Background
Cam Myers is a 19-year-old Australian middle-distance runner. A few weeks ago, Myers won the prestigious Wanamaker Mile at the Millrose Games in a time of 3:47.57, which is actually just off of his indoor mile PR 3:47.48 (which he ran last year at Millrose). At Millrose, he defeated Olympic medalist Yared Nuguse and a host of other Olympians. The week before Millrose, he won a strong 3,000m in Boston at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in 7:27, attacking with 600m to go (he closed in 1:25.5) and running away with a three-second margin from a field that included Olympians Andrew Coscoran and Graham Blanks. The week before NBIGP, he ran 3:49 at the University of Washington to break the facility record. Those were his only indoor races stateside of the winter, and he won all of them convincingly. Myers has quickly jumped from youth prodigy (he broke Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s age-16 world record in the mile in 2023, among other age-group records) to a competitive figure on the world scene. He is already the Oceania record holder in the mile and 3,000m. He is also the U20 world record holder in the mile. It’s safe to say that he improved a healthy chunk from last year, and he will be gunning for even more during the Diamond League season in 2026.
Why Write this Piece?
Cam Myers is the fastest miler in history, at least that I am aware of, who shares all of his training publicly on Strava. He even describes his training sessions with splits, so I don’t have to dig through every lap to figure out what workout he did.
If you want the quintessential template of the Australian (one could even argue the entire Anglosphere, pre-2020) 1,500m/5,000m training system (with perhaps a few modern tweaks; spoiler alert: he does a double-threshold day most weeks), Cam Myers is it. This approach has never delivered an Olympic or World Championship medalist for Australia in the modern era, but has produced world contenders such as Craig Mottram and Stewart McSweyn. We have yet to see if Myers can make the leap, with a bit more talent and a slightly more advanced training schedule, that previous superstars from Down Under could not. And before you shout Nick Willis (two-time Olympic medalist in the 1,500m) at me, he is a Kiwi, and also trained most, if not all, of his entire adult life in the American system in Michigan under Ron Warhurst.
I don’t know who Myers’ coach is, but so far, the method is certainly working. The jury remains out, in my opinion, about whether the Aussie method is optimal for long-term development, especially when foisted upon a U20WR holder. But this essay is certainly worth the time, because it is extremely rare to get such perfect insight into the training of one of the greatest 1,500m talents in world history. So let’s dive in.
Volume Analysis
Going back to 2022, when he was 16/17 years old, Myers’ yearly mileage looks like this:
2022: 2,571 miles in 301 hours
2023: 3,023 miles in 357 hours
2024: 3,321 miles in 389 hours
2025: 3,844 miles in 445 hours
This is a lovely progression in yearly (mostly very easy) volume, which, as studies show, is the number-one predictor of endurance sports performance. Over the course of the past month, Myers is averaging approximately 85 miles per week (this includes the Millrose race week, which he did not taper for), which shows intent for another increase in yearly volume to above 4,000 miles in 2026, which would be an average of about 80 miles per week. This gives him a bit of room to keep increasing into his early 20s, but probably not much. I do not expect that he will ever run a 5,000-mile year while still focused on the 1,500m. So to keep improving, something else will have to change.
The obvious takeaway for me is that the average speed of his runs has not increased. In 2022, his average speed was 8.5 miles per hour, or just slower than seven minutes per mile. In 2025, his average speed was 8.6 miles per hour, or 6:58 per mile. (It should be noted that this is not precise, because Myers leaves his watch running during his sessions on rest intervals, which slows the average pace. But I assume he has always been doing this, so it’s fairly consistent).
This is not his easy run pace; it is his overall average pace including sessions. This is entirely logical in my view, despite (spoiler) his 1,500m/mile PRs dropping from 3:46 to 3:29 and 4:07 to 3:47 in that time frame. Why? As one gets faster, their workouts should get faster. Their easy runs might speed up a little bit, but you don’t recover from the hard workouts without keeping the easy runs easy. In fact, the easy runs becoming even easier (relative to one’s race paces) while staying at the same pace can actually can help boost one’s fitness even more, because it’s possible to stack more duration up at this new, even lower intensity without taking away from the quality of the hard sessions. And Myers almost always runs quite slowly, for a sub-3:30 man, on his easy days.
