IT’S HARD TO IMAGINE a more improbable athletic leap for an American middle distance runner than charging, virtually unknown, onto the elite stage from the dark murk of a world pandemic. Yet that’s what then-Michigan prep Hobbs Kessler did in ’21 when he lowered the 1500 HSR to 3:34.36 in May and adidas signed him to a contract.
That some bumps along the road followed for 2-plus years was far less shocking than the unlooked-for performances that landed Kessler at the level he’d reached in the first place.
Not until October of ’23 did Kessler break the dam when his mile win at the World Road Champs put him on a T&FN cover 2-years-minus-a-month after his first front-page appearance as ’21 Boys High School Athlete Of The Year.
Kessler at 20 was a contender again. Maybe. The road mile championship had no history. Yet, as illustrated most recently by his never-conceding 1500/3000 double win at this season’s USATF Indoor, Kessler was ready in all respects.
It’s no secret now that ’24 — highlighted by a World Indoor bronze and pitched battle in Paris to 5th in the fastest-ever Olympic final — puts Kessler in the conversation right along with the Games’ U.S. medal-winning duo, Cole Hocker (gold) and Yared Nuguse (bronze).
Kessler is the youngest of the dynamic trio — he turns 22 this March — and the first American to race both the 1500 and 800 at a Games since ’76.
T&FN welcomed a catchup at the end of ’24 with the erstwhile international youth rock climbing competitor. He’s at a new athletic altitude and he probably had a story to tell. Sure enough, Kessler did — with a keen depth of analysis that belies his age and bodes well for his future.
T&FN: You had one heckuva season in 2024.
Kessler: Yeah, it was good.
T&FN: Put in terms of PRs, you made a 3-second-plus drop in the 1500, a 2-second drop in the 800. Two seconds-plus (2.16), in fact. That’s not easy to do.
You made the Olympic team in two events, the first American to do so since Rick Wohlhuter in 1976. Then you placed 5th in an all-time amazing 1500 final with a sub-3:30 PR, 3:29.45. That all followed your first international medal on the track, 1500 bronze at the World Indoor in Glasgow.
Kessler: Yep, yep.
T&FN: Lots of moves in a positive direction. How did you pull it all off? There have been some changes in your coaching team, Ron Warhurst has stepped back a bit? You now train in Flagstaff, together with Bryce Hoppel for some sessions. What’s the scoop?
Kessler: It’s pretty unorthodox. To put it briefly, my dad’s coaching me, but really it’s me, my dad and Pat Henner, who was a long-time coach at Georgetown and USC and he’s coached at a bunch of different places.
T&FN: Pat Henner has worked with great athletes in several situations. Is he local to you guys?
Kessler: No. He’s in Virginia, but actually I met him in Yosemite climbing. We were both camping illegally at the same spot.
T&FN: (laughs) Recently, or…?
Kessler: It would’ve been three years ago. And then when I was at NAU (taking classes during fall training), we were climbing partners and we’d climb a few times a month together. He’d come up there to Flag and we’d go climbing and stuff. So we kind of stayed in touch. Anyway, yeah, Pat and my dad, and we’ve been able to learn a lot just from me ’cause the athlete gives so much feedback on the training, right, ’cause they’re experiencing it.
And we’ve had a few other people help, like Geoffrey Burns — who actually ran for Ron at Michigan, but he works for the Olympic Committee now as a physiologist. He’s informed a lot of stuff. And then I’m working with Jake Wightman’s strength coach, so it’s kind of a big team. But it’s generally me, Pat and my dad all kinda have the same idea and then we just kind of talk and figure out specifics and consult with each other.
Slowly, they’re trying to phase me out of it, so they’re doing all the decision making. But I like having a say in it too.
T&FN: Why are they trying to phase you out of it?
Kessler: Well, they just want me to be focused on being an athlete now. But between that group of people, we’ve been able to figure out a system and kind of continue to refine it, and it seems to be working pretty well.
T&FN: Knowing what I do about you, your being a part of it may matter in the overall equation.
Kessler: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they’re aware of that too, but they just don’t want me stressing over it. I know everything will be handled well. I just want to do everything to the best of our knowledge, that’s all. I feel like if you want to be at the highest level, you can’t leave anything on the table. Cross every T, dot every I.
T&FN: What is the role of the venerable Coach Warhurst?
