Start Of Something New ⏱️
Lap 257: Sponsored by Olipop
Sponsored by Olipop
A blast from the past, Olipop’s Shirley Temple combines smooth vanilla flavor with bright lemon and lime, finished with cherry juice for that nostalgic grenadine-like flavor. One sip of this timeless soda proves some flavors never grow old. Try Shirley Temple and more of Olipop’s flavors at DrinkOlipop.com. Be sure to use code CITIUS25 for 25% off your orders.
Compiled by David Melly & Paul Snyder
The Weekend Of The 2K Delivers
Last week, we started the newsletter by wondering if the best race of the weekend would be a 2000m at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix. Boy, oh boy, that ended up feeling prescient…
What we didn’t account for was the possibility that the mile-plus festivities would begin a day earlier than anticipated, thanks to a guy who wasn’t even in Boston: Cole Hocker. Hocker and Team SOVA coach Ben Thomas persuaded Virginia Tech head coach Ben Thomas to set up a little 2k of their own at this year’s Hokie Invitational, and thanks to 1200 solid meters of in-house pacing, the top three finishers all broke five minutes, with Hocker getting to the line first, well under Bernard Lagat’s 11-year-old American record.
Hocker clocked a 4:52.92 about a second and a half up on training partner Cooper Teare, and behind the Nike duo George Couttie became the first collegian under the barrier at 4:57.81. Couttie’s mark is going to get swept under the rug, given that it only ended up being the ninth-fastest 2000m of the weekend, but he’s already living up to the hype we bestowed upon him as a racer to watch in 2026.
Most importantly, the Blacksburg pre-show threw the gauntlet down for the lads taking a crack at the TRACK at New Balance the next day. Hocker’s mark was the fastest time in the world in nearly two years (again, people don’t run the 2k that often), and he beat Grant Fisher and company to the American-record-bonus-check punch by about 21 hours. Now the Grand Prix gang—Fisher and Jake Wightman, specifically—weren’t just racing each other and the ghosts of a couple retired legends. They were trying to one-up a guy they’d be seeing in New York next weekend at the Millrose Games.
The second act of the weekend’s off-distance drama got through about 1600 meters according to form, thanks to a stellar pace job from Davis Bove (who, despite his 3:56.38 mile PB, took the field through 1600m in 3:52.96). But instead having to contend with Wightman hot on his heels, Fisher found himself leading fellow American Hobbs Kessler by a step. (Side note: Kessler seems to really love racing this time of year, as he picked up a shiny new 3:46.90 mile PB at Millrose and two U.S. titles during 2025’s indoor season.) When the final lap came, Kessler did what 1500m guys have been doing to 10K guys for time immemorial: uncorked a sparkplug acceleration and a blistering kick that Fisher simply couldn’t match.
Kessler and his 26.31 final 200m split got him under the one-day-old American record—and then some. The 22-year-old (yeah, he’s still just 22) stopped the clock at 4:48.79, a new World Indoor record and the ninth fastest 2000m of all time. Fisher still ran an incredible race, closing in 27.25 in a race without a single split over 30 seconds. His mark of 4:49.48 is time that would’ve broken Kenenisa Bekele’s 2007 record as well… had Kessler not beaten him to the punch.
Fisher and Hocker won’t get a chance for revenge, but for very good reason: Hobbs is instead matching up in the Wanamaker Mile against American record holder Yared Nuguse and Josh Hoey, who himself ran an epic world indoor record at New Balance—a 1:42.50 800m. As the Goose goes for his fourth straight Wanamaker title, it’s looking like he’s going to face his hardest test yet with two razor-sharp speedsters in the mix.
Wightman finished a well-beaten fourth in 4:53.69, but that’s still a promising sign of health and fitness, both of which he’ll need for the two mile at Millrose. Generally, we’d rather everyone be in the same place at the same time for the best racing outcomes, but two coincident 2000ms one week before a highly-anticipated matchup over a more conventional distance makes for an interesting multi-weekend narrative. Throw in Josh Kerr, the world indoor record holder over two miles, Graham Blanks (who ran 7:31.97 in the 3000m just two weeks after the 10km at World XC), and hard-kicking wild cards like Geordie Beamish and Ethan Strand, and the battle royale has gotten even more interesting than it was a few days ago.
The choice to feature a ten-lapper at the Grand Prix paid off, pitting strength against speed in a thrilling battle and whetting our appetites for more racing to come. Whether you show up to a track meet to watch records fall or to see stars go head-to-head, you got your money’s worth either way. Maybe the “random 2k” on the schedule becomes an annual tradition next year.
2026: The Year To Get Outside Your Comfort Zone
What kind of year are we in for? That’s the question on everyone’s minds heading into the season—athletes and fans alike.
After his 3000m at New Balance this past weekend, Graham Blanks voiced what we’ve all been thinking: “There’s no down year anymore. I’ll have down years for the rest of my life when I’m done running.”
