By Rich Sands, @thatrichsands.bsky.social
(c) 2025 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved
(17-Apr) — Though she’s known primarily as a 5000- and 10,000-meter runner, Karissa Schweizer loves to test herself at shorter distances —- often with great success. A two-time Olympian in the longer races, Schweizer boasts flashy PRs of 4:00.02 for the 1500 meters and 4:24.32 for the mile, both set in 2020. And last September she outclassed a field of middle-distance specialists to win the prestigious New Balance Fifth Avenue Mile in New York City, clocking 4:14.8 to equal the course record for the world’s most prestigious road mile.
Next week she will get two chances to show off her speed when she heads to Des Moines, Iowa, for the Drake Relays. First, on Tuesday, April 22, she’ll line up in the Grand Blue Mile, which once again doubles as the USATF Road Mile Championships and will also be the Team USATF selection event for the 2025 World Athletics Road Running Championships (date and location still to be determined following San Diego’s withdrawal as host).
Then, on Saturday, April 26 she’ll race on the track in Drake Stadium in the elite women’s mile. It will be a homecoming of sorts for Schweizer, who grew up in nearby Urbandale and attended Dowling Catholic High School in West Des Moines (the same alma mater as WNBA star Caitlin Clark). She competed at the Drake Relays in high school and then in college for the University of Missouri, winning the 5000m and distance medley relay in 2018.
“I saw that U.S. Champs was at Drake this year and was like, what a perfect full circle moment and opportunity to come back and race in front of the home crowd,” she told reporters in a videoconference today. “I’ve never done the Grand Blue Mile. My whole goal was to run the road mile, and I was telling my grandfather about it, and he’s been to Drake like 40 years and a row and he said, ‘You’re not gonna race in the stadium?’ So I was like, ‘Well, shoot, I guess I have to run in the stadium, too!”
The Des Moines races will mark Schweizer’s first competitions of 2025. “I would have loved to have done indoors,” she said. “I was training really well coming off my 2024 season, and I think I just didn’t take enough of a reset and went right into things. I had to skip the indoor season, but physically I’ve been having some hiccups around this time of year [in the past], so I’m actually happy that it happened so early, because now I can just focus, and I feel really healthy right now.”
That 2024 season saw Schweizer make her second consecutive Olympic team in both the 5000 and 10,000. She finished 10th in the 5000 and ninth in the 10,000 in Paris, results that were particularly rewarding after undergoing Haglund’s surgery on her heel the previous fall, then suffering a femoral stress reaction last April that forced her to rely heavily on cross-training in the lead-up to the U.S. Olympic Trials.
A bonus from last year is that Schweizer’s seasonal best in the 5000 (14:36.88) puts her under the 14:50.00 qualifying time for the 2025 World Athletics Championships, set for September in Tokyo. Her 2024 best in the 10,000 (30:51.99) is shy of the standard for Worlds (30:20.00), but Schweizer would likely get in via world rankings, even if she doesn’t hit the standard in the coming months. “Normally the year is just spent chasing those marks, so it’s nice to be able to relax and build a season how I think is best for me and how I’m going to be set up the best for U.S. Champs and hopefully Worlds,” she said.
That allows for more flexibility to take advantage of opportunities like she’ll have at Drake, where she can spend time with her family. “This will be my first race of 2025 so I’m definitely going to just bust some rust with a quick mile,” she said. “I’m excited to work on my finishing speed.”
Her victory at the Fifth Avenue Mile –where she beat top 1500m runners like Kenya’s Susan Ejore, Britain’s Melissa Courtney-Bryant, and Americans Emily Mackay and Heather MacLean– gave her a nice confidence boost. “It definitely made me look more at the road mile. It’s really good for a 5K/10K runner to be challenged like that. There were some very good 1500 specialists [in that race] and I just love the challenge of trying to stay with them, get out fast, finish fast. All of that is scary territory for me sometimes, so it’s great to be able to work on that. I’m so much more nervous for these races than I am for the 5-K and 10-K.”
Among those competing in both races will be fellow Iowa native Shelby Houlihan, who is coming off a silver medal in the 3000 meters at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in March, as well as Rachel McArthur, the defending champ in the Grand Blue Mile, plus steeplechaser Krissy Gear and former NCAA cross country champion Dani Jones. Running the stadium race will be University of Oregon stars Wilma Nielsen of Sweden, who won the NCAA indoor title in March, and Silan Ayyildiz of Turkey, who set the collegiate record of 4:23.46 in February.
Though she enjoys dabbling in the mile, Schweizer admitted that she prefers the longer events. “My favorite race distance is probably the 5-K. It’s definitely been a work in progress. It’s a hard event and challenges me. But I feel like it’s a good distance for me, it’s that sweet spot for combining the speed people and the endurance people,” she said, adding that it’s a rare distance that U.S. athletes have yet to make an impact on the international stage. “It’s a really fun event, and I really want to break through on the American side. We haven’t placed in the top 6 on the world level and that’s something that needs to be done and something that can be done.”
PHOTO: Karissa Schweizer winning the 2024 New Balance Fifth Avenue Mile (photo by Jane Monti for Race Results Weekly)
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