Kessler: We still consult with him about stuff, but my dad and Pat are doing the driving.
T&FN: For how long?
Kessler: Since September of 2023. No, August of ‘23. It’s been for a while. I was really struggling in 2023. I just started going really stale and couldn’t figure out why and it was really frustrating ’cause I just felt like no matter what I did, my body wouldn’t cooperate. So then I kinda switched things up in, I guess, August 2023.
T&FN: Can you distill what changes you made to get out of that doldrums? I imagine it’s nuanced and depends on where you are in the season — but generally speaking?
Kessler: Well really, we started thinking about all training in terms of stimulus versus fatigue. So how much better am I getting for how much cost? I started thinking about it like that — every bit of training you do costs something, but you also get something — and really trying to maximize that relationship and do training that is really high value so I get a lot of stimulus with not a lot of fatigue cost.
That really opened the door and, I think, really helped. Then just also not doing anything willy-nilly, We’re weighing every workout I do. How long is it gonna take me to recover? What’s the effect gonna be like? We’re just kind of doing almost like a little bit of a thought experiment on how each bit of training affects everything and why we’re doing that type of training.
T&FN: Rigorous cost-benefit analysis.
Kessler: It’s not doing a workout ’cause that’s what’s popular, or that’s what’s been done in the past — like really making sure we’re sound in our reasoning for why we’re doing stuff. (Continued below)
T&FN: How do you measure the cost side of it?
Kessler: Yeah, that’s a good question. It’s really just how tired it makes you. So it’s pretty easy to figure that one out — ’cause if you go too hard and can’t run the next day, it’s too much. So you can look at it as how much it costs you the next day and how much it costs you a few weeks down the road and everything like that. So we’re just trying to fit doing as much in a big scale within a long period of time as I can.
So it’s just kind of tinkering with how I can get the most out of the least. But there’s no really proper way to quantify it. It’s all a little theoretical, but it’s been working in practice.
T&FN: There are obviously a lot of ways to measure the benefit. How are you primarily viewing that side of it?
Kessler: Well, I think consistency is the most important thing. So good consistent training and good consistent racing, which I’ve been able to achieve over the last year and a half. That’s really the goal — ’cause with consistency, no matter what type of training you’re gonna do, you’re gonna get better over time just letting everything compound and really trying to figure out all the snags that lead to inconsistency and all the snags that lead to bad results.
So hopefully 2024 wasn’t a one-off year — I can keep doing everything and have this year turn out well too and the next year and the next year and…
T&FN: What were the moments last season that really kind of set you up to keep moving towards what you ultimately achieved?
Kessler: Well, I’ll say winning the World Road Champs (in September 2023). I started the 2024 season with confidence and I was like, “Alright, I’m gonna compete for medals from here on out.”
So I started with that mentality, but I was absolutely terrified of the Olympic Trials.
T&FN: Really?
Kessler: Well, not anymore, but yeah, November, December, January (in the 2023–’24 winter) all the way through May, utterly terrified.
I guess in May I wasn’t as scared, but going into indoors when we were planning out what we were gonna do for indoors in December and January: “Alright, we gotta learn how to run within this sphere because it doesn’t matter if it’s there or not, we still gotta perform.”
We kind of looked at indoors like, “I’m gonna run all the most stressful high stakes races I can to get mentally…” It was like almost we used indoors as mental prep for outdoors: “OK, so I want to get comfortable in these really stressful situations and kind of just make it my strength ‘cause I’m so scared.”
So we ran, I would argue all the biggest races you can race. I ran Millrose, New Balance Grand Prix, USA Indoors and World Indoors. All big races, high stakes. They’re not college meets, you know what I mean? [laughs]
And each one I got a little more confident. The first two went really well. Then I kind of faltered at USAs but I was still able to get on the team just barely. And then at World Indoors, it was three weeks in a row of racing and then travel to Scotland and stuff. I was really struggling mentally. I was really kind of flat and nervous and just didn’t have the bandwidth there anymore.
T&FN: I’d like to ask you about the fortified reaction to stress you developed last year in light of your climbing past. There’s got to be some similarity to the mentality required to calmly perform while challenged in the moment.
