Fast Women: Something old, something new at the USATF Outdoor Championships
Lexy Halladay-Lowry, Roisin Willis, Nikki Hiltz, and Shelby Houlihan win U.S. titles.
Issue 363
In the steeplechase, the NCAA proves to be the perfect training ground
Frankly, some people’s takes on the steeplechase at the USATF Outdoor Championships are annoying me. I think that one common mistake people make when trying to predict the outcome of any race is getting too attached to names they’re used to seeing up front, or the people they know the most about. They also tend to look at PRs over recent accomplishments. And they don’t give enough weight to championship racing ability.
As I said in my preview, this race was wide open. No one was a lock. There were eight athletes with a relatively equal shot at making this team, and in the end, three newcomers prevailed. Running her first meet as a professional athlete, NCAA runner-up Lexy Halladay-Lowry won in 9:09.14. NC State rising junior Angelina Napoleon took second (9:10.96) and Kaylee Mitchell, who is in her second year of professional running, took third (9:11.36).
Courtney Wayment took the race out relatively quickly, hitting 1K in 3:02.41, but the pace lagged in the second kilometer, with Napoleon leading through 2K in 6:12.47. The result was that with two laps remaining, there were still nine runners in contention. Halladay-Lowry moved to the lead with two laps to go and began pushing the pace. She dropped a 68.93-second lap, and the athletes who covered it best were the ones who ended up making the team.
Halladay-Lowry won the race by covering her last 800m in 2:17.50, and Napoleon finished second by following her. Mitchell’s last lap was particularly impressive. First she fought off a challenge from Val Constien on the backstretch, then she saw Krissy Gear coming on the homestretch and she had enough to hold off the best closer in the race.
Gear, who had the fastest final lap in the race (67.02 seconds) finished fourth in 9:11.64 and missed making the team by 0.28 seconds. It’s a tough position to be in, but she ran a PR and a big season’s best despite having had a rocky buildup. After dropping out of the final at the Olympic Trials last year, she’s made great progress.
Olivia Markezich also ran a strong race, finishing fifth in a small personal best of 9:14.26. She’s someone who can absolutely be in the mix to make teams, but given that she was dealing with mono and a stress reaction between April and early June, this was a solid result.
Wayment finished sixth (9:17.94), and Constien was seventh (9:19.14), but she was much more in the mix than the results show; she just struggled a lot the last 150m. I was impressed by Angelina Ellis, who stuck with the lead pack until the kick and put herself in contention. She ran 9:23.02, just off her PR, and got some great championship racing experience.
Of the contenders in this race, Gabbi Jennings had the toughest day, finishing ninth in 9:26.15. She was in the lead pack with two laps to go, but she wasn’t able to respond to Halladay-Lowry’s move. She said in an Instagram story that when she stumbled slightly going over the water barrier with just under 1K to go, she lost momentum. “I hate leaving Eugene with this disappointed and embarrassed feeling over and over again, but I know one day I won’t,” she wrote.
There were three new names up front in this race, but none of them was a surprise. Halladay-Lowry and Napoleon were coming off a season of trying to be the best in the NCAA, and chasing Alabama’s Doris Lemngole, who won the NCAA steeple title in 8:58.15, proved to be an excellent way to prepare for this race. (Lemngole recently made the Kenyan team, so the trio will reunite at worlds.) The NCAA is getting more competitive with each season, so anyone who can excel there needs to be considered a contender at USAs. And collegiate athletes tend to go into USAs as underdogs, which comes with less pressure.
Though she was part of two NCAA-winning cross country teams at BYU, Halladay-Lowry, who just turned 24, never managed to win an individual NCAA title for BYU. Her highest finishes were second in the 5,000m indoors and second in the steeple outdoors. So it’s fitting that in her first pro meet, she finally came out on top. She ran the prelims in a BYU uniform and switched to her Nike uniform for the final.
Napoleon, 20, is someone I absolutely would not have picked to make this team at the start of the season, but her trajectory has been incredible. She began the season as a 9:54.08 steepler, but had already laid the groundwork for a big improvement. In March, she opened up with a 9:34.22. In April, she improved to 9:29.20. In May, at the ACC Championships, she ran 9:27.85. At NCAAs, she had a big breakthrough, running 9:16.66 for third.
