Axel's Personal Best

Adjustments are inevitable in the sport and so far this year has been a mix of world leads, athletes moving up in disciplines or even using the season of no world championships or Olympics to start families. But the track has stayed active and the road racing is equally as busy — while Sinclaire Johnson has been taking the mental notes to find and establish her place among podium chasers. In this...

Consistency and improvement are probably the two main pillars that Ben Allen routinely leans on when he lines up at the track on race day, but also in his approach to training. The Minnesota native has specialized in distances between the 800m and the mile for New York-based Empire Elite Track Club where he's defined his mark on the professional scene. After his collegiate career at Concordia Univ...

A commitment to the grind remains one of the main tools Nikki Hiltz is taking into the 2026 World Athletics Indoor Championships this weekend in Poland as they lock in and seize the chance to crack another finish line tape first and win on the international stage. Just weeks prior, a familiar tale played out in New York as Hiltz grabbed a fourth straight women's indoor 1,500m title in 4:11.34 — th...

Olympic gold put Cole Hocker on global stage at the 2024 Paris Games when a final surge in the men's 1,500m silenced favorites like Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Josh Kerr — and propelled his growing legend as the one to beat. It also help reinforced the idea this era of middle distance racing could deliver dramatic finishes and storylines like its sprint counterparts. But for Hocker, remaining grounded...

Teen phenom Quincy Wilson walks — and runs — a fine line that stretches to a budding pro career while navigating his final year of high school at Bulls School in Maryland. In the fall he won't be too far away from home after committing to the University of Maryland and stepping into the collegiate arena. Despite already being an Olympian, repping New Balance and becoming part of the lead pack of n...

The impact of making the Paris Olympics as part of Team USA's squad still resonates with Allie Wilson. She punched her ticket as part of a chaotic women's 800m final in Eugene last year as part of a whirlwind season where she also signed a contract with Nike — part of a sign that things were changing and the pauses in life would soon become rarer. But in a fast sport, the time away from the track...

T'Mars McCallum is accustomed to running in a tough collegiate conference — the SEC — and boldly proud of being one of the leaders of Tennessee's track and field squad. But his world shifted a bit last weekend at the Ed Murphey Classic in Memphis when he ran the world lead in the 200m in 19.73. The eyes of the sport suddenly looked his way and he was far from a face in a crowd of sprinters. And in...

During in the beginning of a pandemic era that rattled the world in 2020, Isabella Whittaker saw her own beginnings as a student at the University of Pennsylvania. But it was after those days at Penn — after enrolling at Arkansas in 2024 as a graduate student — that Whittaker kickstarted the current state of her place in the track landscape. Her times in the 400m fell and fell again with her 50.48...

The pivot from the classroom to lining up with the top pro runners in the world was an adjustment Graham Blanks had to quickly figure out after announcing last December that the signed with New Balance. His remaining time at Harvard was still a priority, but Blanks knew a portion of the bigger stage was reserved for him. Blanks spent his collegiate years stacking up the kinds of accolades that shi...

Humble beginnings and major childhood challenges kept Alison dos Santos well aware that guarantees were not easy to come by in his native São Joaquim da Barra, Brazil. Still, he found his way, navigated toward track and field, and a bronze at the 2018 World U20 Championships proved to be a breakout moment. The next year, he followed it up with efforts at the 2019 World Athletics Championships in D...

Emily Sisson has navigated the track, the road and found her way to the Olympic stage. After making a statement in last year's marathon trials in Orlando and punching her ticket to Paris with a second place finish (2:22:42), Sisson is poised to ride a running wave in 2025 that is loaded. Outdoor track season has the calendar stuffed, while the addition of Sydney to the marathon majors means we'll...

In the first episode of Axel's Personal Best, we chat with Olympic 800-meter silver medalist Marco Arop — who has a 1:41.2 PB and Canadian national record — about blazing the track in Grand Slam Track's inaugural season, the state middle distance running and the nuances of training for the 1,500 meter.