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

Chris Chavez and Preet Majithia are back at it with Preet coming to us live from the European Championships media center in Birmingham.

Discussed in this episode:

– Jakob Ingebrigtsen wins the European 5K in 13:15: First race in 11 months following surgery on the sheath around his left Achilles in February. At one point he was three seconds off the front in what appeared to be a dangerously strung-out single-file race. Nobody made it hard for him — a tactical mistake by the field.

– What’s next for Jakob: He’s entered in the Silesia Diamond League (announced this morning). He’s also confirmed for the Zurich Diamond League, where he’ll face Cole Hocker and Isaac Nader. The World Ultimate Championship 1500m path has also been clarified.

– European Championships women’s 800m heats — possibly the fastest in major championships history. Keely Hodgkinson leads from the front in Heat 1, clocks 1:57.28 looking completely in control. Audrey Werro and Femke Bol also advance. Semis: August 13th. Final: Friday August 14th at 9:46 PM UK time.

– Other events to watch: Women’s 1500: Georgia Hunter Bell is the heavy favorite; Men’s 1500: Isaac Nader vs. Jake Wightman rematch; Men’s 800: Mark English has every European medal except gold; Men’s 10K: Gressier vs. Almgren + more.

– European Championships stadium attendance concerns?

– World Championships 2029 bids: Final bid presentations happening this Friday. Cities: London, Nairobi, Rome, Munich. Decision expected in September, possibly at the World Ultimate Championships.

– US Olympic Trials 2028 — six-day format: Documentation is now out.

– Jonah Koech — three-year ban for blood doping: USADA (not the AIU, notably) announced that Koech has accepted a three-year ban after his Athlete Biological Passport returned an adverse passport finding. He is stripped of his 2025 US 1500m national title. Ethan Strand is elevated to champion.

– Guardian Mile stroller mile world record — Steven Biebelhausen, 4:17.7: Set at the Guardian Mile in Cleveland on Saturday on the Memorial Bridge.

– U20 World Championships — top performances: Emmanuel Kiprono, 7:28 men’s 3K: Championship record. Missed Yomif Kejelcha’s U20 world record by 0.09 seconds; Tate Taylor, triple gold; Claire Stegall, women’s 1500m silver + more.

– Coming up: Full European Championships recap next week. Falmouth road race this weekend.

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Chris Chavez and Preet Majithia are back to put a bow on the Commonwealth Games, preview what Josh Kerr does next, assess Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s return, dig into the road to World Ultimate Championships, preview U20 Worlds in Eugene, and cover several news stories that got buried.

– The Commonwealth Games and its future: Glasgow stepped in as last-minute host after Victoria, Australia pulled out in 2023 citing runaway costs. The result: a smaller-scale games (ten sports instead of the usual 17-18, no road races or triathlon). The core value of the Games — small island nations competing on a multi-sport stage, home nations competing as Scotland/Wales/England/Northern Ireland rather than GB, a stepping stone between junior and Diamond League levels — remains intact.

– Men’s mile: Josh Kerr gold, 3:54.12: Josh got boxed at 450 out and had to force his way clear, covering extra distance in the process. None of it mattered. His final lap: 53.61. Won by 1.14 seconds over Cam Myers (silver), Timothy Cheruiyot (bronze). Josh is definitively the best miler in the world.

– What does Josh Kerr do next? Option A: Zurich Diamond League 1500m world record attempt; Option B: World Ultimate Championships 1500m, Budapest, September, Option C: Fifth Avenue Mile payday (Vote in the Spotify comments section)

– Georgia Hunter-Bell wins women’s 800m, 1:59.51: Never really challenged. Georgia’s first Commonwealth medal. She now has the full set: Olympic medal, world championship medal, European medal, Commonwealth Games medal — all in the last three years.

– European Championships women’s 800m, August 14th: Keely vs. Audrey Werro rematch: No data on Keely’s current fitness — she’s been quiet since London. Werro ran a 400m PB of 50.8 at the Swiss champs, jogged a 1:57 800 the same day, and is clearly sharp.

– Australia’s generational Commonwealth Games: Torrie Lewis and Lachlan Kennedy in the sprints (Kennedy 9.85 national record silver in the rain). Abbey Caldwell, Jess Hull, Claudia Hollingsworth sweep the women’s mile 1-2-3. Cam Myers silver behind Josh in the men’s mile. Rose Davies 5K/10K double (first Australian woman ever). Ky Robinson medals in both distance events.

– Kenya’s thinner-than-expected showing: The trend of Kenya’s elite distance runners prioritizing the roads is real.

