My guest for today's episode is Amanda Vestri. She's a professional runner for Brooks who trains with Zap Endurance. She's a rising star on the U.S. distance running scene who just made a stunning half marathon debut at the Orlando Half this past weekend with a blazing 1:18:12 performance that puts her at No. 13 on the U.S. all-time women's half marathon list and sets the stage for what could be an incredible road racing career ahead for her.

Amanda's path to this milestone hasn't been smooth after an injury disrupted her training just weeks before her debut. She pivoted her plans and showed remarkable adaptability and determination to test herself in Orlando. The positives for 2024 outweigh the negatives. She ran a 31:10 personal best for 10K on the track. She was the top American at the NYRR Mini 10K. Over the summer, she signed a pro contract and then took fifth at the US Olympic trials 10,000m final on the track.

In this episode, we discuss her breakthrough 2024 season and unpack some of her aspirations for Houston and beyond. We also look back at what spurred her passion to someday become a professional runner and then follow her long term vision of making the U.S. Olympic Marathon team for Los Angeles in 2028.

Host: Chris Chavez | ⁠@chris_j_chavez on Instagram

Guest: Amanda Vestri | @a_vestri

Time stamps:

• 4:20 - Reflections on her 2024 season
• 7:21 - How her training has evolved throughout the year
• 9:58 - Details on her training group (Zap Endurance)
• 14:33 - Plans on chasing standards + U.S. teams
• 17:44 - Thoughts on racing the 10K
• 19:52 - Her transition to the roads
• 24:46 - Her path to elite running
• 27:32 - Reflections on her college career at Iowa State + Syracuse
• 34:33 - How she handled getting COVID leading into the Olympic Trials
• 36:51 - Signing with Brooks during the Trials
• 40:24 - Breaking down the Olympic Trials 10,000m
• 45:29 - Half marathon being an underrated distance
• 51:13 - Details on some of her workouts + long runs
• 54:36 - Breaking down the race
• 56:33 - Goals for the Houston Half
• 59:34 - Fueling during the race
• 1:02:21 - Thoughts on moving up to the marathon
• 1:06:51 - Goals looking ahead to 2025

This interview excerpt has been edited lightly for length and clarity. You can find more highlights from Amanda's interview here.

How she approaches being an underdog:

I feel like no one knows me at all – and I kind of like that because you go in [to races] with people having zero expectations of you. It’s one of those things where it’s like, ‘I have nothing to lose because no one expects me to do well here.’

People are looking at the Olympians in the field and the U.S. half marathon or marathon record holders, or former record holders – which rightfully so. If you haven't really made a name for yourself, no one's going to know your name. I think that was the race where my underdog mentality really helped me because no one thought that I would be the first American in that race, but I thought that I was going to be the first American in that race.

It's just one of those things where, like Dakotah [Popehn] said before the Olympic Trials: people may not have been talking about her, but going in with an underdog mentality kind of allows you to go into a race more freely.

On her progression through college from Iowa State to Syracuse:

Andrea McDonough was my first college coach. I absolutely loved her. She left and then Amy Rudolph was my coach my sophomore year. She was amazing. Those two made a huge impact on me in a positive way.

Honestly, the reason for the change to Syracuse was I was super young still when I got to college. I wasn't mature enough to handle being away from home. I was pretty homesick as a lot of kids get. I just felt like I needed a change. I wanted to be a little bit closer to family, so I visited Syracuse again and I really enjoyed my visit there. Me and Coach [Brien] Bell clicked immediately. He was my coach for four years because I was in college for six – for the COVID year and then I got injured for one year.

We worked really well together. I’m still in frequent communication with him. It just kind of all clicked with him. Obviously there were a few hiccups along the way, a few injuries, but I think overall he sparked my interest in the longer distances because he thinks the long run is very important – and I do as well. A lot of the long runs that I would do were pretty fast. He was like, ‘You could be really good at the marathon one day.’ I was like, ‘I don't know about that. I'm good at long runs, but these long runs are 13 miles. They're not super long.’

But he sparked that little thought in my head that maybe I could be good at the longer stuff. We just worked really well together. I came back for a sixth year because I got injured my fifth year right before the cross country national race, which was so sad because I thought I could do really well there.

I came back for indoor and outdoor and those were my two first-team All-American performances. I thought that would be enough for a pro contract, but obviously it was not enough for the big brands.

I think Coach Bell's theory of coaching was for the long term instead of the short term: Let's not make you as good as you can possibly be right now. Let's make you good enough so that you can continue your career long term. That was his approach and a lot of Syracuse alumni are doing really good right now in the long distance avenue. It's super cool to see.

Goals looking ahead to the Houston Half Marathon on January 19th:

I haven't really processed what it means for Houston necessarily… I think it's just good to know that this is my starting point and we can build from there. I talked to my coach and he was basically like, ‘We don't need to be hitting home run workouts every week – just hitting singles and doubles along the way.’

Being with a pack of people in Houston is going to already allow you to run a little bit faster because you're not going to be wasting energy leading the whole way. Obviously, Houston's a very fast course, so I think that plays well into what we're trying to do. Ultimately, for that Orlando race, that was more about getting my feet wet a little bit and seeing how the distance felt. Now that I know how it feels, I know that I can push harder and I’m not going to burn out. It’s not like a marathon where you necessarily hit a wall. You have to refocus yourself at miles nine and ten to be like, ‘Alright, you need to rally now.’

It didn’t feel that long to me. In Houston, I have some time goals but I’m just going to go probably really hard and just hope that whoever I’m with in the group also wants to go really hard and we can work together to run a really fast time. That’s the goal for Houston.

Thoughts on moving up to the marathon in future years:

I definitely want to make the Olympic team in the marathon in 2028. That's been on my radar for a little bit. It's funny though, because when I got injured before the half in Valencia, my coach and I started toying with the idea of maybe coming back for the full in Valencia just to get a time in… just to see what a marathon would feel like.

I was doing 19 mile long runs pretty quickly and they felt pretty natural to me. It's definitely inevitable. It's going to happen. It's just about which one we go to and what timeline makes sense. Because now, as we approach trying to make a half marathon team, trying to make a 10K team on the track, you have to balance some things. You don't want to overdo it. The marathon might be pushed off a little bit, but it's definitely on my radar and I really want to try it. I really want to do one sooner rather than later.

What she’s most excited for in 2025:

Just venturing into new territories. Like you said, the half marathon was kind of the bug for me [to try] the marathon and I just really enjoy doing new things in terms of racing that I haven't done before. I think being able to start thinking about myself as being in the equation of making world teams or running these longer distances is really exciting. I'm excited to see where this fitness takes me.

I think a big lesson I've learned along the way after getting two hiccups in my first year of being a pro is to just enjoy the process and enjoy the present moment. That’s my main goal: staying healthy and enjoying the process along the way. Things can happen unexpectedly and you never know for sure if you're going to be on a start line. So for me, if I do make it to a start line, that's just a privilege itself.

I think a lot of times as runners, we take for granted being able to even make it to the start of a race. So for me, I’m just going to focus on the positives of even being able to have that opportunity and just celebrate the ability to run. That's kind of what my outlook is for 2025: just enjoying the process along the way.

Listen to the full interview here.

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