Sure, there’s no outdoor World Championship and a few moms-to-be taking the year off competing, but everyone on the track on Saturday didn’t seem to be taking much down time. There’s still prize money to be earned, contract bonuses to be hit, national and international accolades to add to the shelf. But there isn’t a defining narrative of a season oriented at one overarching goal… and maybe that’s a good thing.
What else did we see this weekend? There was no lack of stars at the NBIGP, but some of them showed up in events that haven’t historically been their forte. Short sprinters Noah Lyles and Trayvon Bromell lined up against Jereem Richards for a 300m, which the 200m/400m specialist from Trinidad and Tobago won by 0.01 seconds over Lyles. Bromell didn’t exactly turn heads with his performance and vowed on social media afterwards never to race the distance again, but it was nevertheless fun to see him try. Lyles may be the American record holder in the event, but he hasn’t raced a 300m in eight years. And with no trifecta of 100m/200m/4x100m on offer at the end of the season, Lyles’s persistent threat to become a threat in the 400m may get a little more real this year.
Blanks, for his part, may become one of a few athletes to go for the World XC/World Indoor double just two months apart. You don’t see that much high-quality racing in the first three months of the calendar most years, and you definitely don’t see many serious 10ks in January. World heptathlon champion Anna Hall may similarly frontload her year, since she has the chance to claim another global gold in the indoor pentathlon but not her primary event(s). Her weekend consisted of a 400m/long jump double, neither of which is an unusual event for the human equivalent of a Swiss army knife, but the combo is a little out of place at a meet as high-profile as the Grand Prix.
If she does make it to the World Ultimate Champs, one option available to Anna would be the 400m hurdles, an event that isn’t on the heptathlon card but one she’s raced in the NCAA and on the Diamond League circuit. And the path to a big payday there is looking a little clearer than usual, because Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone will be otherwise occupied and reigning World champ Femke Bol has opted to focus, at least in the near term, on the 800m. The unusual setup of 2026 affords athletes like Bol the chance to give us a little more intrigue as we speculate about her middle-distance potential, instead of just mindlessly tuning in for another ten or so Diamond League victories that won’t be particularly close.
For others, the chance to try something new doesn’t necessarily mean a shift in events. Since last medaling in the 200m in 2022, Dina Asher-Smith has become something of a journeywoman across continents and training groups, and most recently she’s landed with Michael Ford and the Baylor crew in Waco, Texas. That seems to be a pretty good fit so far as Asher-Smith won the 60m at NBIGP in 7.08, her first race at the distance in three years. As Asher-Smith, who turned 30 last month, plots out the next (and potentially even final) phase of her career, this seems like a great time for a fresh start.
It’s not an Olympic year; it’s not a Worlds year. It’s not a down year though, either. 2026 is the year to try something new. Rather than thinking about the season as an ugly, boring barrier en route to the back half of the decade, it’s a season of potential, of exciting unknowns. The possibilities are endless.
3 Things We Are Now Fully And Perhaps Irrationally Expecting In 2026 And Beyond
With the first true weekend of the indoor campaign now in the books, it’s only fair that we put a stake in the ground and put out some unhinged predictions for the rest of the 2026 season based solely on a single data point…
…Okay, it’s not fair at all. But that’s half the fun of sports fandom: the joy of giving in to a kneejerk reaction, then allowing that perception to color our appreciation of everything that subsequently happens.
Alright! Let’s extrapolate, speculate, and percolate some takes.
It’s Hobbs’s world, we’re all just living in it.
Based on the just-under five minutes of racing we’ve seen from Hobbs Kessler this year, it’s safe to say he is the best middle distance runner on Earth today and quite possibly ever. (After all, he did yoink a world record from the great Kenenisa Bekele.) We see no reason the gravy train should run off the tracks, so let’s go ahead and slot Kessler in for a second WR of the year—in the indoor mile—and of course a win over a loaded field at Wanamaker. The kid loves racing and is great indoors, particularly, so from there—glossing over his indoor 1500m U.S. title on Staten Island—let’s fast forward to the World Indoor Championships in Kujawy Pomorze, Poland. Obviously, he wins there, too, regardless of who the rest of the world trots out in a futile attempt to keep the mulleted Michigander from breaking the tape.
Outdoors, it’s a whole lot more of the same. HK slices through domestic competition like it’s warm butter, flies across the pond for a few Diamond League meetings (he wins those, too), then picks up his first – and the first – gold medal in the 1500m at the World Ultimate Championships.
The Reality Check: Are we putting cashing out our retirement funds to place an enormous wager on an elaborate parlay based on the above prediction? No. But we wouldn’t have bet big on “Isaac Nader, 1500m World Champ” either and look where that got us: still buying groceries on a newsletter-writer’s salary.
