Alicia Monson knows she can grind better than most runners. And she’s proved it time and time again through her racing.
A notable example that comes to mind is the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials in 2021, when the On Athletics Club runner pushed herself so hard to make her first Olympic team in 85-degree temperatures that she was hospitalized following a third-place finish Elite Runner Raises $11,000 to Support LGBTQ Youth.
In the last few weeks, Monson has reached a new level with two American records. On February 11, she broke the record in the 3,000 meters, running 8:25.05 at the Millrose Games. But the indoor mark was just a warmup for the Boulder, Colorado-based athlete. Three weeks later, she CA Notice at Collection at The Ten, where she led the majority of the second half with a negative split and ultimately finished second to Eilish McColgan, who kicked past her with 300 meters to go and set a British record. Monson finished second in 30:03.82, taking almost 10 seconds off the previous national record set by Molly Huddle in 2016.
For Monson, the records are a big step in the direction of her ultimate goal. Now entering her fourth year as a pro after a successful college career at the University of Wisconsin, Monson is on a mission to elevate her racing on the world stage. After finishing 13th in the Tokyo Olympic final and the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, she aims to put herself in a position to contend for a medal, including managing the pressure that comes with such performances.
CA Notice at Collection Runner’s World about the factors that led to the breakthroughs, key workouts that helped build her confidence, and lessons she’s taking into the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, and beyond.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
In processing the 10,000-meter American record, what does this performance mean to you in the greater context of your running career?
The entire focus of our season has been what's going to put us in a good place for worlds this August and then also for the Paris Olympics next year. So, I think it’s a good landmark for me to be like, okay I can run 30-ish minutes for the 10K. You really need to be able to do that in order to compete on the world level these days. The world record is still a minute faster than that. Everyone on my team has similar goals of ultimately medaling on the world or Olympic stage, and there are few people who get to say that. Obviously, you never know if you’re actually going to achieve that or not, but it’s definitely a goal we want to realistically have. I think being able to say, I can run a fast 10K and then also try to be competitive in these championship races, that’s the next level I need to get to.
It’s cool to have an American record. People are going to keep breaking records and running faster and it’s just a cool thing to play a role in that. It was a really cool event to have with our team too with Josette [Andrews] pacing me. Obviously, she’s in a good spot if she was able to run a 15ish-minute 5K from the front. It was great.
I loved your Instagram post after The Ten, when you mentioned the 10K American record being “uncharted territory” because of your previous 30:51 PR. But you said your coach, Dathan Ritzenhein gives you confidence because he won’t give you tasks he doesn’t think you can do. How did he help build your confidence to go after a much faster time than your PR?
Right. I’d never gone through 5K in such a fast time, a little over 15 minutes, and then having to run another one of those....I feel like people have made such a big deal out of the 15-minute barrier for a long time, but American distance running is getting much better at it and it isn’t as big of a deal anymore. But because we’ve made it a big deal, it’s like, oh my gosh, now I have to run 15 minutes twice. But other people in the world are doing it regularly.
Overall, I’d say the work that we do isn’t anything crazy, it’s just consistently hard work. I’m going into my fourth year as a pro and as I’ve gotten better, the workouts just keep getting harder. I’ll be in these workouts that are very long and uncharted territory, just like that 10K was. But Dathan is always saying, “I know you can do it. There’s a reason why I wrote the workout, and it’s only going to make you better.” So, just trusting that and being like, I’ve never done it before, but I’m going to try to do it today. Having those workouts repeatedly gave me more confidence that I would be able to do it in a race.
Ways to Be a More Confident Runner?
In June, a couple of weeks before the Diamond League Oslo 5K, we did 20 x 400 meters (5 sets of 4) with 200-meter jog in between the reps and 400-meter jog in between the sets, and it was kind of like a progression. It was supposed to be 5K pace broken up, and I ended up averaging 68 high for 20 400s, and when I was looking at that, I was like, I’ve never done anything like that, but then I ended up equaling exactly what I ran in the 5K. It was like 14:31. So, Dathan does a great job writing workouts that seem hard, but he knows what we can do, and it ends up reflecting what we’re able to run in a race.
We’re not very far into the season and you already have the 3,000 and 10,000-meter American records. What do you think has been the biggest contributing factors to these breakthroughs?
I think part of it is the accumulation of the past few years. I’ve continued to improve and training usually is reflected in my racing. I took confidence from the races that I did last year and I had some great races later in the summer in the Diamond League over in Europe. I feel like taking chances and leading races that I would never have done before in recent years, really taking more confidence in my ability to dictate races was a big part of me having the confidence to go after a record without a big pack around me.
Also, this winter, it’s been so awesome to have Josette joining us because a lot of the longer workouts I used to do all by myself. I had Sage [Hurta-Klecker] for speedier stuff, but the longer workouts where it’s a really hard pace sustained, it’s been cool to have Josette and her husband Robbie because I’ve been working out better than ever and part of that is having people to push me during those reps, where I might not have done that as much before. I think that has definitely been a big factor in being able to jump to that next level of being competitive while we’re running really fast.
You mentioned how taking chances and leading races has helped build your confidence to go after records. And when I think of your racing style, it’s very controlled, like you said. Is that something you’ve always been known for, or have you honed that over time?
