds faster than mine (that’s half of a home stretch!) and he’s regularly competing very well against the top guys in the U.S., yet doesn’t have the financial backing of a brand like basically everyone at his level. In contrast, I won two slow races in college by a combined .14 seconds and landed a 6 year contract as a result. But for better or worse, that’s par for the course in the sponsorship game.

Making money in track and field has so much to do with timing and luck, and Colby is working to improve his odds by seeing a sport psychologist and playing to his strengths as an athlete. Based on his recent performances, it looks like things are coming together for him in a big way, and he’s doing everything possible to force the hand of a company into signing him to a contract through the next Olympic cycle.

After competing at the Olympic Trials, are you looking for anything specific out of your races?

I was planning on running a 1500m at the Sunset Tour after the Trials and had no interest in running a full mile. I knew going in there was going to be a bunch of good 1500m runners but leading up to the race, guys just kept dropping out of it, even on the day of. So I was talking to Johnny Gregorek on race day and just told him “screw it, we came all the way out here, we have a small field and that's really cool, usually it's way too packed – we can go run fast without everyone here.” And that's such a cool thing about our sport. It’s unique in a way where you can decide on a goal and go after it no matter what. What other sport is like that? The US has so many amazing milers and it seems like we’re getting faster and better every year. I don’t understand why we don't just get after more often.

Was your plan going into the race to run as aggressively behind the rabbit as you did, or was that just where you ended up off the line?

My whole game plan was to get on the rabbit and just go. My only other thing was with 700-600m to go, to make a conscious move. Not anything huge, but something to keep pace. If you ever watch Josh Kerr or Ollie Hoare race, it's always around 800m where they make a strong move that usually drops the field, so I was sort of channeling that style of racing and taking inspiration from them. 

Knowing that's what you had planned going into the race, that’s one of the more purposeful races I’ve ever seen you run.

I’m in such an amazing place mentally. I used to have all these doubts, but this is the way I like to run, a Kerr or Hoare type race: get to the front and push. I’m comfortable doing that stuff. I used to have all this hesitation and doubt about going to the front and worrying about having people sit on me and me pacing them. But before the Trials, I had this huge mental breakthrough where I’m just so confident now and I’m in a space where I can just push from the front and be confident in doing it. 

Everyone who performs well has some sort of belief in themselves. You get dinged up like everyone else, but you get very fit very quickly. How do you get into that mental space with sometimes such short training stints?

It’s a few things. The easiest answer is that I’m really competitive. It’s such a cliche thing but it could be a stupid backyard cornhole game and I really am trying to win. Same for any games or sports I’m playing. [As for the injuries or short training stints], I’ve always been a person who when I step on the line for a race, I’m trying to win. I’ve never toed the line worrying about any sort of lack of training. If I’m going to step on the line I’m going to try and win. 

Right before StumpTown I had this huge breakthrough. I started talking to a sports psychologist, and I think it was long overdue. I never thought that I needed to talk to one. Like, I remember talking to Merber at one point and him telling me “man you have such a good head on your shoulders, it seems like you’re never bothered by anything.” But everybody has those mental battles even if they don’t vocalize it, it's just impossible to tell what's going on in anyone’s head. It wasn’t a crazy call for help. It was just after a couple bad races where I didn’t feel like myself, I started talking to this sports psych. 

We were talking about super simple stuff, and he just sort of unlocked this mindset. We talked about how I’m 30 and I don’t know how many more years I’ve got. Let's say I run through the next Olympics: what am I doing wasting my time not being me, and racing how I want to race? I’m most comfortable running from the front and pushing the pace, that's me. What am I doing wasting my time hesitating and running other people’s races and not being bold? That was the big thing, running boldly, with intention. 

It sounds like you’re in such a good spot mentally and physically, do you think you’ve ever been here before? It seems like you’ve found a new high.

I’ve never felt like this before. If you look back at my best college races, I was always injured or just didn’t race well, but something clicked after college. I’m so much more loose going into races. In college I would always sit then make some move with 300m to go, and I feel like that’s a lot different than anything I do now. This new feeling of being me and running free and making bold moves. 

At the Trials final this year, for example, I got off the line as hard as I freaking could and I still found myself at the back. I’ve been in the back at a US final before, freaking out, anxiety at an all time high and I couldn’t make my mind up with what move I wanted to make; I ended up just gauging off of how Centro was racing, wasting so much energy on everything but my race plan that I ended up last, I don’t think I’ve ever been last in a race before. 