Taylor Made Taylor Makes it.
Diljeet Taylor’s squad will be the member of the loose SWOOSH TC federation of clubs that puts the enterprise fully on the map. First year pro Meghan Hunter has already taken the first shot with a W at Dr. Sander, going 1:59.70 in the 800m to take down a very respectable field of domestic players, many with experience on the global stage. That’s the sort of momentum a young club can harness, particularly one as cohesive as the Provo branch of SWOOSH TC, which benefits from a de facto feeder system in the mighty BYU women’s distance squad.
Lexy Halladay-Lowry signed on after her fantastic final season in the NCAA, and more seasoned pros with international championship experience like Whittni Orton Morgan and Courtney Wayment have heeded the call as well, switching brand sponsors to Nike to continue training under Taylor. Members of this squad ought to be a very regular presence on U.S. teams going forward, and with the Eugene outpost slim on numbers and the Flagstaff branch still developing a clear identity, come next year, when fans talk about SWOOSH TC they will be thinking first and foremost about Provo.
The Reality Check: Not actually that crazy. The issue many pro squads run into is getting athletes to buy into the team concept, and that success for one is a success for all, because at the pro level… that isn’t technically true. But it’s a much easier task when the core of your crew have been friends and training partners for years, and bring a similar team sensibility to the pro circuit that they carried during their decorated college years. Fans can tell—and tend to like!—when a team genuinely likes all of its members.
The 1500m in America runs through Portland, again.
Sinclaire Johnson announced last week she was signing a deal with HOKA after spending the entirety of her pro career to that point with Nike. She followed up that announcement with a stellar season opener, taking reigning World silver medalist Dorcus Ewoi to the line and running the No. 4 time in U.S. history, 4:01.30. Well, if that’s the sort of racing we can expect out of Johnson this year, let’s go ahead and extend her shine to the to-be-announced but hinted-at professional training group being built around her in Portland. For the first time since The Club Formerly Known as Bowerman packed its bags and departed for Eugene, Johnson and co. are returning Oregon’s hippie mecca to its rightful status as Miler City. A world class talent at the core, access to a global footwear giant’s research and development facilities, and agreeable year-round weather that’s rarely extreme enough to disrupt training… sound familiar? Well it’s back, and the next wave of pros out of the NCAA are going to take notice. It’s only a matter of time before the American records and global medals start to roll in.
The Reality Check: While we are big Sinclaire and/or Portland fans, the jury’s still out… but it’s an intriguing premise. Young people like living in generally cool, walkable cities where they can make friends besides their coworkers. And Johnson signing on lends a whole lot of legitimacy to the operation. For middle-distance athletes who don’t want to live at altitude—or in Blacksburg, Virginia—this development is an exciting one. One or two more big names could turn this what-if into a sure-is.
More News From The Track And Field World 📰
– The mile-high bar keeps on raising. At an outdoor invitational in New Zealand, 16-year-old Kiwi Sam Ruthe ran 3:53.83, an age group world record. And at the Dr. Sander Invite at the Armory, 17-year-old Cooper Lutkenhaus became the first U.S. high schooler to run under 1:46 indoors, going 1:45.23.
– Former marathon world record holder for Kenya Brigid Kosgei joins Jamaican stars Jaydon Hibbert, Roje Stona, Rajindra Campbell, and Wayne Pinnock in switching her allegiance to Turkey.
– Congratulations are in order for Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who has announced she is pregnant with her first child!
– Two-time Olympic champion Soufiane El Bakkali has signed with On, as has Ackeem Blake, Jamaica’s short sprinting star.
– At the ISATF Dusseldorf meet, Great Britain’s Jeremiah Azu went 6.53 to take the men’s 60m comfortably, and German Olympic champ Yemisi Ogunleye threw the shot 18.78m for the win.
– As you undoubtedly have been wondering, yes, there was a Gold Label race held in Europe as part of the World Athletics Cross Country Tour this weekend—this time in Campaccio, Italy. Hometown hero Nadia Battocletti took the women’s 6k race in 21:10, while Burundi’s Egide Ntakarutimana won the men’s 10k in 30:38.
– The New York Road Runners have unveiled a new logo as part of the organization’s first larger rebrand in 15 years. Nobody told us this was in the works or else we would have had our ace designer participate in the request for proposal.
Interested in reaching 20,000+ dedicated runners and track and field fans? Advertise with us here.
No mention of Elle??
Hey Chris and TLC team, I’ve been enjoying your weekly newsletter with the exact same enthusiasm I had when I expected my monthly T&F news back in the day. Your love of our sport is truly evident with your newsletter and your CM interviews. I’m probably not in your target age group audience as an active 400M runner, but I’ve been one of your biggest supporters by sharing your media outlets with my young and old track circle. Keep up the great work and hoping we could meet someday! All the best , Wally Hernandez