By Chris Chavez
January 22, 2024
U.S. indoor 3000m and mile record holder Yared Nuguse will be stepping up in distance for his first indoor 5000m race at Friday’s John Thomas Terrier Classic at Boston University. Woody Kincaid, who set the current indoor American record of 12:51.61 at this meet last year, is also entered.
Here’s what you need to know:
– Last year, Kincaid took down Grant Fisher’s U.S. indoor record of 12:53.73 with a 26.71s final lap to win 12:51.61. Just two hours before that, Nuguse ran 7:28.24 to break Galen Rupp’s U.S. indoor 3000m record of 7:30.16.
– Nuguse owns a 5000m personal best of 13:40.62 from the 2021 Raleigh Relays as his only career race above 3000m on the track.
– Much of the field will be targeting the 2024 Olympic standard of 13:05.00.
– Nuguse will be joined by his On Athletics Club teammates Joe Klecker, Mario Garcia Romo, Jonas Raess, George Beamish, Morgan McDonald. Klecker ran 12:54.99 to finish second behind Kincaid in last year’s Terrier 5000m. Raess was third in 13:10.96.
– Kincaid will also have a training partner in the race as World Championship finalist Abdihamid Nur returns to Boston University since Dec. 2021, when he ran 13:22.24 as a sophomore at Northern Arizona University.
– Sam Atkin, who ran 7:31.97 at this meet last year to break Mo Farah’s indoor 3000m British record at this meet last year and then ran 13:03.64 for 5000m, is entered.
– George Mills will be making his indoor 5000m debut. Last summer, he ran 13:18.33 in France.
– 2022 NCAA 10,000m champion Dylan Jacobs, who ran 13:11.01 at last year’s race for fourth place will make his professional debut.
– Last month, Harvard’s Graham Blanks ran 13:03.78 for the NCAA 5000m record. Stanford’s Ky Robinson and Northern Arizona’s Nico Young are entered for Friday’s race. Young is coming off a 3:57.33 at the Lumberjack Team Challenge in Flagstaff, Arizona, which converts to an altitude-adjusted time of 3:48.71.
– Due to the depth of the entries, it would not be too surprising if some of the top talent gets split into two fast sections. In February 2022, you may recall Grant Fisher breaking the American record and leading Moh Ahmed and Marc Scott under 13:00. Emmanuel Bor and Sam Atkin also broke 13:05 in that race. Woody Kincaid was in a separate heat and ran 13:05.56 to win his section – which would’ve been good enough for sixth place in Fisher’s heat. The goal by organizers is for two sections with balanced depth to chase the Olympic standard. At the moment, the hope is two sections will be paced between 7:50-7:52 through 3000m. Last year, Klecker and Kincaid came through 3000m in 7:48.
Kevin Morris / @KevMoFoto
Here’s what On Athletics Club coach Dathan Ritzenhein had to say:
CITIUS MAG: What led to the decision to run Yared Nuguse in a 5000m?
DATHAN RITZENHEIN: He didn’t want to run it. We made the deal that if he ran under 3:45 for the mile that he wouldn’t have to. He surprised us and ran 3:43. But, I told him, ‘I kind of want you to do it so we can do something different.’ He’s already run a fast 3000m and said, ‘Well, I don’t want to run the 3000m all by myself.’ So if everybody else is doing the 5000m, he said he’d rather do it even though he has no desire to do the 5000m. Yared is just a gamer. He’s fit. We started the season a lot later for all of our team. They’re just better so they’re running workouts at an easier effort than they have in the past. We started a lot easier. I’m not 100% sure what to expect going in because I think it’s a good three to four weeks later than we started. Yared has done a couple of decent workouts and he looks fit.
CITIUS MAG: The race may be paced to try and come through in 7:50-7:52ish. That would have to be a pretty fast close for him to possibly get close to the American record.
DATHAN RITZENHEIN: That’s not really the goal for us I guess. He’s just going to run as fast as he can off the race pace. My hope is that everyone in the field has a chance to get the Olympic standard. Last year, 7:47 is what they came through and that was only good for Joe and Woody. For everyone else, it kind of blew up. I would rather see a chance for everyone to get an opportunity to run the standard. All of my guys are fit. George Mills isn’t one of my guys but Thomas Dreissigacker told me that he’s in very good shape and training really hard. There are so many good bodies in the race.
For both of these races, I looked at the entries and thought, ‘Jeez. There are so many fast guys that they could honestly have three heats that are really good with the entries that they have.’ My hope is that it’s not too crowded of a field. Too many bodies on that short track could put you four or five seconds back if you’re in the back of the pack. The balance is going out fast enough so that the really fit guys can close and run something really good and other guys can still run with a chance to get the standard. I think 7:50 to 7:52 is appropriate guys.
CITIUS MAG: I remember a few years ago when Bowerman went to BU, they split the top guys into two heats. Would you prefer if Woody, Yared and Joe are all in the same heat?
DATHAN RITZENHEIN: I think we’ll see split heats. I’m pretty sure. There are so many bodies that you’re going to have good races just splitting the fields. It’s going to be hard to justify who is not in one of those races. I don’t envy the BU guys’ jobs at all. They get so many people coming to these races and knowing this track is super fast. They have a very hard job with a lot of coaches calling and wanting to get their guys in this race or that race. We’re happy to be there. I think everyone will look at the fields and say, ‘Yep. It’s fair across the boards. Doesn’t matter which section you’re in. This is going to be fast.”
