The CITIUS MAG Podcast | A Running + Track and Field Show

Chris Chavez and Kyle Merber discuss the third day of the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials live from Eugene, Oregon. We start this episode by reaffirming that we are now big throws guys. Rudy Winkler broke an American record that had stood since 1996 with his 82.71-meter heave in the men's hammer throw. Stay tuned because he will be a guest on the show later this week. Other topics discussed:&n...

Chris Chavez, Kyle Merber and Nick Willis sit down with the newly minted and first-ever Tracksmith Olympian, Rachel Dincoff. In Saturday’s competition, Rachel threw the discus 60.21m to finish 3rd overall and secure her spot in Tokyo. After graduating college in 2016, where she was never a first-team All-American, Rachel made the decision to continue pursuing her childhood dream of qualifying for...

Chris Chavez, Kyle Merber and David Melly discuss the second day of the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials live from Eugene, Oregon, where Sha'Crri Richardson won the women's 100m in 10.86 seconds and is now a top gold medal contender in Tokyo. We also discuss the women's discus where Valarie Allman looks to end an Olympic medal drought. We theorize on how the women's 1,500m final may shake out a...

Chris Chavez and Kyle Merber discuss the first day of the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials live from Eugene, Oregon, where Ryan Crouser demolished the world record with a 23.37m throw to win the men's shot put.  We slept on Woody Kincaid and paid the price as he won the men's 10,000m in 27:54.62.  We unpack the first round of the women's 1,500m after the controversy regarding Shelby H...

"I feel completely devastated, lost, broken, angry, confused and betrayed by the very sport that I’ve loved and poured myself into just to see how good I was. I want to be very clear. I have never taken any performance-enhancing substances. And that includes that of which I am being accused. I believe in the sport and pushing your body to the limit just to see where the limit is. I’m not intereste...

Valerie Constien is the United States’ third-fastest steeplechaser heading into the Olympic Trials with a personal best of 9:25. That’s also good enough for No. 14 in the world for 2021. She is a graduate of the University of Colorado and now competes for the Tracksmith Amateur Support Program while being coached by Mark Wetmore and Heather Burroughs.  We’ll be featuring a few more Tracksmith...

Ben Flanagan returns to the podcast! He first came on in 2018 after winning his NCAA title in the 10,000m. Now he’s a professional runner for the Reebok Boston Track Club and he’s currently quarantined in Canada before he competes at their respective Olympic Trials in Montreal later this month. We’re all fairly familiar with what it takes to make the U.S. Olympic team with a top three finish at ea...

"I have a really unique privilege of being able to do both worlds. I don't know if anyone's been able to work out with pros and do their easy runs with their high school team. It's super cool. It just works because of the circumstances of my dad being the coach and Ron (Warhurst) being the assistant coach at Skyline. I definitely wish a lot of people knew I'm not just training like a pro. I work o...

"We sat down and [Jerry Schumacher's] big thing was that he thinks everyone kind of has their ideal race distance. For some people, it's the 1,500m. For other people, it's the 5K. For some people, it's the 3K so if you're going to run the 3K at the professional level, you also need to be able to hurdle. He said he didn't really know what that was going to be for me, but he thought the steeplechase...

"Nike was trying to offer me less than what they offered me when I came out of college. To me, it was just a slap in the face. I was like, ‘I've made the Olympic team. I'm pretty much, you know, not to sound cocky, but like I'm probably going to make another Olympic team. I've made five USA teams since I graduated. How could I possibly be worth less than I was when I came out of college?’ They wer...

“I’m thankful for the opportunity I have to make the U.S. Trials. It’s always easy to talk about things you don’t have but I’m so thankful for this club. For the first time in my career, I feel like I have opportunities to run times that I dreamed of when I was 13 or 14 years old and first started the sport. If you told my sophomore year high school or 15-year-old self that I’d have an opportunity...

Jarret Eaton is a world championship silver medalist in the 60m hurdles. He’s a two-time national champion in the event. At this weekend’s Trials of Miles Kansas City Qualifier, he finished second in the men’s 110 hurdles. In this episode, he takes us through what it’s been like for him to push himself in this event since 2012 through some ups and downs, why he goes after it unsponsored, how to si...

