let's go for a jog

Welcome to The Jog, a track and field newsletter

Some big rocks in Sedona, May 2021

Welcome to The Jog, a newsletter covering elite (and non-elite) track and field, running, fitness culture and more. Really, this is an excuse for me to write about track in the lead up to the U.S. Olympic Trials (the world’s best track meet) and the Tokyo Olympic Games (assuming we make it that far).

I’m going to use this space to semi-regularly share my freelance work and otherwise ramble about issues in THE SPORT that are too long for Twitter and too disorganized to pitch to an editor. (That said… if you’re an editor… and you’re intrigued… I’d love to write for you, hit me up johannagretschel@gmail.com).

Meet Bowerman Track Club’s newest babe: Sinclaire Johnson

Photo courtesy Sinclaire Johnson for PodiumRunner

[Editor’s Note: are they still called the Bowerman Babes? Are they going through a rebrand? Have I just not checked their instagram in awhile? My DMs are open]

If you’re new to this, here’s the short version: The Bowerman Track Club is based in Portland, Oregon and coached by Jerry Schumacher, who has produced a slew of the nation’s top distance runners. To name a few… 2017 New York City Marathon champion (and baker of superhero muffins) Shalane Flanagan, American record holders and world-beaters Shelby Houlihan, Courtney Frerichs and Evan Jager… heck, Gwen Jorgensen quit triathlon after winning gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics so she could train with this guy. *Seven* of their women made the Olympic team in 2016. The point is, this is big-time.

So, Sinclaire Johnson. I interviewed her last month for a new article for Podium Runner that you can read in full here. She is actually the defending champion in the NCAA 1500m, which is wild considering that was back in 2019. Yes, the pandemic! She smoked Jessica Hull —now the Australian national record holder and member of the “rival” training group formerly known as the Nike Oregon Project and now heretofore unnamed group coached by Pete Julian— by closing in 62 while breathing pure flames. A champion is born.

INTERVIEW: How Sinclaire Johnson is training to compete in the big leagues

The economy of track and field is incredibly brutal. Few athletes are paid, even fewer are paid well, and while the general public is not privy to salary numbers the same way we know, for example, the fact that DK Metcalf signed a four-year, $4.5 million dollar contract with the Seahawks, there is an acknowledgement that money goes to potential and thus, to younger athletes.

So Sinclaire Johnson had a tough decision to make in 2019. She was still a junior at Oklahoma State and followed up her NCAA 1500m win with a nail-biter, fourth-place finish at the USATF Championships, narrowly missing out on a top three placement that would have qualified her to the World Championships.

Luckily, her family had the right attitude, and as she told me for the story, “they were huge proponents of me leaving and striking while the iron is hot” and taking the opportunity to turn pro with Nike, even while she admits she didn’t necessarily feel mentally or emotionally ready.

“You don’t know if this is going to be available next year and it definitely wasn’t going to be, which is another crazy thing about my situation,” she said. “There are some people who are making quite a bit of money in the sport and obviously, there are some people who aren’t. For [my parents], that was exciting that I can make a livelihood on this and it’s not just chump change. I was 21 years old, getting a contract like I did.”

[Editor’s Note: I did not ask her details of the contract, it seemed rude. Track and field feels too intimate for uncomfortable questions sometimes, but maybe I am wrong for that]

It was the single best decision she could have made, as her senior year would have been a complete wash due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Very weird,” she said of considering her future if she opted to stay at OK State for the 2020 season. “Nike wasn’t signing anybody all of last year, so that wouldn’t have been an opportunity. I was talking about this with some of the other girls the other day, I probably would have been with the On group because that was the only company signing people. I could have been with a totally different group. The timing was ideal, very perfect. It’s kind of wild to think how things could have been so different if I had gone back to school.”

Nike gave Johnson the go-ahead to finish school in Stillwater and continue training with coach Dave Smith, but once the pandemic pushed back the Olympics a full calendar year, it no longer made sense to delay joining BTC — and with it, the opportunity to train with Houlihan and Gabriela DeBues-Stafford, the Canadian national record holder for 1500m.

Check out the full story on Johnson’s transition to BTC here, complete with details on some of her hardest workouts under Schumacher.

Despite Johnson being way younger and more athletic than me, her story feels relatable on a human level as someone who also quit their job (in her case, college, although she graduated, so not an exact approximation) during the pandemic to take up a passion project (do you guys like soccer? Follow The Striker Texas).

PODIUM RUNNER: How Nike Pro Sinclaire Johnson is Training to Compete in the Big Leagues

This story comes with a nice epilogue already, as Johnson broke 2 minutes in the 800m for the first time last weekend at the USATF Golden Games in 1:59.91 against a world-class field. Don’t be surprised to see her enter the 800m as a back-up plan at the Olympic Trials in a couple months.

DK Metcalf and Sha’Carri Richardson

While you may question the fact that I spent this entire newsletter talking about the girl who placed seventh in her race at the USATF Golden Games last weekend (she is a legit contender for the Olympic team so do not forget the name!), the athlete who received by far the most media attention of the entire event was the Seattle Seahawks’ DK Metcalf, who placed 15th in the preliminary section of the men’s 100m.

Respect to Metcalf for going stepping up and—if not silencing, then at least addressing—the eternal track speed vs. football debate. I’m not gonna lie, I enjoyed the extra media attention that this grown-ass man’s 10.37 (+1.0) brought to the sport of track and field.

However, the fact that video of DK’s run—which would not have made the podium at the Texas high school state championships (which, to be fair, featured an obscene tailwind)— has garnered 1.7 million views as of 8 p.m. CT on May 11, 2021 vs. just 159K views for Sha’Carri Richardson’s 10.77 (-1.2) is very annoying.

I could write a 1,000 more words on Sha’Carri (and next newsletter, I think I will), but this tiny 21-year-old is for sure going to give the pocket rocket herself, Ms. Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, a battle in Tokyo this summer. Her personal best of 10.72, set in April this year, makes her the fourth-fastest woman in U.S. history behind only FloJo (10.61), Carmelita Jeter (10.64) and Marion Jones (10.65). Of that group, only Jeter has escaped any doping suspicions, so do with that info as you may.

Girl is legit. I also think she legitimately could have won if she lined up in the blocks next to Metcalf, but I guess we’ll never know. Richardson is also my favorite person on all of Twitter but like I said before, we’re going to have to write a separate post on her.

Anyway

There are a lot of other things I wanted to talk about, like Elle Purrier’s sunglasses (fierce), Elle Purrier’s speed (fiercer), Elle Purrier’s potential to be cast in the next Ariana Grande ‘00s nostalgia video cosplaying Reese Witherspoon as Elle Woods in “Legally Blonde” (there is at least 2% chance of this happening, more if she medals in Tokyo)… it will all have to wait for next time, because today is actually my birthday and I am two homemade margaritas deep and ready to go eat dinner and have a workout tomorrow morning which consists of 1 mile @ 5:45, 3 miles @ 6:00, 1 mile @ 5:45 with 3 minutes rest in between, so what I’m saying is, you’ll just have to subscribe so you can read this again sometime.

Cheers! Run brave. Jojo