Chasing Beautiful Dreams at The Millrose Games

The Millrose Games were on Saturday in New York City. I didn’t watch the event live because I was racing myself but I enjoyed this post-race show called After The Final Lap with Chris Chavez and Kyle Merber of Citius Mag and special guest host, 2016 Olympic 1500m gold medalist Matthew Centrowitz. It’s unscripted, insightful, and pretty entertaining on the whole. I mean, it’s worth it alone to watch men’s Wanamaker Mile champion Ollie Hoare trying to chug beer out of the winner’s trophy on a live broadcast.

+ He finished nine seconds behind Hoare, but Nick Willis’ 3:59.71 clocking at Millrose made him the first person in history to break 4 minutes in the mile for the 20th straight year. I find this deeply inspiring, not because I’ll ever come close to running this kind of time even once in my life, but because Willis is still doing it at 38 years old, he’s reshaped his relationship to the sport in recent years, and he’s still having fun and finding joy in the pursuit. “It’s such a fun social outlet for me,” Willis told The New York Times’ Scott Cacciola. “and I enjoy keeping the young kids honest whenever I can.”

+ I was delighted to read this Millrose recap by the incomparable Devin Kelly for Tracksmith. It’s such a unique take and perspective on the event and indoor track in general. Unsurprisingly, I loved it. As a native East Coaster, while I can hardly complain about getting to run outdoor track in late January, I miss indoor track so much. It will always be my favorite racing season. Kelly captured the emotions and humanity of it so well in this piece: athletes of all ages and ability levels—and just as wide a range of whats and whys amongst them—all together under one roof chasing a beautiful dream. “What is broadcast to the world most often is pure success or failure – the high peaks and low valleys of athleticism, the drama solely of the track itself,” he writes. “But what is often neglected is the humanness, the way that professionals are anxious and nervous, are bodies just the same. That’s the real spirit of the sport. In the end, it’s nothing special. It’s running. Some people do it faster than others. But so many people love to run. So many people love to have their feet on the track, turning left forever, chasing some beautiful dream that they have and that few others can understand.”