Kate Grace is in the midst of what most mid-30-somethings with a young child could only dream of – a late-career resurgence as a professional athlete. After a 2021 outdoor campaign that saw her go on a sub-two tear across the Diamond League circuit after just missing an Olympic team, Grace’s training and racing was derailed by a bout of injury and long Covid. She then became a mother, giving birth to her son in March of 2023. But now, here we are in May of 2024 and she’s got a fighter’s chance at an Olympic berth in the 800m once again.

Grace joined the CITIUS MAG Podcast to talk about the past three years of her life, the ups, the downs, and her unique take on training at the moment. It’s always fun to hear about an athlete who is taking a different approach to the sport, and it’s even more enjoyable when that athlete is so candid in discussing their experimentations with training.

The following parts have been transcribed from the full interview and have been edited lightly for space and clarity.

CITIUS MAG: You struggled with long COVID in 2022, then had a baby in 2023, and now you’ve worked your way back onto the starting line. What has kept you in the sport throughout all of that?

Kate Grace: Training right now is this curiosity of always keeping a little bit of a beginner's mindset and just really enjoying, always learning, and – I know this is super cliche – but growing. Even though I'm now 35, I still believe that there's something I can learn or do differently. I think that's what's so fun about training. There's always a place to grow, and I've had that belief now for 12 or 20 years, however long I've been running. So it's kept it new and different for me. Also, I did start a family, so I feel like my life now is very different, in a great and full way.

CITIUS MAG: You’ve faced a variety of different setbacks that you've had to overcome. How different were all of those challenges and how did you work through them?

Kate Grace: If you think too much about the huge mountain you're about to climb, you won't do it. But if you just think about, ‘what can I do this day?’ For better or worse, I like to reframe things in ways like, ‘what is positive for me? The way I reframed it was that I know my age is going to be at one point a factor. I generally believe that as athletes get older, taking a little bit of time away can actually be very healing and good for racing.

So in some ways I was like, okay, I never really planned to go this long with racing, but it could be very good for me to take this time away. Everyone always talks about how as an athlete, it's so helpful to have that core of your identity outside of running – and the really hard yet really clarifying thing for me when I had the reaction to COVID was I was devastated. I was devastated like I've never been before in my life. It was right after the 2021 season. I was literally top of the world – I was ranked top of the world that year. And then suddenly, I couldn't run…

I realized running had really become my identity. So in a way, it was just clear to me that right now is actually the time to step away, even though it's hard to choose to leave the sport and to leave competing for a bit to have a family and start really feeling full in these other areas of my life. I just had this intense faith that that fullness would also then come back and help me in my competing.

CITIUS MAG: Long COVID threw things into flux a little bit post-pregnancy, but when did you try to get back to actual training?

Kate Grace: My comeback started when I was pregnant. I got pregnant in June and was also coming back because I figured I didn’t want to have two years away… I basically started my comeback then and said, let's try to get as much fitness as we can until October. I had this whole theory. You know how Norwegian threshold training is so ‘in’? I was like, this basically is threshold training because the only thing [the doctors] tell you is, ‘don't get your heart rate over 85%.’ So I was like, ‘I'm just the pregnant Jakob.’ I'm glad I kind of tempered it. I didn't actually do double threshold, but we did a lot of threshold work… My theme was like, ‘well, I would never in my career otherwise have two years to do threshold training, so why not now?’

CITIUS MAG: What did it feel like to have the LA Grand Prix on the calendar after all the setbacks you overcame to finally get back on a starting line?

Kate Grace: The whole thing couldn't have been a better experience. It’s not that I wasn’t nervous. I was very nervous for that race, but there's a different level of understanding of the nerves that I have now. It's nervous in a fun way. It's nervous like, ‘this is such a treat and an absolute honor to do this.’ It's an honor to have these nerves. It's not nervous like, ‘oh my gosh, is my son going to be okay? Are the taxes done?’ There are things that are real that can cause you nerves and the race nerves I now, in a way, welcome. 

CITIUS MAG: There’s a short timeline between now and the Trials. How are you looking at this season as to what a successful year would be for you?

Kate Grace: What I've been saying to myself, even for my early races, is basically, ‘you don't have to qualify for the Olympics in May, you just have to qualify for the Olympic Trials’ and ‘you don’t have to win in June, you just have to qualify.’ Every step along the way, I don't need to be at my absolute best. I just need to be good enough to get to the next step. There is time and I can do this. But I mean, it's always a gamble. That's why it's exciting. Every weekend I'm getting better and we're going to see if I run out of time or not.

Time stamps:

• 4:45 - What’s kept her in the sport for so long.
• 6:28 - Why she took a break from competing and the reasons she returned to it.
• 8:24 - How she dealt with long COVID + how she trained throughout her pregnancy.
• 15:01 - How she’s approaching training + her mindset heading into the rest of the season.
• 17:50 - Reflecting on her 800m opener at the LA Grand Prix.
• 19:56 - Why she’s going all-in on training for the 800m
• 21:54 - Her perspective on how the women’s 800m scene has evolved.
• 23:09 - Her 800m racing strategy.
• 24:54 - Unpacking her experience training with Team Boss and Joe Bosshard + her experience coaching herself.
• 28:48 - What a typical week of training looks like for her.
• 31:04 - Sharing her experience with “The Track Club” in Boulder.
• 32:27 - Where her next few races will be leading up to the U.S. Trials.
• 33:19 - Her interest in coaching.
• 34:40 - How long she intends to continue running professionally.
• 36:05 - How she wants the rest of her running career to unfold.