A Word of Caution
I’m going to analyze his build-up to the 2026 American indoor season and a few weeks of training succeeding his brilliant three races here. Digging up a half-decade of Strava activity (Myers began posting in 2021) will have to wait for a future article. However, it should always be at the forefront of the athlete’s (AND coach’s) mind that a runner is only the sum of every choice that preceded today, grand and minuscule alike.
Copying Myers’ training block as detailed below is not going to be the optimal approach for you or anyone except him. Your heroic 10x1k threshold workout yesterday on its own will never make a sub-4:00 miler, even if you are a 3:55 talent. Your 120-mile week, without the years of building to support it, does not impress me. Nor will the magic 12-week training block that your remote coach, who calls himself a “guru” (who probably used ChatGPT to write it and sold it for $175 per month) created. And no, not even the training method hailed by anons on the LetsRun.com Message Board as the distance running equivalent of the Resurrection of Christ, the Norwegian Singles Approach, strictly followed for years, will get you to your ultimate potential as an athlete.
The minutiae of the perfect training program is not quite as simple as John L. Parker Jr. makes it sound in Once a Runner, but once the correct schedule has been established, it really does come down to painstakingly removing the rubber from the bottom of your training shoes, as Quenton Cassidy did. This is the toil of the distance runner; in short, it is not a question of days, weeks, months, years, or even an Olympic Cycle. It is a lifelong journey, and the clock keeps score of it all, both on and off the track. Nothing can turn a donkey into a thoroughbred, but most people are capable of far, far more than they have ever achieved, which of course is true in life and all elements of it, in addition to the esoteric pursuit of distance running. Why not go all-in? Cam Myers is; that is without question. So let’s examine his workouts from September 2025 to February 2026.
Training and Session Analysis
Myers took a small break after the end of the European/outdoor track season in September, which ended with a bit of a whimper when he went out in the heats at the Tokyo World Championships in the 1,500m. Since then, he only raced twice during the Australian summer, running the Australian Cross Country Championships 10k, and making his debut 5,000m.
He resumed training in late September, with a 46-mile week. This contained one moderate run, mostly easy running and a strides session. Myers does strides fairly often. He also does speed development, which looks to be 40-80m sprints, most weeks, sometimes twice per week. In the early phase of his training, he often does these uphill.
Over the course of the next four weeks, he built up to an 86-mile week, a volume he more or less held for the next four months. He runs his standard days around 6:50-7:20/mile (this would be Zone 1 even for a relatively out-of-shape 3:29 1,500m runner). He does a long run once per week, only skipping it rarely near races. His LR is just 12-13 miles at 6:40-7:00 pace, so quite different from the American collegiate long run, which is often 16-20 miles at 5:50-6:20 pace. Of course, Myers is a miler, but there are still plenty of milers in the American system ripping 18-milers every week in their base phase. I digress…
He doubles most days to hit his weekly totals., so most of his runs are not longer than 10k. The other thing that strikes me is that even when in 3:47 (or faster) mile fitness, Myers runs at an extremely high heart rate for his relatively slow training paces. His max HR is north of 200, so his Z2 is as high as 170bpm, but he’s sometimes cranking over 170bpm at 6:30 pace, which is shocking to me. 6:30 is still Z1 for an in-shape Myers, yet his HR is climbing into Z3. Surely, his lactate is well under 2mmol and probably more like 0.8mmol at 6:30 pace, rendering HR kind of irrelevant. This is making me rethink my obsession with my own HR.
Now we will finally analyze over four months of workouts.
October 4: 6mins, 6×3 mins (5:40 down to 5:15 pace) off 1:30, 60s. This looks to be at Z3 effort. It was incredibly slow for him. It was either comically easy, or it indicates just how much fitness one can lose after a week off followed by a few down weeks. It also shows that he was probably cooked by the World Championships and had already lost fitness from his form in the summer. Either way, it makes sense to err on the side of caution with sub-threshold workouts, especially at the beginning of a training block. He called this an “into-workout”.