– Elise Thorner, women’s steeple bronze, 9:05: Personal best in difficult conditions — wind, rain, cold. Judged it perfectly.

– Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s return — European Championships 5K, August 10th: First race since Tokyo World Championships. Post-surgery in February, no racing all summer. Entered in the 5K only as defending champion (no qualifying time required).

– More news stories include: The Brazilian marathoner who went missing for 44 days; 59:11 half marathoner Dennis Kipkemoi Kipkogei to Texas; Oordegem nostalia after Abdihamid Nur and Alicia Monson run well there;

– U20 World Championships, Eugene light preview

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SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS

VELOUS: VELOUS makes recovery footwear designed to help runners bounce back faster between sessions. Their sandals feature Tri-Motion™ Technology: a technical three-density foam system and contoured footbed engineered to cushion impact, support your arches, and help your toes stretch and relax on every step. They keep your feet and legs properly aligned after you put in all of those weekly miles. Run. Recover. Repeat. with VELOUS! ⁠⁠⁠Get 20% off your VELOUS order with code CITIUSMAG20 at checkout including FREE Shipping!⁠⁠⁠

OLIPOP: OLIPOP's Citrus Rush packs apple, lemon, lime, and orange juices with 60mg of green tea caffeine for a bold, refreshing blast of flavor ready to fuel your next adventure. If you haven't had tried Olipop yet, grab a can and see what the hype is all about!⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Head to DrinkOlipop.com and use code CITIUS25 at checkout to get 25% off your orders.⁠⁠

“You can’t recreate the feeling that Josh created for me as a coach in any synthetic way. It had to have been done the way that he did it.”

My guest for today’s episode is Danny Mackey, the head coach of the Brooks Beasts Track Club.

Almost two weeks before we recorded this, Josh Kerr ran 3:42.66 at the London Diamond League and took 47 hundredths of a second off Hicham El Guerrouj’s mile world record — a mark that had been on the books for 27 years. Danny is the guy who wrote the training for it. He’s been coaching Josh for eight years now and this year he’s also got Brandon Miller running 1:42.19 to win in London seventy minutes before Josh’s race. It was an epic day for the Brooks Beasts.

This one is a coach’s-eye reconstruction of how a world record actually gets built. We go back to the workouts in Albuquerque in 2024 when Danny first told Josh he thought the record was there. We get into the PowerPoint pitch to Brooks. Danny walks through how he writes training. We talk about the ninety-minute whiteboard meeting where a few grown men argued over tenths of a second for pacing and what Danny was thinking standing trackside with 350 meters to go. And finally, how this has transcended beyond the running community.

The best part comes toward the end when he reveals who this was all for. We last had him on in 2023 after the World Championships after Josh won gold, so it was only fitting that we got him back on after another momentous occasion.

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CORE: The CORE 2 Thermal Sensor takes the guessing out of heat training. It reads your core body temperature in real time - no thermometer, nothing invasive, and you can actually see what's happening inside your body while you train. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Take 10% off the CORE 2 with code CITIUS10 at checkout when you visit corebodytemp.com.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

VELOUS: VELOUS makes recovery footwear designed to help runners bounce back faster between sessions. Their sandals feature Tri-Motion™ Technology: a technical three-density foam system and contoured footbed engineered to cushion impact, support your arches, and help your toes stretch and relax on every step. They keep your feet and legs properly aligned after you put in all of those weekly miles. Run. Recover. Repeat. with VELOUS! ⁠⁠Get 20% off your VELOUS order with code CITIUSMAG20 at checkout including FREE Shipping!⁠⁠

OLIPOP: Raspberry Sherbet is a limited-edition, nostalgic new flavor that blends tangy raspberry with creamy vanilla. Every can of Olipop contains their Olismart blend, which includes ingredients designed to support digestive health and help feed your gut microbiome. If you haven't had tried Olipop yet, grab a can and see what the hype is all about!⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Head to DrinkOlipop.com and use code CITIUS25 at checkout to get 25% off your orders.⁠⁠

“You just have to believe that at some point it’s going to translate into the actual result you want. These close calls aren’t only going to be my defining story.”

My guest for today’s episode is Vince Ciattei — U.S. 5000m champion. At 31 years old, roughly 24 hours after losing the 1500m final by five hundredths of a second, Vince went back out at Icahn Stadium and won the 5K national title in 13:46.75 — an event he had raced once in the previous five years. It was the first national title of his career, and it came after a run of fourths, thirds, and seconds that have stretched across nearly a decade as a professional.

Vince trains with Under Armour Dark Sky Distance in Flagstaff under Stephen Haas. He went to Virginia Tech, where he only became good enough to go pro in his fifth year. He came back from an injury straight away as a pro.

