My guest for today’s episode is Alex Maier – a rising star in American distance running who just made a statement at the USATF Half Marathon Championships. In near-freezing conditions and a brutally fast race, Alex surged ahead late to claim his first national title, running 1:00:48 and securing a spot on Team USA for the World Road Running Championships, which we just learned today will not be held in San Diego in September. No reason was given by World Athletics but a new host city is expected to be announced soon.

Alex is a former All-American at Oklahoma State and is no stranger to tough courses and big races. But his transition to the roads with Puma Elite has taken him to another level. In this episode, Alex takes us inside his breakthrough win and how his training at OSU, and now with Puma Elite, has set him up for success. We also talk about his future goals, his experience moving up in distance, and what’s next as he prepares for Worlds.

Host: Chris Chavez | ⁠@chris_j_chavez on Instagram

Guest: Alex Maier | @alexmaier._ on Instagram

Episode Highlights:

The following excerpt has been edited lightly for clarity. You can listen to the full episode with Alex Maier on the CITIUS MAG Podcast.

Takeaways from the U.S. Half Marathon Championships:

It was just trusting my fitness. It was only my second half marathon coming in… It was a new experience, but it felt familiar to me given all the training that we've done. I felt like I was very prepared to handle what was thrown at me and the unique challenges you get in the half marathon. So coming into Atlanta, I had a lot of confidence.

Training with my team – with guys like Pat Tiernan, Peter Lynch, Jack Rowe, and Patrick Dever to name a few – training with those guys day in and day out and going stride for stride with them in workouts also gave me a big degree of confidence because those guys are some of the best in the world at what they do. It's been really great. The whole team is a super supportive environment and it's been really fun.

Moving to the roads after graduating from Oklahoma State:

When [Alistair and Amy Cragg] were talking to me coming out of college, we definitely had the roads in mind. That was where I was going to progress to at some point: doing half marathons and marathons. It was up to me on how quickly I wanted to do that. I was ready to jump right into that out of college. I was a very high mileage guy in college. I like doing longer workouts and longer distances. A lot of what Oklahoma State does is very aerobic-based and very strength-focused.

To me, it was just a natural extension to continue on to do marathons, half marathons, and hitting the roads. I've been loving it. It reminds me a lot of cross country, which is something you don't really get much of in the professional scene.

Navigating injuries during college:

I think the biggest problem I ran into during college was that I almost didn't know when to pull back at times. I really ran into some problems with that kind of philosophy… In college, I didn't give myself the space to really breathe and recover – not just physically, but mentally too. Seasons in the NCAA, you go from cross country, straight into indoor, and straight into outdoor. If you don't bake in some periods where you give yourself space to come down off those highs and those long seasons, you can cook yourself a bit.

I think that's the problem I ran into, especially the year after cross country where I finished fifth [individually at the NCAA Championship]. We tied with NAU but lost the tiebreaker. To me, I tried flipping an even higher switch that maybe I didn't have. It was like, ‘I’ve got to triple down, bear down, and try to extract as much fitness out of myself as possible.’ I kind of over-did it and just cooked myself a little bit. But that's the name of the game: you have to try and find that fine edge of how hard you can train without overdoing it. Sometimes you don't know where that line is until you step across it. I'm grateful for those experiences though because I felt like I learned a lot about myself as an athlete and how to deal with that.

Why he decided to join Puma Elite:

The biggest thing that made me commit to Oklahoma State was having a coach who saw me and believed in my talent and believed in my attitude and work ethic. He said, ‘If you bring those things here, I'm going to take you and really develop you and help you become the athlete you want to be.’ Alistair and Amy have shown that in spades. They've been incredible coaches and have worked with me on not necessarily just my strengths, but also pointing out my weaknesses and being like, ‘These are ways we can help you improve and help you move forward to become a better athlete.’

Secondly, the team culture. The team culture here is incredible. You hear about some pro groups where everyone's kind of scattered or maybe doing their own thing, but both Alistair and Amy do a really good job. We have a wide range of athletes where we all work out together and incorporate sessions with one another. It really gives the opportunity to learn from the guys who have been here for a long time, like Pat [Tiernan] and take lessons from that. I follow their approach in the same way that I hope the younger people on the OSU team were able to learn from me when I was there.

His hopes for the marathon:

I'm really hoping that I can be in the conversation with [the top American marathoners]. That's the ultimate goal: to make teams. World teams, Olympics teams. Hopefully I can keep progressing and be in the same conversation with those guys and continue to develop. It's really cool though how in distance running it seems like the bar across everything is being moved up. It's challenging, but it's also really exciting. It's really cool for the sport of running in general. The ultimate goal is that I can hopefully contribute to that, continue to raise the bar, and really put American marathoning on the map.

Listen to the full episode here.

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