October 7: 2k, 15×400 on two-minute cycle (6:00, 62-65). Threshold 2k to warm up, (though probably above threshold at his current fitness) then 400s at 3kish current effort.
October 11: Over/under hills 30 minutes at 5:15 GAP, 20-75 second reps, uphills at VO2 max (mostly 4:00-4:20 GAP, downhills steady at 6:00-7:00 GAP). Good anaerobic work.
He seems to have taken a day off this week and then skipped a workout, likely due to a minor injury or illness.
October 16: Double Threshold: AM 3×10 minutes at 3:15/3:15/3:10/k average, testing a max of 2.1mmol. Z3 work. This is lot more impressive than his session from two weeks before, which shows how quickly a talented runner gets back in shape with good training.
PM: 4x2k 3:11 down to 3:01 off 40-90s tested at 3.6, 4.4 which is probably a bit high for 2k reps, I doubt he was too worried though. It makes sense that he would have slightly higher lactate this early in the training cycle.
October 18: 2k, 8x1k (6:13, 3:01→2:42) off 2:30, then 60-75s for 1ks. Looks like a progression from upper Z4 to Z5 (VO2 max).
October 21: 1,600T, Deeks Quarters, 4×400 (4:50, 13:49, 62, 62, 61, 61) Deeks Quarters were 4,800m of 400m at 3k-5k pace/200m float. I can’t discern the exact paces, but it looks like around 64-68 and 38-40. Good lactate buffering session. The 400s after are around 3k effort.
October 23: Double threshold: AM: 3x10mins (3:12, 3:10, 3:08/k) tested 1.5, 1.5, 2.1
PM: 8x1k (2:58avg) off 1min tested 3.0. Pretty impressive for this early in the build.
October 25: 2k, 2×200, 4x1k, 2×90”, 2×60”, 2×30” second hills (5:50, 30, 30, 2:49→2:43, 4:17→3:49 GAP) 1ks on 4min cycle (short-ish rest), 30s between 200s, varying rest on hills. Good VO2max targeted here, not crazy on anything.
This was a huge week of training with four workouts and almost 90 miles. It seems he usually does three hard days per week.
October 28: 1,600T, 2×200, Deeks Quarters, 5×300/100float (4:47, 28, 29, 13:45, 45/ 21avg) (61-67/35-38 for 400/200m on Deeks) We can see that his warmup for these anaerobic workouts is 1,600/2kT/90-100s followed by 2×200 on 30s rest around 3k-mile effort. Not much to say here besides he’s stacking great work. I’ve done 300s at 3k/100 float. It is a hard, but manageable workout if you break it up into 1,600-2k blocks.
October 30: Double-T: AM: 10k “sub-T” (33:00) Pretty slow for a runner of Myers’ caliber, but he can be forgiven since it’s the off-season. I assume this was extremely easy anyway. This is a workout a 15:00 guy could do without much trouble.
PM: 8x1k (2:58avg) off 60s tested 3.4, 3.1. Interesting that he’s testing higher at the same pace as the week before. No discernible progress there, if anything, it looks like a bit of a regression. But running is a long game, as I wrote above, so this is not exactly cause for panic. The goal is to make progress over the course of months and years, not necessarily week to week.
He called this a deload week despite three sessions and 89 miles.
November 4: 4x2k (6:01 for all) off 60s Treadmill at 5,400ft altitude.
November 6: Double-T: AM: 4x2k (6:27→6:40) off 60s at 5,400ft altitude. This seems like he was struggling with the altitude.
PM: 8x3min (3:05/k) off 45s tested 3.0, 3.3 same altitude. It’s interesting to me that he did five threshold sessions in a row here, rather his usual once per week VO2 max-type session and no speed work. Perhaps that is what he meant by “deload”.