Kessler: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think there absolutely is. But I quit climbing when I was pretty young. I was still 16. So your brain’s not in the same spot, right? You’re a different person. I definitely learned a lot from it, but I think part of the progress is just getting older and your brain is physically maturing. You just learn yourself and everything, and it just comes with time. So I wish the climbing was a bigger help, but (laughs) I was a 16-year-old when I quit, it’s 5 years ago, 6 years ago or whatever. I was just not neurologically mature yet, you know?
The 800, “A Tool To Get Fitter”
T&FN: Point taken. Let’s get back to last season. You added the 800 in, as a near-primary event. You made the Olympic team in the 800. Did that just come about? Or was that part of a long-term plan?
Kessler: So Pat Henner had been telling me for a while that I could run 1:43. To his credit, he was saying that in January, February. He was like, “You can run 1:43.” I didn’t really believe him, but then I ran 800 early in the season, just kind of to open it up. I was put in the B heat (at the USATF Distance Classic) but I was able to win in a messy 1:45. So that was like, “Alright, maybe I could run the 8,” but it was like I was prepared to run 1:47 and be happy with it.
Instead we’re running 1:45-oh [1:45.07, to be precise]. I hadn’t done any specific track work. I thought, “This is a really good step.” And then I kind of forgot about it for a while. I declared for it at the Trials but it was kind of an afterthought. I just kind of had it as a backup in case I didn’t make the 1500 team, as kind of a Hail Mary.
And I like racing. The more times I can race and be in stressful positions and run really high-quality races, the better. Use it as a tool to get fitter and develop mentally and physically. We were almost using that as training, viewing it as going to a backup. But assuming I made the team, it was training.
Then I went out and hung out and celebrated making the 1500 team, and I was like, “Ah, maybe I’ll run the 8.” And my dad said, “You’re gonna run it.” It kinda held me accountable to it.
So I did a little session in between to kinda get things ready. And then, yeah, the first round of the 8 I ran 1:46 feeling like I was really holding back. I was like, “All right.”
The next day was, “I’m on the bubble to even make the final, so I’m really gonna have to focus here and expect to go all out. You can’t run it like a round, I have to run this like a final and kinda put myself in the right position.”
I got behind Brandon Miller and was really hurting from 350 out, but stuck in it: “Don’t let go of Brandon no matter what.” And I was able to hang on and I ran 1:43 [laughs]. Then I had a day off.
But after that I was like, “All right, I’m gonna make the team,” and I did. So yeah [laughs]. But the mentality after: I was so confident I was gonna make the team and the final was my sixth race in a little over a week.
T&FN: That did not go unnoticed.
Kessler: I was so confident in my execution and so confident in my fitness that I was not nervous for it. I just knew I had to go out there and do my thing and I would be on the team. It was really weird ’cause, the emotions: I was way more nervous for the first round of the 15 than I was for the final of the 8 [laughs].
Really, it was like a fairytale story, the 800: don’t expect it. And everything just went right. I don’t know if I’ll ever have anything else like that in my career. I said that before, after running 3:34 in high school, then this happened with the 8, which was equally as euphoric.
And I don’t know what the future holds for me in it. I’m definitely a 15/5 guy, but I don’t know. I’m excited to keep experimenting with it.
T&FN: Just a quick sidebar, relevant to world and track history of the last 5 years. Do I remember correctly that you had Covid in between the Trials and the Games?
Kessler: Yeah, I did. I think Bryce and I both got Covid at the Wild Duck (Eugene’s most popular post-meet gathering spot).
T&FN: I’m not surprised at all. I knew some people who may have caught Covid there that night.
Kessler: A lot of casualties. It actually didn’t really interfere. I don’t think I would’ve run any different at the Olympics ’cause I was gonna take it easy that week anyway. So actually my training looked pretty much the same. It just sucked feeling shitty for a little bit.
T&FN: So what are you looking at for 2025? More of the same?
Kessler: I was 2nd and 3rd, I didn’t place worse than 3rd from indoors all the way until the Olympic final last year. But not that many of those were wins; there were a lot of 2nds and 3rds in there. So I just am hoping we can keep refining training, do things a little smarter and just compounding.
I’ll be a year older, I’ll have a year more training, I should be able to train a little bit more. I’ll be a little more experienced, a little more race-savvy. So I’m hoping I can turn those 2nds and 3rds into wins.
Look for Kessler next outdoors. Through the summer and into the fall is where he intends to shine in 2025.
