“Sometimes you need to just shut your brain off and run.”
At this time last year, Karissa Schweizer was undergoing foot surgery. Then, as she mounted her comeback heading into an Olympic year, she faced another setback: a femoral stress fracture. But as we know, the comeback is always greater than the setback, and Karissa proved that by racing both the 5000m and the 10,000m at the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Team Trials on her home turf at Hayward Field in Eugene, OR, making the team in both distances. She went on to finish in the top 10 in both events at the Paris Olympic Games. Karissa’s season didn’t end there: She went on to race the 5000m at the Zurich Diamond League, she raced (and won!) the Fifth Avenue Mile, and she ran a season’s best in the 5000m at the Diamond League Final in Brussels. Now, the two-time Olympian, Nike-sponsored athlete, and longtime Bowerman Track Club member is back in Oregon for some much-deserved downtime, and back on the Ali on the Run Show to catch us up on all of it.
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What you’ll get on this episode:
- Where in the world is Karissa Schweizer? (2:40)
- How Karissa approaches her training breaks (4:30)
- High school nerves vs. Olympics nerves (7:30)
- How Karissa’s body is feeling after a big season of racing, and how she approached her comeback after multiple injuries (9:50)
- On having the confidence to line up at the Trials (20:25)
- What Karissa’s training was like this year (22:00)
- How Karissa has handled the changing landscape of the Bowerman Track Club over the past few years (26:40)
- Karissa’s experience at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games (30:45)
- “Is Karissa Schweizer a miler?” (37:25)
- How Karissa is processing her season (44:00)
- Karissa’s advice for improving your running confidence (49:40)
- What’s intriguing right now? (54:10)
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