November 8: 2kT, 2×200, 4x4min, 3x40s hill, 3x30s hill (6:21, 31, 30, GAP 5:01, 4:43, 5:00, 4:36, 3:50→4:16 GAP) 2 min rest on 4min reps. I don’t really know what this is. Threshold over/unders plus short VO2 max/mile effort hills? Strange workout. 3,600ft elevation.
November 11: 2kT, 16×400, 2×200 (6:22, 66→61, 26, 27) off 2min, 1 min for all 400s, 1 min between 200s. Mostly 5k pace for 400s, then some quick 200s around 800 pace.
November 13: Double-T AM: 4x8mins (3:14/k) off 75s. Treadmill workout
PM: 8x3mins (3:04/3:00/k) off 45s tested 3.0
November 15: 2kT, 2×200, 5x1k, 5×200 (6:08, 30, 30, 2:39→2:32, 28, 29, 28, 28, 25) off 2mins for 1ks, slow 100 jog for 200s. 5 minutes between 1ks and 200s. This is an intense VO2 max session with a fast 200 at the end. It’s quite impressive for mid-November.
November 18: 2k, 8×400, 8×300 (6:04, 64-65s, 45-47s) off 40s jog and 30s jog. Pretty light VO2 max stimulus, kind of a threshold workout in disguise. Done on a road at 3,800ft elevation (that altitude would make almost zero difference). I’m surprised he did this after his intense session three days prior. I would’ve opted for Z3 (possibly double-T) in this workout slot, which we can see he did two days later.
November 20: Double-T: AM: 3x10min (3:15, 3:12, 3:09/k) off 75s.
PM: 8x1k (2:57-3:01) off 45s tested 2.9 after the last rep. Both sessions at 5,700ft so this is good work. I cannot tell if he is staying at altitude and driving down to lower elevations for some sessions, or going up the mountain for some of his runs. Based on the research supporting live-high, train-low, I would guess it’s the former.
November 22: 2kT, 4×1,600m “10k feeling”, 6×200 (6:05, 4:40, 4:36, 4:35, 4:23, 30s) off 2 min for 1,600s, 30-60s for 200s. Another one at 5,600ft on the road. I don’t think 4:23 was his current 10k pace, especially at altitude. Probably a good sign that he felt good enough to do it, though. Most of his training is fairly controlled, so hammering a rep once in a while won’t kill him.
November 25: 2kT, 2,400m Deeks Quarters, 4×400 (5:59, 6:45, 60, 59, 58, 57) off 2min after T, 5 min after Deeks, 1 min for 400s. The Quarters are a bit faster than he had been doing them, but only for half of the distance. His 400s are 3k down to mile pace. It’s a race-week workout, but it does not look all that different from most of his sessions so far this build-up.
November 28: Australian XC Championships 10k: First in 29:43 (moderately rolling course with just under 300ft of elevation gain). He hit a max HR of 209bpm. It should go without saying that this was extremely impressive. A 19-year-old 1,500m runner winning an XC 10k national title is incredible stuff. Myers said “strength is good”. I would agree.
December 2: 2kT, 2×200, 1,600 “at 5k”, 3×400, 6×300 (6:04, 28, 29, 4:12, 59-60s, 44-45s) off 45s float at 6:00 on 400s, 100 float at 6:40-6:50 on 300s. Another mixed session that telegraphs he’s going to race a 5k soon (in hindsight, we know he did). 4:12 likely was a little quicker than his date 5k pace in an optimal setting, and he did it in training. But it’s not outrageous.
On December 3, he posted a weight training session for the first time. He did not say what he did in the weight room. It is likely that he lifts routinely and does not usually post.
December 4: Double-T: AM: 3x10min (3:15, 3:12, 3:09/k) off 75s
PM: 8x1k (3:01-3:08) off 45s. Back up to altitude.
December 5: Another weight training post. This one was 64 minutes, which could mean he’s lifting really hard or just taking tons of rest. It is interesting that he seems to lift the day after workouts.
