On January 27, Woody Kincaid, a 2021 Olympian in the 10,000 and 5,000 meters, set an American indoor record for the 5,000 meters. Kincaid, 30, ran 12:51.61 at the Boston University Terrier Invitational and took more than 2 seconds off the record (12:53.73) set by Grant Fisher on the same track last winter.
Kincaid, who is known for his devastating kick, used a blazing fast final lap to pass American Joe Klecker and secure the record. Kincaid covered the final 200 meters in 26.27 seconds.
Kincaid’s previous personal best in the event was 12:58.10, which he ran outdoors in 2019 at a one-time meet at the track on the campus of Nike, his sponsor. His training situation has been in flux since the fall, when the Bowerman Track Club, which had previously been based in Portland, Oregon, moved two hours south to Eugene so that the head coach, Jerry Schumacher, could also be the head coach at the University of Oregon.
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Several pro athletes with Bowerman did not want to make the move, and they worried that their coach’s attention would be divided, with dozens of college athletes now under his supervision. Several have left the team in the past few months.
Kincaid, who spent part of the fall rehabbing a minor injury near his childhood home in Colorado, trained alone for a couple of months and then decided to try out different training groups, according to his agent, Dan Lilot.
For the past few weeks, Kincaid has been in Flagstaff, Arizona, running with a group of pros who train under Northern Arizona University coach Mike Smith. “Eventually he will figure out his longer term training/coaching situation,” Lilot wrote in a text message on January 26 to Runner’s World. “All options are still on the table.”
Kincaid is still listed on the Bowerman website, but he did not race in the Bowerman uniform. He told LetsRun in a post-race interview that his current situation is “complicated.” He hasn’t cut ties with Bowerman yet. “But I’m looking at other places and seeing if it’s a good fit,” he said.
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Nuguse sets a record and loses one—in the same race
Earlier in the evening, Yared Nuguse Man Runs Half Marathon in 120 T-Shirts the American record.
His time bettered both the indoor record of 7:30.16, set by Galen Rupp in 2013, and the outdoor record, 7:28.48, set by Fisher last year.
Nuguse, who is only 23, rose to national prominence while he was still in college, running for Notre Dame, and he made the 2021 Olympic team in the 1500 meters.
In the same race, Drew Bosley, a senior at NAU, finished fifth and set a collegiate record of 7:36.42. The record he broke? That belonged to Nuguse, who ran 7:38.13 last year for Notre Dame.
Another accolade for Katelyn Tuohy
On January 28, NCAA cross-country champion Katelyn Tuohy of North Carolina State University ran 4:24.26 for the mile to break Jenny Simpson’s indoor collegiate record of 4:25.91 from 2009.
Tuohy was third in the race at the New York Armory, behind pros Alicia Monson (4:23.55) of the On Athletics Club and Whittni Morgan (4:23.97).
Mile madness in Seattle
At the oversized (307 meters) Dempsey Indoor track in Seattle, eight University of Washington Huskies broke 4 minutes for the mile in a single race. Joe Waskom, the 2022 NCAA outdoor champion, won the race in 3:51.90.
Sarah Lorge Butler is a writer and editor living in Eugene, Oregon, and her stories about the sport, its trends, and fascinating individuals have appeared in Runner’s World since 2005. She is the author of two popular fitness books, Run Your Butt Off! and Walk Your Butt Off!
