By Rich Sands, @thatrichsands.bsky.social
(c) 2025 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved.

HONOLULU (12-Dec) — Sinclaire Johnson’s professional running career has often felt like a roller coaster ride. A pandemic, stints with two training groups and countless injuries stood in the way of consistency for the 2019 NCAA champion in the 1500 meters. Along the way there were highs (a 2022 USATF national title in the 1500) and lows (an agonizing fourth-place finish at the 2024 Olympic Trials) and frustration. That all changed over the past year, in which the Oklahoma State grad thrived under the coaching of her fiancé, stayed injury free, made her second World Athletics Championships team, and broke the American record in the mile.

Now the 27-year-old Florida native has returned to Honolulu to race Saturday in the Kalakaua Merrie Mile road race for the second year in a row. The Waikiki event, held in conjunction with the JAL Honolulu Marathon, features a unique mixed-sex pursuit format for the elite athletes, with the women’s field getting a head start over the men.

Last year, for the first time since the event began in 2016, an athlete from the women’s field took the crown. After a 32-second heat start, Nikki Hiltz crossed the line first, followed closely by Weini Kelati and Johnson, then Hobbs Kessler was the first man to finish, a fraction of a second behind. “This race last year was a lot of fun, I definitely wanted to put it in on my calendar again,” Johnson told Race Results Weekly. “This is the end of the year, but it’s kind of opening up the 2026 racing season.”

At last year’s Merrie Mile, Johnson was looking to get past the disappointment of her fourth-place showing at the Olympic Trials, when she missed a spot for the Paris Games by one place. But there was a silver lining: She recorded a lifetime best of 3:56.75, making her the sixth-fastest American 1500 runner of all-time. “That race is so interesting to look back on because I wouldn’t have done anything differently,” she says. “I PR’d by two seconds and I also ran a race that I was really proud of. I attacked it and went for it. It just didn’t come together on the day.” And it coincided with a major turning point in her career. “In a way it was a blessing disguise, which sounds weird because obviously I would have loved to make the Olympic team, but it really forced me to make changes that were necessary.”

Chief among them was parting ways with coach Pete Julian and the Union Athletic Club and starting to train under the eyes of her fiancé, Craig Nowak, in Portland, Oregon. “We’ve been together for almost nine years at this point, and we met in college, so Craig has seen me through our college coach [Dave Smith], then Jerry Schumacher, who was my first pro coach [at Nike’s Bowerman Track Club], and Pete Julian. He’s had a first-hand look at how I’ve responded to certain training aspects. And he himself is a pretty good runner, too, so he understands the ins and outs of this niche sport.”

Nowak won multiple Big 12 titles at Oklahoma State and then was a national-class steeplechaser for several years. Now essentially retired from pro racing, he guides Johnson’s training and often joins her for some of her workouts. “I feel like focusing on health has been the number one change we’ve made,” he says, a nod to the fact that two separate injuries in 2024 alone limited her racing. “And also focusing on where we are now instead of thinking so far in the future. Thinking about all the big things you want to do can sometimes make coaches act too aggressively in the now instead of seeing where you are and building from there.”

The results of this new dimension to their relationship were immediate. Johnson remained healthy all year. She was the runner-up to Hiltz at the USATF Championships indoors and out, both times qualifying for the world championships. (She finished sixth indoors in Nanjing, China, and 13th outdoors in Tokyo.) In between she placed fourth in the mile at the London Diamond League, clocking 4:16.32 and slicing three hundredths of a second off Hiltz’s U.S. record. “I knew it was going at a pretty aggressive pace and I felt like I should take advantage of that,” Johnson says. “Doing it at the London Stadium in front of 60,000 fans, it’s really hard to explain how cool that was. It was a very special race that I’ll remember for the rest of my career.”

On Saturday she’ll complete her competitive year in Honolulu. “I really like the format of this race where the men are chasing the women. It feels very pure, like you’re running away from the boys in elementary school again,” she says with a laugh. “And it’s also just a nice time of the year where it’s fun to break up fall training and see where your fitness is. It’s not a high-stakes race, it’s really just for fun. We’re going to go run hard, but we’re here to enjoy and celebrate all we’ve done this year.”

Plus, there’s a hefty financial incentive to do well. The gap between the women’s and men’s starts will be down by one second from last year, to 31. Prize money is awarded based on overall order of finish to the top five ($10,000, $5000, $3000, $1500 and $1000) and the top finisher in the men’s or women’s category who is not the overall winner will receive a special bonus of $2500. There will also be a $10,000 bonus for a world record in the road mile (3:51.3 for the men and 4:20.98 for the women). “The caliber of the women’s field is really strong and if we really push that first half and continue hard to the finish line then I think we have a really good shot at beating the guys,” Johnson says.

Then it’s on to 2026, during which Johnson hopes to make the U.S team for March’s World Athletics Indoor Championships and compete for a medal, then earn a spot at the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship in September (one week before her wedding). “It is an off-year, but there’s still a lot of opportunity,” she says. “I think the way that we look at it is that these are building blocks to L.A. 2028 [the next Summer Olympics]. I’m really looking forward to seeing how having this past year under my belt is going to help me progress throughout the year.”

PHOTO: Sinclaire Johnson on the track at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in September (photo by Jane Monti for Race Results Weekly)