December 6: 2kT, 6x1k, 6×200 (6:05, 2:48-2:51, 30-31s) off 1:30-2:15 for 1ks, 30s for 200s. At 5,300ft, the 1ks are above threshold effort but not really VO2 max. Perhaps it was another 10k-focused session. 30s 200s on short rest ought to be pretty easy for Myers (he does these a lot).
December 9: 1,600T, 2×200, 3k “5k effort”, 4×300 (4:44, 28, 27, 8:02, 41-43s). 10 min after 3k, 45s between 300s. Pretty good in 90F heat. You can tell by his “warm up” reps that he chose violence today. He seemed to be targeting around 13:20 for 5k. It’s also pretty impressive to hit sub-3:50 mile pace for 300s on just 45s recovery. He was back at sea level for this important session.
December 11: Double-T: AM 4x6min (3:15/k) off 60s. Treadmill. Easy. Back up at altitude.
PM: 7x1k (3:09→2:58) off 45s. He’s dropped his volume on the double-T days slightly.
December 12: 2-hour weight training?! He might be trolling a bit here. I don’t think it’s worth the recovery trade-off for a runner doing 80+mile weeks to lift for more than an hour, let alone two.
December 13: 2kT, 5×800, 3×300, 3×200 (6:02, 2:09→2:03, 44, 42, 41, 29s) off 2:00-2:30 for 800s, 1 min for 300s, 30s for 200s. Another 5k-ish workout. Pretty damn impressive to run 2:03 (and average 2:05) on a road at what was likely a 5k goal pace session.
December 16: 2k, 2×200, 10×400, 2×200 (5:43, 28, 27, 60avg, 25, 25) 400s off 45s, 35s between final 200s. 400s at 3k pace on 45s recovery is a good, not overly strenuous VO2 max workout. It is relatively insane to hit back-to-back 25s on 35s recovery, but we are talking about an elite miler here, so probably a 48s 400 runner fresh for whom 25 is not all-out. Notice that he ran his opening 2k much faster than usual; perhaps he was feeling confident that his threshold had increased to 2:52/k. To me, this looks like he’s finally looking to start sharpening up for the indoor season.
December 18: 4kT, 6×200 (12:23, 27-29s) off 30s for 200s. Race week workout to spin the legs.
December 20: 5k 13:32 victory. “Not the result I was looking for”. 90F and windy. He didn’t make excuses though, which I really respect. I think he was in 13:05-13:10 shape by the time the indoor season rolled around. I would like to see him try a 5k outdoors this year.
This was his lowest mileage week of the whole training block, by far, at 63 miles, so he did a mini-taper for this 5k.
December 23: 16×200 (30→25) increasing rest. First 6 off 200 float, next 6 off 100 jog in 30s, last 4 off 80-90s walk. Pretty good speed session for a miler.
December 25: Double-T: AM 4x9mins (3:12/k) off 60s, tested 1.7-1.9 after reps. In the spirit of Seb Coe, Myers took no break for Christmas Day. This is pretty good work and noticeably more volume in his morning session.
PM: 4x6mins (3:00/2:55/k) off 60s tested 2.0. 2.2, 1.9. That’s really impressive for 2:55 pace. Both sessions on the treadmill.
December 27: 2kT, 4×200, 6×600 (6:01, 29, 29, 27, 26, 1:33→1:27) off 90s for 600s. A solid VO2max session; focused 3k work. Running a 26-second 200 as a part of one’s “warm” up reps is a different level.
December 29: 5×150 (17-18) off full recovery. I thought these were all-out until I saw what he did for 150s later in the training block… Anyway, hand-timed reps this short are hard to take seriously, but if he actually broke 18 on most of these, Myers has some decent wheels, which is to be expected of a 3:29 guy. He needs to get into a good 800m this year.
94-mile week, his highest of the block, to end the year.
December 30: 2k, 6×300/200 float, 6×200, 4×200 (5:48, 42-45s/45-47s, 26-28s, 24-25s) first set of 200s off 100jog in 30s, second set off 65s-ish. 24s are cruising.