Her season would have been incredible if she had ended it there, but instead, she hopped a plane to Paris and six days after the NCAA final, she finished seventh at the Paris Diamond League meet. She ran 9:10.72, which is still her PR, and mixed it up with the U.S.’s best. As soon as I heard her post-race interview, I knew she was going to be a contender in Eugene. She said she initially viewed going to USAs as a fun thing, but her mindset shifted after NCAAs. “Now, my eyes are set on going (to worlds) and there’s nothing I want more than that right now,” she said. “So I’m going to work my ass off the next six weeks and see how I can show up.”
Napoleon said that it was tough to get into a rhythm in Saturday’s race, because it was just so competitive, but she ran like a veteran and didn’t allow herself to be intimidated. “You can either thrive off that or you can crumble,” she said. “And I’m glad I took this opportunity to push myself and see what I could do.” And right now, she’s not worrying about how she’s going to handle missing class while she’s in Tokyo.
Mitchell’s progress in the steeplechase has been more gradual. In 2022, she was a 9:34 steepler, she improved to 9:24 in 2023 and 9:14 in 2024, and this season she’s down to 9:08.66 so far. The 25-year-old, who ran collegiately for Oregon State, had the home advantage here, racing on the track where she practices. And she showed a lot of tenacity holding on to that third spot on the final lap. It’ll be fun to see how this team fares in Tokyo. (Steeplechase replay | All results from the USATF Outdoor Championships)
Another NCAA 1-2 in the 800m
No one wanted to lead the 800m final at USAs, so as a result, the entire field negative split the race. Roisin Willis and Nia Akins ran up front on the first lap, with Akins hitting 400m in 60.81 seconds. With everyone so bunched, it felt like anything could happen.
When I watch this race back, what I notice is Willis and Maggi Congdon’s patience. Neither one of them was in a great position with 100m to go, but they remained relaxed, an opportunity opened up, and they both took it. Akins and Sage Hurta-Klecker were duking it out at the front, but Willis caught them with about 30m to go, and then Congdon got them with about 10m to go. Willis won the race in 1:59.26 and Congdon took second in 1:59.39.
Akins and Hurta-Klecker quickly went from racing for the win to racing for the final spot on the team. Hurta-Klecker got the edge, 1:59.48 to 1:59.52, before crashing to the track. After winning the last two USATF outdoor titles, Akins missed out on the world team by only 0.04 seconds.
It was hard for me to tell exactly what happened, especially because NBC changed camera angles at the crucial moment, but with about 100m to go, Meghan Hunter and Addy Wiley got a little tangled up. It affected Wiley more, and her flailing meant that Raevyn Rogers had to run wide. While it was a disruption to the race, I personally don’t think it affected the top three. It looked to me like Wiley was already starting to go backwards when the contact happened. It certainly affected Wiley’s finish, though, as she was ninth of nine in 2:02.14.
In some ways, this race reminded me of the steeplechase. Once the finalists were selected, it was anyone’s race. Athletes coming off the NCAA season went 1-2, and the top three all made their first U.S. senior team. As I’ve said, racing in the NCAA is great preparation for competing at USAs, and middle-distance runners race so often that they get a lot of practice in the NCAA.
Part of me wonders if Wiley would be a more experienced tactician by now if she had gone through the NCAA. She spent 1.5 years in the NAIA, but she was so dominant that she didn’t have much competition. And a lot of the regular-season meets aren’t very tactical.
Willis, who turns 21 on Wednesday, just finished her third year at Stanford. She’s had a lot of success, but she has also dealt with a lot of struggles. (Runner’s World) On Friday, she made a TikTok post about finishing last in her semifinal at the Trials last year (she was actually eighth of nine) and crying the rest of the night. This season has been a completely different story. She won the NCAA title, and now she’s a U.S. champion as well. (She was quick to post about that, too.)
For the second year in a row, a Stanford athlete has made the U.S. team in this event. While coach J.J. Clark has some excellent talent to work with, he really seems to do a great job of getting athletes fit and helping them become smart racers. And it was fun to see, via her Instagram stories, how thrilled Juliette Whittaker was for Willis.