"I do think that it's important for athletes to consider different revenue streams. I'm still trying to get my finger on the pulse of what even lands a sponsorship 15 years into this. I don't know if it's potential, if it's past times, if it's making teams, if it's Instagram followers, if it's marketability – whatever that means, if it's age, I still can't figure it out. I just think it's importan...

"I was talking to my mom the other day and she said, 'It's important to be who you are so that the right people love you.' I was like, 'Yeah. That's what it is.' I just felt like it is really important to continue to show up as myself in all areas of my life so the right people are on my side, the right people are following me and I can lean into that more than anything." Nikki Hiltz is now a two-...

Conner Mantz is a junior at BYU and just won the NCAA Cross Country Championships last month. Right from the start of the race, he went with the hot pace established early by Iowa State’s Wesley Kiptoo and eventually pulled away to win by 22 seconds. Mantz is the first American man to win the NCAA individual title since 2008. He was BYU’s first champion since 2006.  Just two weeks or so after...

48 miles in 48 hours and more than $48,000 raised for the Release Recovery Foundation over the weekend in New York City. On national tv, Zac Clark opened up about his history with drug addiction/substance abuse and his recovery. In 2017, he co-founded Release Recovery to help others reclaim their lives from addiction. His foundation is a non-profit that helps provide scholarships to those who may...

"I do some of my best thinking when I'm on my long runs. Today, we've talked a lot about my recovery and my sobriety. Running is one of the greatest tools I've been given because any time I can go reset the mind. People in my life know that. They'll say, 'Dude, go for a run. Let's talk after.' Because it's such a release for me." Some of you might be familiar with Zac Clark since he won the most r...

Matthew Luke Meyer and I discuss all of the good things that have happened in the sport since we last caught up in early February to unpack the biggest storylines and headlines in the sport.  In this episode we discuss: – Our NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championship MVPs and why we should maybe taper expectations on Cole Hocker – The brilliance of BYU's women and coach Taylor at the indoor an...

"We brought in a copywriter to work with us for this running club. She started writing copy. One of the sentences she wrote was, "Hey, you've been behind the bar all day, you've earned your right to jog." In my conversation with my partner, I was like, "I'm not feeling that sentence." She's like, "What do you mean?" I was said, "We don't use the word 'jog." They're like, "Who's we?" I said, "Runne...

"If the Olympics had been held last year, I think I would have had a pretty outside shot of making the team. Maybe if things went perfect, I could have maybe snagged a third or something. But at the same time, I didn't even have the standard. It's tough to say but I do think this extra year has kind of served me pretty well. My confidence is much higher that I can make this team. It’s going to be...

"Other sports like cycling and swimming are very homogeneous because the cost of bike equipment runs in the tens of thousands of dollars. Swimming is a very homogeneous sport because not everyone has access to a swimming pool. In running, we can kind of toss off those shackles and you only really need a pair of shoes and an opportunity to race and train, which is more accessible than any other spo...

Previewing all of the races at the Trials of Miles Texas Qualifier with Kyle Merber before we hit the booth.  The Texas Qualifier is a two-night track meet happening on February 26 & 27. The first night is designed for athletes looking to achieve the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials qualifying mark. The second night of action will get faster with some of the sport’s top stars aiming fo...

It's been a while since Leah Falland (née O'Connor) joined the CITIUS MAG Podcast. Now she's got a new sponsor, a new home and a new last name after getting married to Louis Falland in 2020. Most importantly, she's running really well on the track and just paced Elle Purrier to an American record in the two-mile at the New Balance Indoor Games, which were held in New York City. I recorded thi...

Ryan Sterner and Stephen Kersh join me for this bonus episode of The CITIUS MAG Podcast to discuss their documentary "A Time And A Place" – which follows Northern Arizona Elite's road to the 2020 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. As I wrote in the CITIUS MAG Newsletter : "Many of us know how the story ends and if you don’t then major spoiler: Aliphine Tuliamuk ends up making the U.S. team for the Toky...

"One of the things I feel that I’m pretty good at is the competition side of things. When I do get put up against people like that, the true competitor side comes out in me. It’s like I’m almost pushing my body beyond what it can do just because I don’t want to lose." Bryce Hoppel is one of Team USA’s stars to watch in the Olympic year since he’s the second-fastest American 800 meter runner indoor...