January 1: Double-T: AM: 3x10mins (5:03-5:13 pace) off 60s
PM: 4x6mins (4:50-4:59 pace) off 60s. Pretty standard day for Myers.
January 3: 2k, 4×200, 2x1k, 2×800, 2x600x 2×400 (5:57, 26-27s, 2:41, 2:40, 2:07, 2:03, 1:30, 1:27, 55, 52) off 2mins for most, 3:30 between sets. VO2 max cutdown. Closing in 52 is good, but surely was not all-out. He’s still not going bananas, even with races a few weeks away.
January 6: 2x1kT, 4×300/200 float “at 1,500”, 4×200 “at 800”, 3×200 “quicker than 800” (2:54, 2:53, 42-43s/42-44s, 26s, 24s) off 45s for 1ks, 100 slow jog for first set of 200s, 60s walk for second set of 200s. 89F. More speed work. He’s still not cranking more than 300m at mioloe race pace (besides a few 400 rippers to close his previous workout), which I like to see. He says he tested above 14mmol after his 200s.
Janauary 8: Double-T: AM: 4x6mins (5:05-5:12 pace) off 60s. Super easy.
PM: He did not explain this session.
January 10: 1,200, 2×200, 1,200, 600, 400, 400, 1,200 (3:36, 28, 29, 2:59, 1:23, 53, 53, 4:06) off full rest. He cut down to a threshold 1,200m to start. 1,200 at 3k, 600m faster than mile pace, 400s at 800m pace, 1,200m sub-T to “flush”. I like this as a “tune-up” session.
January 13: 3x (200, 400, 300), 200 (30→26, 59→56, 44→42) Pretty standard “rhythm” session. He had arrived in Seattle a few days prior.
January 15: 2k, 2k, 1k (6:10, 6:14, 3:05) off 60s. Easy light threshold.
January 17: UW Indoor Mile: 3:49 easy victory.
Post-race: 6x1k (3:06-3:23) off 60s. Sub-T work. Logical session after a mile race.
January 20: 2×200, 4×600, 4×400, 4×200 (30, 30, 1:31/1:29, 59→57, 27→25) no rest listed. At BU indoor track. Lots of volume at 1,500-3,000m race pace with quicker 200s to finish.
January 22: 4x1k, 2×300, 2×200 (3:00s, 45s, 28s) 30s rest on 1ks, no rest listed for speed work. Just a pre-race tune-up.
January 24: NBIGP 3,000m 7:27 (AR) easy victory.
Post-race: 8×200 (30s) off 100 jog in 30s. I’m not sure why he chose to do more 3k work. It does not really matter in the grand scheme of things.
January 27: 2x1k, 4×400, 4×300, 4×200 (2:55, 2:52, 59→57, 40-41s, 26s) off 45s for 1ks, 70s for 400s, 60s for 300s, 45s for 200s, 3:00 between sets. He did this workout on Harvard’s indoor track, still in Boston. 1ks at threshold to warm up/keep some endurance, then a mile-focused workout. It is a pretty hard workout five days out from a race, but I’m a fan of this. You have to keep the system ticking over. Also, even if you don’t necessarily reap the fitness gains from a hard session in five days, sometimes your body reacts quickly to a shocking effort (though this was not that). Some of my best feeling runs have come the day after an 800m or 1,500m race. This may be bro-science but I stand by it.
January 29: 3×7 mins (5:15, 5:10, 5:05). A very light threshold maintenance session three days out from Millrose.
January 30: 2×200 (26, 25) as strides the two days before the race.
February 1: Wanamaker Mile 3:47 victory.
Post-race: 6×800 (2:20-2:25) off 60s. Threshold workout after the mile. This is the first session he shared his heart rate data for. He was almost at 190 beats per minute on the second rep (the HR monitor glitched after that), which is quite high for a guy like Myers running 4:50 pace. That’s still in his threshold zone, and a race right before would jack it up, but I would have expected slightly lower.
February 5: Double-T: AM: 5x2k (6:15-6:27) off 30-60s. He made it back to Australia. Average HR (including rests) 180bpm, max 191.