As for Congdon, who just turned 23, what a story. She has mostly focused on the 1500m the last couple of years, but three weeks ago, she had a big breakthrough in the 800m, breaking 2:00 for the first time with a 1:58.55 at the Sunset Tour meet. She looked fantastic there, so I’m glad she chose the 800m at USAs, and now she’s headed to worlds.
Hurta-Klecker, 27, has had a rough history in the 800m at USAs. In 2021, she fell with 100m remaining in her 800m semifinal and broke her wrist. In 2022, she finished seventh. In 2023, she was fourth, one spot away from making the world championship team. And last year, she had to hurdle Athing Mu 200m into the 800m final at the Olympic Trials, and she lost significant ground in the process. Four years into her pro career, she’s finally headed to worlds. (800m replay)
Nikki Hiltz gets the three-peat in the 1500m
Up front, the 1500m at the USATF Outdoor Championships couldn’t have been any more predictable, but it was still a thrilling race.
Without Elle St. Pierre there to push the pace, the race started slowly (relatively speaking), with Laurie Barton leading through 400m in 67.88 seconds, and 800m in 2:15.90. Barton picked up the pace over the next lap, and right as the pack hit the bell lap (in 3:04.30), Sinclaire Johnson took over.
The entire field was still in the race at that point, which had made for a lot of jostling. BYU’s Riley Chamberlain looked ready to cover moves, but then she stumbled, and as she went down, her legs took out Helen Schlachtenhaufen, who never had a chance. Both were still in position to do something special, so it’s painful that they’ll never know what could have been.
Getting away from Nikki Hiltz before the final 150m was going to be anyone’s best bet, but Hiltz was able to match Johnson’s moves, and when they both shifted gears in the final 150m, Hiltz showed that they still have the superior closing speed. They won their third-straight USATF outdoor 1500m title, and their sixth-straight 1500m title between indoors and outdoors, in 4:03.15. Johnson took second in 4:03.77. Hiltz ran 28.67 for the last 200m, 58.67 for the last 400m, and 2:03.66 for the last 800m.
I wish someone in the mixed zone had asked Emily Mackay more about what happened during the race. Around 700m in, she turned around and said something to one of the runners behind her. And with just over 200m to go, something caused her to lose momentum, but she regrouped and finished third in 4:04.38. Heather MacLean was in contention until 150m to go, but she was unable to change gears like the top three. She narrowly held off Dani Jones for fourth, 4:05.60 to 4:05.62.
It’s easy to take it for granted when someone repeatedly wins titles, but Nikki Hiltz has proven they are a special athlete over the past three years. They have the strength to handle a fast race, finishing speed other U.S. 1500m runners don’t possess at the moment, great racing instincts, and an outlook on racing that helps them consistently produce quality performances. There are 1500m runners with longer win streaks at this meet, but staying on top in this event is getting tougher by the year, as the depth improves.
“That was probably one of my best-executed races ever, so I’m really, really proud of it,” Hiltz told reporters afterward. They discussed the challenge of switching coaches (“I think change, even if it’s good change, is hard”) and acknowledged that their mid-season hamstring injury was a bit scary. They also recalled coach Juli Benson’s last-minute reminder to make sure to enjoy the race. I was glad to hear Hiltz say that they’re now planning to run some fast races, including the Silesia Diamond League meet on August 16. And I look forward to seeing how they fare on the world stage.
Hiltz isn’t alone in making a coaching change this year. Remarkably, the top seven runners in this race have all switched coaches within the last year. Johnson’s switch, from Pete Julian to her boyfriend, Craig Nowak, appears to be working out well, as she had a healthier buildup to USAs this year. And after finishing fourth at last year’s Olympic Trials, she is back on Team USA.
It seemed likely the third spot was going to come down to a battle between former teammates Mackay and MacLean, and it has to be frustrating for MacLean to miss out on another team. I was impressed by Jones, who came back strong after barely making it into the final thanks to food poisoning on Wednesday.
Chamberlain was able to get up and place 11th out of 11 finishers in 4:16.79. But Schlachtenhaufen hit the track hard, and was initially concerned that she’d knocked out a tooth. After cleaning up her bloody face a bit, she went through the mixed zone and said she was doing okay. She was running the race as part of Bandit’s unsponsored project, after losing her sponsor at the end of last year.
