Sage Hurta-Klecker is one of the best 800m runners in the United States and one of the best 800m runners in the world.
While she hasn’t had the season that she’d hoped to have, she was able to deliver one of her better performances of the season in the women’s 800m with her time of 1:59.64. For her, her performance at the Prefontaine Classic was a testament to her toughness that she displayed throughout the season.
Hurta-Klecker dealt with a setback this season in the form of an injury. She dealt with an impact fracture in her distal femur, which she suffered at the beginning of the outdoor season. Despite the challenges that her season presented her, Hurta-Klecker takes pride that no matter what, she showed up and gave it everything that she had when she toed the line against the world’s best.
“I’ve kind of been dealing with injury throughout the whole year,” she said. “Haven’t really made it a big deal and didn’t really know until recently what was going on. But I feel a little validated. I got to September without being 100% and at USA’s, I had a bit of an off week and emotionally it took a lot to recover from that and to get back up and competing again. So even if on paper I didn’t sort of show the effort that I put in this year, I think the fact that I’m here today is a testament to that I kept showing up.”
When she’s healthy, Hurta-Klecker has proven that she belongs on the big stage with the best of the best. She has a lifetime best time in the women’s 800m of 1:57.85 that she set last year in Monaco. The talented middle-distance runner who competes for the On Athletics Club is encouraged by her performance at the Prefontaine Classic, and she’s looking to take the momentum that she’s built into next season, as she vies for a spot on the team that will represent the U.S. at the Olympic Games in Paris.
“It reminds me that I have the talent and the capability and work ethic to perform at that level, not feeling totally like myself,” she said. “I feel like these last few weeks, I’ve sort of seen glimpses of like, alright, that’s what it feels like to be a world class 800m runner again. And so hopefully next year, I can get to that level a little bit more consistently and have more good vibes behind the scenes.”
Hurta-Klecker has elite versatility when it comes to not only running the 800m, but also the 1500m. Could the 1500m be the event for her in the future? Only time will tell.
“We’ll see,” she said. “I think that going into next year, I’m gonna do a little bit more longer training through the indoor season. I might even run a 3k indoors, but then come outdoors, we’ll see what that looks like. I think it just depends on how the next five months go.”
Being injured has certainly not been fun for Hurta-Klecker, and she admitted that it’s taken its emotional toll on her at times throughout the season. One of the things that she looked to when facing the adversity that came from being injured, is to why she loves to compete in the sport in the first place. This gave her the perspective that she needed, and reminded her that she’s in it for the fun that the sport brings.
“This year has been hard,” she said. “But I remind myself – I started out doing this for fun as a kid because I just liked running and competing. And so trying to remind myself that I still have fun doing the workouts and even though it’s it gets a little bit more intimidating at this level, ultimately, I’m out here to have fun. And it is a fun thing to do, racing as hard as you can for two minutes.”