PM: 2x(2×600) (1:41-1:45)off 45s, 2mins between sets. 92F. He called this “threshold plus” which means 10k effort to me. On short rest, it is basically a threshold session. Average HR (including rests) 182bpm, max 199. Surely, his HR was driven up by the heat on this one. Still, according to his Strava zones, he stayed in the threshold zone.
February 7: 2k, 2×200, 6x1k, 4x30s hills (5:56, 29, 29, 2:51–.2:48, 3:10-3:22 GAP) 4-minute cycle for 1ks, off 80-90s for hills. Tested 3.7 mmol after the first 1k and 5.0mmol after final one. Standard “warm-up” followed by 10k effort 1ks on relatively short rest, followed by “HARD” hills at sub-50s 400 GAP (~3:50 pace on a 6ish percent grade). This is more or less what I would expect a 3:47 miler to be able to do in the winter. And we know that he is essentially in peak (up to this point in his career) form based on his Millrose performance. I am confident that he is going to be even better outdoors based on his training this winter, since I am under the impression that he still had yet to truly open the taps in training, and he only raced a few times.
February 8: 4×150 with pace change (18, 17, 18, 17)
February 9: 20-minute sauna. I’m a big proponent of heat training/sauna protocols if done properly. However, simply throwing in one day in the sauna for 20 minutes isn’t going to do much. Perhaps, as with his weight training, he is not posting his sauna sessions except this one. Or, he’s trying to hold onto some of his heat adaptation while up at altitude.
February 10: 2k, 8×300, 8×200 (6:08, 45→42s, 28→25s) off 75s for 300s, 60s for 200s. He was back up to altitude, but drove down to 3,200ft for this session (by the way, this is almost the exact same protocol as Flagstaff, Arizona athletes use when they go to Camp Verde or Sedona, which are around 3,500ft elevation, though Flag is about 7,000. He might just be going to altitude to get out of the stifling heat of the Australian summer, as his stints up there do not seem to be long enough to trigger the adaptations that a longer period of living high should. Nor is 5,550 feet really high enough for the boost one would expect at 6,500-8,000. 5,500 is not nothing, and it would do something, but when we are talking about one of the best runners in the world, we would expect complete optimization.
February 11: 20-minute sauna.
February 12: Double-T: AM: 5x6mins (5:10-5:22) “easy T” off 60s. At 5,300ft. HR max 187bpm.
PM: 7x1k (3:00s) off 45s on treadmill.
February 13: 20-minute sauna. Perhaps he is making this a more standard element of his training. It seems like he’s doing 2×20 minutes each week now.
February 14: 1,200, 4×150, 6×600, 6×200 (3:27, 19-21s, 1:34→1:27, 28→25s) off 2mins for 600s, 60s for 200s. I’m not sure why he hammered his “threshold” 1,200m to warm up. And he switched from 200s to quick 150s. Otherwise, a pretty standard VO2max day for a sub-7:30 3k runner, though the last 600 was a bit quicker than perhaps necessary. He followed up with 200s progressing from 1,500m to about 600m pace.
February 16: 4×150 (16s). Insane. This session, more than any other so far, tells me this kid is The Truth. I’m sure he took a full-speed running start, and they were all 16.high, but the kid is probably a 1:43 man (with a little sharpening) who simply has not been in the right race yet.
He seems to have skipped a planned session or two here (probably his double-T) day during this window, and he mentioned “hammy is feeling good” on one of his easy runs. He did a “steady” run instead, running 5 miles at 6:18 pace at altitude.
February 21: 2k, 2×200, 5×800, 6×200 (5:49, 29, 30, 2:07-2:09, 28→26s) off75s for 800s, 45s for 200s. Another VO2 max session with 800s around 5k effort and standard progressive 200s to finish off of short rest. His HR hit 199bpm on the last 200 and only dropped to 189 on the final rest period.
February 23: 5×100 (13s). Not quite the 16-second 150s of the week before… these are 800m pace strides.