He finished fourth at the 2024 Olympic Trials by a quarter of a second and has been on the edge of breaking through internationally for years, and this year it finally started to crack open — a 3:30 personal best in Rabat behind Yared Nuguse, Isaac Nader, and Azeddine Habz, a Diamond League schedule that treated him as a competitor rather than a time-trialer, a 13:13 at Payton Jordan in May, and then a weekend in New York where he went from reading a LetsRun writeup at 4 a.m. declaring he had missed his best shot to standing on top of the podium less than twelve hours later.

In this conversation we get into all of it: The sports psychologist who helped him reframe a decade of near-misses as a trajectory rather than a verdict; The 24-hour turnaround between the two finals and what it took to flip the switch — including the middle-of-the-night LetsRun read, the drug testing chat with his mom afterward, and the moment when Kasey Knevelbaard came by with 250 to go and the race turned into a Dark Sky one-two.

We also get into what Rabat and Ostrava showed him about where he actually stands internationally, the Diamond League final, the World Ultimate Championships, and the target that’s been quietly driving his entire season: the World Road Running Championships mile in September, where he’ll wear the Team USA uniform for the first time.

____________

SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS

CORE: The CORE 2 Thermal Sensor takes the guessing out of heat training. It reads your core body temperature in real time - no thermometer, nothing invasive, and you can actually see what's happening inside your body while you train. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Take 10% off the CORE 2 with code CITIUS10 at checkout when you visit corebodytemp.com.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

VELOUS: VELOUS makes recovery footwear designed to help runners bounce back faster between sessions. Their sandals feature Tri-Motion™ Technology: a technical three-density foam system and contoured footbed engineered to cushion impact, support your arches, and help your toes stretch and relax on every step. They keep your feet and legs properly aligned after you put in all of those weekly miles. Run. Recover. Repeat. with VELOUS! ⁠Get 20% off your VELOUS order with code CITIUSMAG20 at checkout including FREE Shipping!⁠

OLIPOP: Raspberry Sherbet is a limited-edition, nostalgic new flavor that blends tangy raspberry with creamy vanilla. Every can of Olipop contains their Olismart blend, which includes ingredients designed to support digestive health and help feed your gut microbiome. If you haven't had tried Olipop yet, grab a can and see what the hype is all about!⁠⁠ ⁠Head to DrinkOlipop.com and use code CITIUS25 at checkout to get 25% off your orders.⁠⁠

Chris Chavez and Kyle Merber recap the final day of the 2026 USATF Outdoor Championships at Icahn Stadium

We discuss:

FINALS:

– Cooper Lutkenhaus, 17 years old, dominated the men's 800m in 1:43.48, winning his second US title of 2026 and negative-splitting a 52.26-51.23 for a 1.07-second margin over Wes Ferguson. Six 800m finals in 2026. Six wins. Now including a US title against a full professional field.

– Melissa Jefferson-Wooden ran a stadium-record 21.69 to win the women's 200m — just 0.01 off her winning time at the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo. She got out of the blocks like a rocket and had the race decided before the straightaway. Cambrea Sturgis was second in 22.22.

– The men's 200m turned into drama for the wrong reason. Garrett Kaalund, running for USC, won in 20.04 — becoming the first collegian to win the US 200m title in 18 years. But two-time defending champion Noah Lyles pulled up with an apparent injury coming off the turn and walked it in for last.

– Cordell Tinch won a men's 110m hurdles final decided by 0.004 seconds.

– Nia Akins won her fifth US 800m title in 1:59.25, timing her kick perfectly to overhaul early leader Roisin Willis and runner-up Addy Wiley.

– Anna Cockrell led from the first hurdle to break her own stadium record in the 400m hurdles at 52.94.

– Chris Robinson finally broke through with a 47.61 for his first US title in the men's 400m hurdles.

– Emily Mackay made up for her dive-to-the-line third-place 1500m by winning the women's 5000m in 14:55.82.

– Vince Ciattei took the men's 5000m in 13:46.75 with a 26.71 last 200m in a photo finish over Cooper Teare and Sam Prakel.

– Valarie Allman won her eighth consecutive US discus title with a 69.54m throw — a streak that dates back to 2018.

Plus a moment worth mentioning: longtime NYC middle-distance coach Frank Gagliano was honored at Icahn Stadium in front of literally hundreds of former athletes and coaches he mentored. Six decades of coaching, dozens of Olympians, and lineage that runs through Chris Miltenberg, Diljeet Dosanjh Taylor, Vin Lananna, and much of the current generation of American middle-distance coaching.