So this time around, I was just like “Fuck it, what am I doing? I’m gonna be me and make a bold move and put myself in the mix.” I didn’t make the team but I will confidently say that I was in position to make that team with 100m to go, I just didn't have that last 100m. Looking back you can always second guess, but I’m learning and I feel like a new “me” and that I’ve hit a new level of running. 

It’s cool to hear that late into your career you aren’t trying to recreate a feeling from the past but just constantly trying to learn and grow.

I’ve said this before somewhere. I just turned 30 and every single year I’m learning something new about myself. I was more of a “sit and kick” guy in the past, and I’m now evolving and growing and at my age now, I’m playing to my strengths, and that's running from the front. You have to be able to adjust to continue having success in this sport.

I’ve always been a big fan of leaning into people’s strengths rather than relentlessly trying to fix weaknesses. It bugs me when people who have influence on athletes overly suggest that their weaknesses are the reasons for failure and lose sight of what the athletes are really good at. Obviously weaknesses need to be known but having an athlete play to their strengths is so much better for them mentally, and usually physically. Is that what you’re working towards?

The mental side is way bigger than what people think. Just being relaxed is so important.  I’ve gone into so many races where my anxiety was so bad the race was over before it even started. You have to be willing to be uncomfortable and be able to adjust on the fly but there's something mentally good about racing to your strengths, being relaxed, and making it happen yourself. 

On August 31st your family is hosting the Guardian Mile in Cleveland, Ohio. It has great elite fields and community races to go along with them. Tell me a little more about it.

I’ll try to make this as short as possible, but Hope Memorial Bridge runs from Ohio City straight into downtown Cleveland. It’s got these awesome “Guardians of Traffic” statues, and is a perfect mile from end to end: half mile uphill, half mile downhill. Growing up and going to Cleveland baseball games, we’d drive on a bridge that runs parallel to it and my dad would look over and always say “man, we need to have a race on that bridge.” I came back home about 3 years ago for Thanksgiving and suggested maybe we actually organize that race we always talked about. I left for a few months, headed back for summer ,and my mom picked me up and said, “we’re doing the race.” My family had the ball rolling for months already, basically right when I left they went to work. They got all these great people from around Ohio, put their heads together and made it happen. I think the number one thing for attracting elite runners is good prize money. So we’ve prioritized that from the beginning and have been lucky the first two years to get people like Nick Willis and a bunch of other great men and women. It’s been growing every year and has been so fun.

You just spent a ton of money paying your way to run the 8th fastest ever U.S. soil time. You have a schedule full of road races with prize money on the rest of your schedule. Do you think your schedule would have more track races if you had a contract and travel budget? It makes me a little sad knowing a ton of athletes have to choose road mile money over potentially having these all-time track performances.

I’m pretty sure there wasn’t even any prize money in that track race, but I think there’re a couple other factors besides needing money to continue to keep running. I know that if I did have a contract I probably would be looking for fast 1500s. I definitely like the track more but there is a place for these road miles. I think if everything were perfect I’d be getting after it again this weekend to run 3:32, 3:31, but money is definitely part of the decision when choosing a racing schedule. The Liberty Mile I’m doing this week is so well put together and it’s hard to pass up. They fly you out, put you up in a hotel, they give you food and it's the most well organized race you’ll do all year. That's part of the fun, how well they take care of you. And they have all this prize money! But I do agree it’s tough to commit to spending that money to go try to run fast. Ultimately you need to have confidence in your fitness because it is somewhat of a risk to go pay your way.

I agree that these road miles are very fun but it is still crazy that if the Liberty Mile were a week earlier there’s a good chance that you don’t end up running that 1500m in LA and don’t run a PB, and those types of decisions have to be made by athletes all the time.

Yeah, it's because pretty much nobody gets paid in this sport and it sucks – you have to make decisions like that. In a perfect world everyone’s making good money and we can just go have fun and go race wherever we want, see what we can do, run fast, and chase PBs.

Keep up with Colby

Finding yourself firmly on Team Colby after getting to know him? Be sure to follow him on Twitter and Instagram (@okaycolby), and keep tabs on him as he continues his summer of racing. 

He’s planning on running: 

• Liberty Mile on July 23rd in Pittsburgh

• Guardian Mile on July 31st in Cleveland

• Falmouth Mile on August 14th in Massachusetts

• (Hopefully!) Prefontaine Classic the weekend of August 20th and 21st in Eugene

• NYRR 5th Avenue Mile on September 12th in Manhattan

And if you’re a sports marketing person for a shoe company, why not throw Colby a nice little sponsorship?