February 24: 5laps lane 4, 2×200, 4x(400,200) (basically 2k at 4:50 pace, 27, 28, 55.9, 25.9, 54.6, 25.4, 53.9, 25.9, “50.96”, 25.0) off 60s between 400s and 200s, 3mins between sets. BANG, here’s the first real ripper in my eyes. Dropping what is really a 51 at the end of a session tells me that he is probably doing an 800m this year at some point, and he is also either getting a bit reckless or more likely finally starting to truly “sharpen” up. Coming back after just a minute and running 25.0 is solid too. He should be fitter than he was at Millrose. This will be the last workout I will analyze for now, as I’m finishing this on February 27th (he did a double-T day yesterday at altitude, but it was almost the same as all of his other ones).
2026 Preview
I hope he does not try to crush too many of these A or A- sessions in March/April, because the outdoor season in Europe is quite long, and he definitely was not at his best by the time Worlds rolled around last year. However, with no real outdoor championship this year, he can afford to peak whenever he feels like it and just try to run as fast as possible.
I would like to see June/July as his peak, with the Stockholm Diamond League 1,500m June 7, and/or Oslo Diamond League 1,500m June 10, Paris Diamond League 800m/1,500m June 26, Prefontaine Classic, (Eugene Diamond League) Bowerman Mile on July 4, Monaco Diamond League 3,000m (if it is a 3k rather than 5) then perhaps a few more races in August and September and possibly the World Athletics Ultimate Championships in Budapest, also in September. But I think the Bowerman Mile will be the crown jewel of his outdoor campaign, especially as a Nike athlete. He should be looking for a podium finish and/or a 3:45. I think he’s already in 3:45-3:46 shape, but doing it (especially in that race) is not simple, given potential wind, improper pacing due to tactics, and an oversized field resulting in traffic.
He still has to prove he can truly race with the biggest dogs on the biggest stages. And he will undoubtedly be battling Olympic Champion Cole Hocker and a host of other top milers in Eugene on America’s 250th birthday. Unfortunately, it is extremely unlikely Jakob Ingebrigtsen will be in good enough shape to compete by then, but the two “next Jakobs” Sam Ruthe, (a 16-year-old 3:48-miler from New Zealand) and Myers will be in the field.
Final Thoughts
As with all youth prodigies, Myers is subjected to unnecessary and excessive pressure. Assuming every kid who breaks an age-group WR is going to become the GOAT in any event is the an exercise in ignoring history. How is Katelyn Tuohy performing right now? I do not intend to pile on, but one has to remain objective. She has not yet panned out. That could change; she’s not ancient by any stretch of the imagination. But so far, despite improving significantly from high school (where she was the GOAT runner, before Jane Hedengren came along) to college, she is now worse than she was in college and a fringe professional track runner. This seems to happen more with women than men, but the reality is that you just never know what will happen. History is littered with tragic tales of spectacular flame-outs from the surest of sure things, and shocking ascensions to the top from junior also-rans. Would anybody have predicted, a decade ago, that Jimmy Gressier, of all people, would ever win a World Championship 10,000 meters and a bronze medal in the 5,000m? You would have gotten better odds than Leicester City for the Premier League crown in the summer of 2015 (which were 5,000-1, by the way).
However, the hype for Cam Myers, at this point, is more than warranted. He is already a world contender; he just won the Wanamaker Mile. The kid is a beast, and after reviewing his training and factoring in that he is not yet 20 years old, I believe he will run under the existing world records in the mile and 1,500 meters at some point in his career. It is more than likely that somebody beats him to those marks, but he could go lower still. Then Sam Ruthe will run 3:40.22, and a year later Cooper Lutkenhaus will move up to the 1,500m and run 3:22.82. So it goes… but I digress.
Whatever happens in the next decade with these prodigies, and whether or not Jakob can return to his top level, it is an exciting time to be a mid-distance fan. We just have to sit back and enjoy the spectacle. I hope Myers does not make his Strava private anytime soon because it’s fun to follow his training.
I’m feeling inspired and motivated.
Time to go for a run.
Jamie
Puncheur 
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