I feel like it’s something I’ve developed as a professional because in college, you’re racing so much that you don’t really have the capacity to race hard the entire race every two weeks. Sometimes you’re doubling or tripling or whatever, which I’m not really doing as a pro. I take a lot of confidence from my training, which is grinding for a really long time. It reflects really well in my racing. If I know I can grind better than most people, I’m going to do that. It’s definitely something I’ve learned a little bit and I think comes from having more confidence in where my fitness is at. Obviously as I get into more championship racing, you have to figure out what’s the best way to race and if you have rounds, being able to get through and get ready for the final. I guess it's kind of a learned thing, but it also really keys off of my strength that we’ve found.
Knowing you can grind better than most, do you think that was honed from doing so many workouts by yourself until Josette came along?
Yeah, maybe. When I was racing the 10K, I knew the pace that we’re running because I’ve done it so many times by myself, having to pace myself. But what’s really going to be helpful for me with Josette is she’s a sub-4 1500-meter runner, and I think what’s lacking in my races has been that finishing close in the last lap. Being able to have my strength where I can help Josette and run for miles, let’s go and grind it out, and then having her be like, we’re finishing this workout fast with a hard last lap, both strengths can really key off each other.
at the Millrose Games?
Six days before Millrose, I had the worst workout that I’ve had in a really long time. We had been training hard and I was running a lot of miles. To end that week, Dathan gave us a pretty hard workout with sets of 800 [meter] and 300 [meter] repeats. I felt so bad running the entire workout, we ended up cutting it one set short. It’s not exactly confidence building when you feel worse running a slower pace than your next week’s race pace. We were running 2:21 for 800 and my race pace was supposed to be 2:15 per 800. That was tough, to realize I needed to feel a lot better in six days. I had to be like, okay, what do I need to do to recover? I need to get lots of sleep and fluids. I was able to race well at Millrose because I had the experience of the last couple of years realizing that your ability to race isn’t dictated by one workout, and even if you have a bad workout, you can have confidence from the entire three months before that. Maybe past me would not have done so well at Millrose, but I was able to be like, okay, just do what you need to do to get ready.
Have you done any work on your mental game recently? What does that mental practice look like for you?
Coming into races and being ready to go every single time is a really difficult thing to do, and no one can do it perfectly. One thing I’ve worked on before races is to write in my planner. It’s filled with training and to-do lists, but at the end of every week, I write down three things I did well that week and three things that I can work on. That’s been a good thing for me to look at before races. For example, before Millrose, if the workout right before didn’t go well, I can still look at these lists of all the things I’ve been doing well these past couple of months and be like, okay I am ready to race. I looked at my notes that tracked consistent mileage, like I had been doing an average of 90 miles a week for 12 weeks. Staying focused during workouts was another good thing I wrote down. And getting lots of recovery has helped me stay healthy while doing high caliber training.
It’s a lot of pressure stepping up to the line when a lot of people are saying you’re going to run an American record. I think being able to have confidence in what I’ve been doing and actually look at that has been really helpful.
Going back to your long-term goal of winning medals on the world stage, I remember reading interviews where you expressed disappointment in how the last world championship in Eugene went. What lessons are you taking away from that and bringing into the next global championship?
I think part of it was being in Eugene, we go there so much that it felt like going to another meet, but at the same time, I needed to get ready for the fact that this is the world championships. Being able to get into the racing zone and not worry about other things going on, would be good. And also just remembering that any race that we go to isn’t the end all be all. But putting a good amount of pressure on yourself I think is good. Like, I put a good pressure on myself these past few races this indoor season and this 10K. I knew people were expecting me to go and race well, and it’s my job to deliver that. So, I think being able to embrace that has been something that hopefully I’ll be able to do at the next world championship and hopefully at the Olympics.
I’m sure it’s a tough balance because you want to let that pressure fuel you, but you don’t want it to overwhelm you at the same time.
Right. It’s hard. Some people are much better at managing it than I am, but it’s definitely something that I’m working on. It’s good that I’ve had these races because I have that kind of experience. I have seen that people are watching to see what happens and hopefully I can feel that at worlds and put high expectations on myself, but I need to make sure to actually do the job when I get there and not mind what other people say.
How do you manage that?
The day of the race, I try not to go on media too much and also just bring my confidence from training, knowing that no one else is here aside from our team and our coach, we know what we can do and other people don’t necessarily know. I try to deal with it the best I can and look at what I can do to try and compete with other people the best I can.
Obviously your big goals are to medal this year and next year, but what are some other goals you have?
Very long term, I’d like to move to the roads and the marathon. We don’t have a timeline on that just because we want to see how things go on the track and in Olympic cycles and things like that. I’ve been having a good time living in Boulder these past few years. It’s been a great transition running-wise compared to training in Wisconsin, where the winters are not great. It’s been nice to train here and see the OAC develop as a team. We started the team, so to be part of that has been really cool and seeing people come out of college or join us from elsewhere and being part of helping them develop their careers has been cool. I’m hoping to continue to be part of that.
Taylor Dutch is a writer and editor living in Austin, Texas, and a former NCAA track athlete who specializes in fitness, wellness, and endurance sports coverage. Her work has appeared in Runner’s World, SELF, Bicycling, Outside, and Podium Runner.
