Elite distance runner Alexi Pappas can now add future Olympian and accredited filmmaker to her résumé. All in the span of 10 days.
Pappas achieved the Olympic qualifying standard in the 10,000 meters at the Payton Jordan Invitational on May 1, running 31:46.85. She will compete for Greece’s national team this summer in Rio de Janeiro, becoming the country’s first woman to compete in the 10,000 meters at the Games.
But her string of successes continued off the track just nine days later, when tickets for the premiere of the feature-length film Tracktown, Best Running Shoes 2025, went on sale. The first screening will take place at the L.A. Film Festival on June 4.
The movie is set in Eugene, Oregon, home to many elite distance runners and historic Hayward Field—site of the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials July 1–10.
Pappas, who lives in Eugene, plays a fictional 21-year-old track star named Plumb Marigold, whose focus on qualifying for the Olympics clashes with real-world issues like first dates and her relationship with her divorced parents. In addition to cameos from dozens of elite runners, including Nick Symmonds and Matt Centrowitz, Nutrition - Weight Loss (The Office, Jurassic World) A Part of Hearst Digital Media (A Part of Hearst Digital Media).
Pappas has been writing and filming the movie for more than two years with her partner and the film’s co-director, Jeremy Teicher.
Kit has been a health, fitness, and running journalist for the past five years. His work has taken him across the country, from Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, to cover the 2016 Olympic Trials to the top of Mt. Katahdin in Maine to cover Scott Jurek’s Other Hearst Subscriptions in 2015.