Johnny Zhang / @jzsnapz
CITIUS MAG: Looks like this is Mario’s first 5000m in three years. Did you also have a deal with him?
DATHAN RITZENHEIN: He wanted to do it. He wanted to do it last year. I told him that we needed to do a 3000m first. This is a big step up in volume. He’s training very well. He ran that 10K on the roads in Madrid over New Year’s. That was an extreme distance push for him. I think he’ll be competitive in the 5000m. He’s one of those guys that does all the little stuff. He’s maybe the one who has the most room for growth when you see where his training load is at and where he can go. For him, it doesn’t matter so much with regard to the outcome. It’s really to test him and know that he’s made a lot of strength gains in the past year.
CITIUS MAG: Joe ran 12:54 last year. Is he just looking for a similar race this time around?
DATHAN RITZENHEIN: I think Joe just wants to get the standard this year. Last year, he was going to be a dead man on the track afterward and he was going to get his sub-13 no matter what. This year, he just wants to race and get the standard, walk away and be ready to go at Millrose (where he’s running the 3000m) two weeks later. I think all my guys have a very good chance to get the standard. Three or four of them have a chance to run really fast and close hard. I don’t know how fast you can close off that pace but we’ll find out if there’s competition among them or if they have someone like George Mills there. It’s going to be a good race. At the end of the day, they don’t need to run any records. This is more of a straight fitness test and getting the standard.
CITIUS MAG: How’s Morgan been feeling since the World Road Running Championships and getting back with the team for a winter block?
DATHAN RITZENHEIN: He looks amazing. Morgan can be dangerous when things are looking good. Knock on wood but this has been his first real healthy fall and winter block since 2019. He’s coming into it in a really good spot. He’s smart and savvy and always races above his training potential too. With an athlete like Joe, I know what they’ll run and when they’re fit. Then you’ve got ones like Morgan, where if he’s training really well, I actually don’t know what he’s capable of.
CITIUS MAG: For the U.S. Indoor Championships, who would you line up there?
DATHAN RITZENHEIN: Probably just Yared.
CITIUS MAG: Would he run Worlds, if he qualifies?
DATHAN RITZENHEIN: Yes.
Kevin Morris / @KevMoFoto
CITIUS MAG: This is more a philosophical question but do you believe in racing into shape or is it not worth lining people up until they’re ready to go? In the last two years, we’ve just seen the OAC team come out firing the first race of the season and not needing tune-ups.
DATHAN RITZENHEIN: At the pro level, I think that’s how it should be or is. The more developed the athlete is, the less they need that. We just have a certain training system that we believe in. We put that work in and we don’t line them up unless they’re ready to go. Otherwise, we prepare for when they are ready to go. We have no problem with opening up at a Millrose Games or something like that because we know they’re fit.
That’s part of the magic of working out with this amazing team. If you’re training with Yared, Joe, Morgan, Alicia or whoever, you know you’re fit. You don’t need a small race to tell you you’re fit. I think even before this one, we haven’t done any workouts that make you jump. Last year, we did the sub-4 mile up here in Boulder. We knew they were fit and that gets you more excited. I think they just believe in the system. They know it works. They believe they’re fit. This isn’t a championship race and we have a very specific goal going in but at the end of the day, you can’t turn off the brain of a racer and an athlete who wants to go out there and win the race.
It’s really putting the situation on the schedule where you say, ‘OK. This makes a lot of sense. Let’s go in here. This is the target. Go in there, we’re going to set it up for that. Race it as hard as you can at the end.’ We’ll come back two weeks later. A lot of the team is running Millrose and that’s a big one where we don’t care about the times as much. We say if Yared’s really fit, that world record was really close last year. It’s all pointing toward the summer. The intention of indoors, whether it’s BU or World Indoor Champs, still has a purpose in the year. We don’t really have little races. Across the board, it’s not just our team but if you’re a really developed athlete, you just know you’re fit already. If you’re not fit, you put in a training block to get fit and then race.
CITIUS MAG: Last year, you did that sub-4 mile at altitude and everyone is talking about sub-4 mile conversions this week. What’s your take on how it all translates? You see it every day with workouts and sessions and then in big races. When Nico Young runs 3:57 in Flagstaff and the conversion says it’s worth a 3:48, does that line up to you?
DATHAN RITZENHEIN: Every person is a bit different. All I know is that Nico running that is a great run compared to what he’s done in the past. That shows he’s in really good shape. He’s running this weekend and I think he’ll run really fast. Do I think he can run 3:48 in an open mile? That’s TBD. At the end of the day, you can’t run 3:57 at 7,000-feet without being in really good shape. Conversions are meaningless. Performances mean a lot. That means a lot and shows he’s in really good shape. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he went and broke the collegiate record this weekend either. I don’t know if he’s a miler either. When you see that, you wonder, ‘Does this line up?’ But at the same time, the performance you know is really good because for him, historically, that’s probably the fastest he’s run. He’s in good shape.
Chris Chavez
Chris Chavez launched CITIUS MAG in 2016 as a passion project while working full-time for Sports Illustrated. He covered the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and grew his humble blog into a multi-pronged media company. He completed all six World Marathon Majors and is an aspiring sub-five-minute miler.