Since the race, I’ve been seeing (and deleting) some nasty comments directed at Chamberlain. My take is sure, discuss her tactics somewhere if you feel the need to, but not in a post she’s tagged in while she’s dealing with major disappointment. I don’t know what it was like in the pack, and we see things from only certain camera angles, but nothing Chamberlain did during the race was egregious enough for the race officials to flag it. It’s extremely unfortunate that it affected Schlachtenhaufen, but things like this are unfortunately part of the sport, especially when races are tightly bunched.
When Hawi Keflezighi, who is coincidentally Schlachtenhaufen’s agent, was on the Fast People podcast last week, he made an unfortunately prescient comment. “All the athletes want is a fair chance,” he said. “They want to be healthy and fit and have a chance to compete. And if they don't make the team in those circumstances, I think they can live with it. But one year we had Dani Jones, and during her race, her shoe fell off. That's not the way you want to be kept from making the team. That's a heartbreaking moment. If you compete hard and at the end of the day, you’re fourth, fifth, or sixth and you don't make the team, it's a little bit easier to deal with that than a situation where you're sick during the race, or you lose a shoe, or you fall.” (1500m replay)
Longest win streaks in the 1500m at the USATF Outdoor Championships
1994-1997: Regina Jacobs, 4
1999-2002: Regina Jacobs, 4 (Jacobs’ career ended with a doping ban.)
2005-07: Treniere Clement Moser, 3
2014-17: Jenny Simpson, 4
2023-25: Nikki Hiltz, 3
The 5,000m becomes a 1,000m race
I’ve run out of time to say much about the 5,000m, but I thought this was one of the less surprising races of the meet. The top seven runners were exactly the ones I expected to see up front. And because the race started slowly, a couple of them were unlikely to have a shot at the team.
The field hit 1K in 3:12.07, 2K in 6:25.01, 3K in 9:30.29, and 4K in 12:31.50. For the top runners, the race began with 1K to go, when Josette Andrews went to the front. She continued to lead with a lap to go, and there were seven runners still in it.
Bailey Hertenstein made a big move at the bell and overtook Andrews on the backstretch. Shelby Houlihan and Elise Cranny covered it. Andrews looked like she might be headed for a fourth-place finish, but then Hertenstein tied up in the homestretch. Houlihan (15:13.61), Cranny (15:14.26), and Andrews (15:15.01) took the top three spots and are headed to worlds. Houlihan covered the final kilometer in a blazing 2:41.77, and her last lap was a 61.85.
Weini Kelati finished fourth in 15:15.89, and for the second time in four days, she missed making the world team by one spot. I look forward to her revenge tour, because I know she has more good things ahead, especially at the longer distances.
I can’t help but wonder how this race would have played out for Hertenstein if she had kicked a little later, but fifth (15:16.54) at USAs one year into her pro career is a strong showing. Karissa Schweizer was hoping this race would be her ticket to worlds, but she finished sixth in 15:16.75. Taylor Roe, who is already on the team in the 10,000m (probably), finished seventh in 15:21.36. And after a bit of a rough race at the Sunset Tour meet, I was glad to see Ella Donaghu have a better race. She finished eighth in 15:22.15.
Four years after a doping ban prevented Houlihan from being able to race for a spot on the U.S. team at the Tokyo Olympics, she’s now headed to the Tokyo world championships. It will be interesting to see if winning her first post-ban national title helps Houlihan get a shoe sponsor, but so far, they are understandably not biting.
Cranny will be the only athlete to have the opportunity to double at worlds. And it was nice to see teammates Sage Hurta-Klecker and Andrews make their first U.S. outdoor team on the same day. (5,000m replay)
Other Notes from the USATF Outdoor Championships
Ajee’ Wilson, 31, finished seventh in the 800m final, and I appreciated her opening up a bit in the mixed zone, after the semifinals. She is currently part of Bandit’s unsponsored project, and she said she wanted to keep going in the sport because she knows she still has more in her legs. She said health issues interfered with her training the past two years, and while she never really got concrete answers about what was going on, switching up her diet and adding more recovery into her training has helped. And she also said that training with Nia Akins has been really motivating.
