My 2026 Season: New PRs at 800m, 1500m, and the Mile

Every season teaches you something. This one taught me that I’m closer to the runner I’ve always wanted to be than I sometimes let myself believe. I set personal bests at three different distances in 2026, ran some of those races unattached, and ended the year staring down a number that’s haunted distance runners for generations. Let me walk you through it.

The Numbers

I’ll start with the marks, because the marks are honest. They don’t care how you felt that day — they just tell you what happened.

The mile: 4:01.91 (February 13, Boston). This is the one I can’t stop thinking about. I ran it at Boston University, and it landed me at No. 7 in LSU history. It’s also 1.91 seconds from a sub-4 mile. If you’ve never chased a barrier like that, it’s hard to explain what it does to your head. You finish the race, you see the clock, and you feel two things at once: pride that you got there, and a hunger that won’t let you sleep because you got that close.

The 1500m: 3:42.28 (May 8, Fayetteville). This was my outdoor PR, and it’s the race that told me the fitness was real, not a fluke. Fayetteville is a fast place to run, and I went there ready to take a swing. Knocking my 1500m down to 3:42 confirmed that the work I’d put in over the winter had stuck.

The 800m: 1:50.91 (April 25, LSU Alumni Gold). I ran this one unattached, and it’s a mark I’m genuinely proud of. The 800 isn’t my main event — I think of myself as a 1500m and mile guy, the “3.75-lap runner.” But dropping a 1:50 tells me my speed is there, and speed is exactly what you need when you’re trying to close out a fast mile.

Three distances, three PRs, in one season. When I line them up like that, I can see the shape of where I’m headed.

Racing the Bryan Clay Invitational

One of the highlights of the year was racing the Bryan Clay Invitational. If you don’t follow college distance running, here’s the short version: it’s the deepest distance meet in the NCAA. The fields are stacked, the pace is honest from the gun, and there’s nowhere to hide. That’s exactly why I love it.

Racing in a field that deep changes you. You can’t coast on talent or hope the pace comes back to you. You either commit or you get spit out the back. Meets like Bryan Clay are where you find out what you’re actually made of, and I left it knowing more about myself as a competitor than I did going in.

Running Unattached

Some of my races this spring I ran unattached, including that 1:50 800. Running unattached is a different feeling — it’s just you and the clock, no team scoring on the line, no jersey doing the talking for you. In a strange way, I found it clarifying. It stripped the season down to its simplest question: how fast can you run, right now, when it’s only about you?

That mindset carried over into everything. When you race for yourself, you learn to find your own motivation, your own reasons to dig. That’s a muscle I’ll need for a long time, and this season made it stronger.

What I Learned, and What’s Next

If I had to sum up 2026 in one line, it’s this: I proved to myself that sub-4 is not a fantasy. It’s a target.

The mile is right there. I’m under two seconds away, my 800 speed is sharp, my 1500m is faster than it’s ever been, and the fitness has shown up in real races against real fields. Everything is pointing in the same direction. The next chapter is about turning a 4:01.91 into a 3:59-something — and I intend to get it.

So that’s the plan. Keep building the speed, keep racing the deep fields, and chase the barrier until it falls. Mindset is a huge part of that, and I’ve written about a race that reminded me who I am if you want to understand how I think about the mental side.

I document this whole journey on my blog, so if you want to ride along for the sub-4 chase, that’s the place to follow. Thanks for being here for the season that got me to the doorstep.