2022 was quite the year for Sage Hurta-Klecker.
Off the track, she got married to her now husband and teammate on the On Athletics Club, Joe Klecker. On the track, she showed why she’s one of the best middle distance runners in the world, as she consistently ran impressive times in the 800m, as well as the 1500m throughout the season.
This season, she’s ready to take her game to the next level.
Last year was Hurta-Klecker’s first full time year as a professional runner. Adjusting to the chaotic scheduling and going with the flow was something she had to adapt to, but as she enters into her second professional season, she’s more confident in her ability to not only adjust to the different situations, but she’s also confident in her ability to run at the world stage.
“I feel like coming off the season, I was super confident,” she said “I feel like I know what it’s like to sort of run at that world stage level now. Whereas at the beginning of last year, I kind of knew I could do it, but without any experience. It’s a little big harder to back it up to yourself, so I was feeling really good about it. But now I’m just at the point in the season where I’m getting back into harder workouts, but it’s harder than it was in the summer. It’s an important reality check at the moment.
I feel good. I know how I felt at the beginning of last season and then how I ended up. I feel like I’m in a good spot relative to where I was a year ago, and hopefully I can just keep moving. I think as long as I come into form, I know how to handle those situations now.”
Hurta-Klecker continued to improve and showed consistency as the season progressed. One of her most impressive performances took place in Monaco, when Hurta-Klecker came in second place in the women’s 800m, running a new personal best time of 1:57.85. But if it weren’t for a text message from her agent, her remarkable performance might not have taken place.
“I finished my race, I’d run 1:58 and gotten second,” she said. “My agent was texting me ‘hey are you sure you don’t want to hop in another 800, it’s supposed to be fast.’ So I was like you know, what the heck. I’m over here, I might as well make an extra stop in Europe.”
That new personal best brought great joy to Hurta-Klecker, who was happy to run sub 1:58 in the tough event.
“I was definitely pleased,” she said. “I knew that it could happen, but I feel like in the 800 it can be a little tricky because you might be putting in the same effort, but you have to also navigate around people, which takes energy. So it just kind of all came together. I was really happy to dip under that 1:58. Obviously I want to run as fast as possible. But to get under that 1:58 was pretty nice.”
Hurta-Klecker took a little extra time to get back into the swing of things after such an exciting and busy season. Now, she’s back in stride again with her training and is excited to race soon and very soon.
“At this point, it kind of feels like the season was an eternity ago,” she said. “Because of the wedding in October, I felt like I was a step behind, it felt like it was an extended break for me. Not that I wasn’t running in October, but between all the wedding craziness and recovering afterwards, it took me until mid November for me to feel like training was going normal.
But overall it’s going well. Right now we’re in the swing of things, kind of the most boring time of year. It’s the most important time of year, you’re really getting in those base miles, those key workouts, building fitness. I think I just get ancy, I like traveling for meets, I like racing, that’s the fun part.”
Hurta-Klecker is also excited about the middle distance crew that the OAC has put together that includes Sintayehu Vissa, Josette Norris among other athletes. She said that her goal is for all of the girls on the OAC to make this year’s USATF World Championship team that will compete in Budapest.
Hurta-Klecker would love to be a member of that team, and she’s envisioned how special it would be to win a medal. If that happens, she already knows what she would purchase.
“My main goal is to make the team, but if you’re making the team for the U.S, you might as well be shooting for a medal at Worlds,” she said. “So I said maybe I’ll buy myself a gift. That would be so cool, so I’d love to have a necklace or something that is like ‘this is the necklace that I bought myself after I won a medal.”
Be sure to catch Hurta-Klecker compete at the Dr. Sander Invitational Columbia Challenge this weekend, as she looks to break the 1000m American record.
