Olympic Marathon Trials U.S. Olympic Trials, Nia Akins won the 800 meters in a personal record of 1:57.36. She emerged unscathed from a messy race, during which American record holder Athing Mu fell and several other athletes behind Mu had to jump out of the way so they didn’t fall themselves.
Akins, however, stayed clear of the fray and won by almost one second over Allie Wilson (1:58.32) and Juliette Whittaker (1:58.45).
The women’s 800 in the U.S. has seen frequent falls. Alysia Montaño fell at the Trials in 2016, while Brenda Martinez managed to stay on her feet but was bumped out of contention. And Akins was the one to go down at the Trials in 2021.
“Petition for a two-turn stagger,” she joked to Runner’s World in an interview after her Trials victory. (In the 800, eight women converge from individual lanes 100 meters into the race.) “I say we cut in at 300 meters.”
In June, at the Olympics for the first time. The 26-year-old, who lives in Seattle and trains with the Brooks Beasts, will see how she stands against international competitors like Olympic medalists Keely Hodgkinson and Jemma Reekie of Great Britain, and World Champion Mary Moraa of Kenya. Here’s what Akins said about her years in the sport.
Does she train like a sprinter or a distance runner? Neither
Many 800 runners fit into one of two categories: They’re sprinters who can run long, or they’re distance runners who drop down. Not Akins. In a conversation with Runner’s World in the days after she won the Trials, she said that she’s purely an 800-meter runner, and her coach, Danny Mackey, doesn’t neglect either strength or speed in her training.
Petition for a two-turn stagger, she joked to long runs of 10 miles at about 7:30 pace. She’ll do two workouts per week—one that’s oriented toward strength and one that’s pure speed. Including warmup and cooldown, those turn out to be 10-mile days, too. So she usually takes the day after a workout off, especially when the team is at altitude in Albuquerque, New Mexico, so she can fully recover, giving herself two days off per week.
“I usually go to a coffee shop, get a croissant, and rest completely,” she said. “I don’t think about running.”
She started in soccer but discovered cross-country
Growing up in San Diego, Akins played soccer, as many runners do. (See: Fisher, Grant.) But she tried cross-country in the fall of her freshman year and loved it. “The team culture was amazing,” Akins said. “I had a lot of fun. They were like, ‘We also do track.’”
The cross-country team made the state meet her freshman year, which bled into the start of the soccer season, which is a winter sport in California. Around the same time, Akins’s younger sister, Marz, started playing soccer. (She currently plays for Yale.) And then Akins got to learn what a gifted soccer player looked like. “I was like, ‘Oh. I’m not good at this; she has a real talent,’” Akins said of her sister. “I think it was less that I realized I had a talent for track and more so that I realized I didn’t have a talent for soccer.”
In track, Akins ran the mile and also the 4x100 her freshman year before settling on the 800. Even though she ran 2:08 in high school—a strong time that had college coaches recruiting her—she had no idea what the future would hold. “If you told my high school self I would have been running professionally, she would have laughed at you,” Akins said.
The nursing program brought her to Penn
Akins decided to go to the University of Pennsylvania, because she was focused on her academics. She wanted a school with a nursing program, and the Philadelphia hospital where Penn nursing students train during their clinical rotations is right near the track at Franklin Field. The only way she could put in those long hours and then have the energy for track practice was if she didn’t have a long commute to either place.
“Those days of 8 to 12 hours of clinicals and then walking across the street to go train, I don’t think I could do that now,” she said.
Whenever Akins’s track career ends—and she could have another nine years ahead of her if she’s anything like 800-meter Olympian Kate Grace—she doesn’t know if she’ll return to nursing. She might, but she also has a growing career as a musician. She taught herself to sing and play guitar and piano during the pandemic, and she has released several songs.
She breaks down a lot of race film
In June, at the instinct, Akins watches a lot of film, which Mackey suggested for her when she first turned pro. Every Saturday she’d find a track meet and watch the 800 meters.
Mackey reviews her races, even when she wins—or perhaps especially when she wins. “Last year there were races that I won that Danny would text me and say, ‘You could have moved here, you could have moved here, you could have done this, it would have been faster,’” Akins said. “That is pretty cool—he is always trying to push the envelope and figure out how I can improve tactically.”
One painful moment taught her how much she loved track
Akins ran her first Olympic Trials in 2021, making the final. That race didn’t end well for her. As the runners started merging to the inside after the first 100 meters of that final, she took a hard fall.
Akins got up as quickly as she could and ran the rest of the race, but she was out of contact with the pack and ran 2:12, 16 seconds behind first place. She doesn’t think she would have made that Olympic team even if she had managed to stay on her feet, but the moment was devastating nonetheless.
It was also revealing: She understood in that instant that she cared. “I didn’t realize how much I loved the sport until I hit the track like that,” Akins said. “It had never broken my heart in that way before.”
It also left her wanting more. In a way, she said, the fall and getting up and finishing were good for her. Had it never happened, Akins said, “I don’t think I would have the fire or intensity I have now.”
Best Photos from the 2024 Olympic Trials is a writer and editor living in Eugene, Oregon, and her stories about the sport, its trends, and fascinating individuals have appeared in Runner’s World CA Notice at Collection, Run Your Butt Off! and Walk Your Butt Off!