Athing Mu-Nikolayev ended up being the fastest runner not to make the 800m final. She finished fourth in her semifinal in a season’s best of 1:59.79, and missed out by 0.39 seconds. Given that she ran 2:03 less than a month earlier, she’s making good progress. I was glad to hear that she was pretty upbeat in her post-race interviews, and that she’s planning to continue racing this summer.
In the 800m semis, I was impressed by Emily Richards, who broke 2:00 for the first time ever, running 1:59.87. Sky Webb also ran a strong race, finishing third in her semi in 1:59.81. It was only her second time breaking 2:00, and she missed the final by only 0.10 seconds. After running the prelims in her Harvard uniform, Victoria Bossong ran the 800m semis in a New Balance kit, so I assume she has signed with the brand. (Especially since her NIL deal was with Brooks.)
Allie Ostrander earned the last spot in the steeplechase final, but ultimately opted not to line up for the race. She said in an Instagram post that she’s been trying to scrape fitness together, but by Saturday, there was nothing left to scrape, and she was devoid of emotion. “Racing is one of the most exciting parts of my life so to have it elicit zero emotion was, frankly, terrifying,” she wrote. “That coupled with some small health concerns was enough to make me certain that racing wasn’t the right choice for my body or mind.”
Gracie Hyde took a hard fall during the steeplechase final and did not finish the race. I haven’t seen any updates on how she’s doing.
Lauren Harris won the the 20K race walk in 1:31:23 and took 27 seconds off her own American record. That’s 7:21 per mile!
If you missed any of the other races or want to re-watch them: 100m final | 100mH final | 200m final | 400m final | 400mH final
Other News and Results
Great Britain’s Georgia Hunter Bell is still weighing whether she should run the 800m, 1500m, or both at worlds.
Katie Schide confirmed that she will not be racing UTMB this year. She’s targeting the 82K race at the Trail World Championships in September instead, which will give her more time to recover from Hardrock.
Sara Hall said in an Instagram post that she got a late start on her season because of a heel injury after the Boston Marathon, but now she’s training for a fall marathon.
Australia’s Izzi Batt-Doyle won Maine’s Beach to Beacon 10K, running 31:25 in unusually pleasant conditions. Ethiopia’s Asmarech Anley, 20, finished second (31:31) and U.S. athletes Fiona O’Keeffe (31:36), Molly Born (31:55), and Susanna Sullivan (32:15) took the next three spots. Kenya’s Edna Kiplagat, 45, was the top masters competitor, taking seventh in 32:28. (Results)
Most countries hold their national championships on the same weekend, and I haven’t had time to look through all of the results. But I appreciated seeing that NCAA athletes Vera Sjöberg (4:05.09), Wilma Nielsen (4:05.34), and Mia Barnett (4:05.39) swept the top three spots in a tight 1500m finish at the Swedish championships. (Results)
At the Lithuanian Championships, Gabija Galvydyte, of the Swoosh TC’s Eugene hub, won the 800m (by 13+ seconds) in a PR of 1:58.69. (Results)
Emily Infeld did her first post-USAs podcast episode with Citius Mag, and I imagine there are more to come soon.
I enjoyed hearing about Courtney Coppinger’s journal from NCAA athlete to pro track runner to pro trail runner on The Steep Stuff Podcast. She was college teammates with Sharon Lokedi.
Like Friday’s newsletter, many things about this morning’s newsletter are a bit more rushed than usual, so please forgive any errors. Thanks to Sarah Lorge Butler for taking the time to edit this during a busy weekend. (Any mistakes have been added since she saw this!) And a massive thanks to Gregorio Denny for the many wonderful photos he took at the USATF Outdoor Championships over the past four days.
I do not have an August sponsor, and even when I do have sponsors, they do not come close to covering the cost of creating this newsletter. So thank you to all of you who generously support Fast Women via Venmo and Patreon. Every bit makes a difference, and none of this would be possible without you. I appreciate you!
I hope you all have the best week possible.
Alison
We are so fortunate to have your newsletters. The absolute best thing about Momday mornings. Thank you for all you do for the sport.
Look at #4 in Swedish 1500 final!