Q & A with Brooks Beasts coach Danny Mackey after Josh Kerr's Olympic performance in Tokyo...

TOKYO--In the aftermath of Josh Kerr winning the first Olympic medal of any color representing the Seattle based Brooks Beasts Saturday night in a personal best 3:29.05, coach Danny Mackey (on left/Paul Merca photo) was kind enough to take some questions regarding Kerr's preparation for the three rounds of racing at the Olympics.

Just as a refresher, Brooks started the Beasts pro track team based in Seattle in 2013, where the company's headquarters are located.

The Beasts are dedicated to placing athletes on US Championship podiums, winning World and Olympic medals, growing new fans, and providing inspiration and education to health and wellness both nationally and internationally.

While the names and faces of team members has changed over the past several years, Mackey is the one constant on the squad, serving as head coach of the squad from its inception.

Here's Mackey's thoughts on how the last five days went down for Kerr, a native of Edinburgh, Scotland and a former NCAA champion at the University of New Mexico who took a chance and signed his pro contract with Brooks and moved to Seattle in 2018:

On race strategy in the finals:

We assumed it would go hard either right from the gun, or 400 in.  I was thinking Timothy Cheruiyot might wait (until) 400 & really take over, so I told Josh to approach the first 800 openhanded. 

Ideally he gets right on whomever is leading because his fitness is peaking right now so I trusted him if it was really fast.  

If he didn’t get a good spot then I told him not to force positions the first 2 laps and if opportunities came up….take them.   Otherwise he should know that the last 500 a lot of positions could change if it’s quick, so control his energy output.

On the last 400:

“Read the room”.  

If he needs to move up to get close to the leaders, he would have to press it a little and risk holding a long kick.  Josh is fine with risks, as you don’t become a Olympian if you aren’t willing to lose. 

 But the last big thing I asked Josh was to save a gear for the last 100.  I felt like that last 100 was going to be a long 100.  Usually he would go earlier but I didn’t want him trying up 30 meters out. 

In hindsight he could have hit his last gear around 120 out and gotten silver and if Josh had a better spot early, who knows where he’s at relative to Jakob.  I hope next time we will find out.

Thoughts and adjustments after Tuesday's first round, where Kerr finished seventh in heat 1, one spot out of the automatic qualifying spot, and had to sweat out thirty minutes and two other heats before finding out he advanced as one of six time qualifiers to Thursday's semis:

I told him I intended on him being flat because of the round structures, I felt like we had to choose days nervous system wise.  Maybe that was the right call, maybe he still medals today if we did the first round prep normally, hard to say.  Based on how he said he felt today, I’m good with the decision, though Monday (in Seattle/Tuesday morning in Tokyo) was a LONG 30 minutes with those other rounds.

Mentally he was too heightened.  So the shock of how frustrating the round was, made the shift to go back to our basics mentally, a little easier.  The Olympics are not different, they are just more competitive.  He was forcing spots the entire prelim and not getting any of them, so the worst of both worlds.

Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway reacts after winning
the Olympic 1500 title in 3:28.32. Josh Kerr of the Brooks
Beasts (in white) was third behind Kenya's
Timothy Cheruiyot 
Photo courtesy World Athletics

Final thoughts:

Both Jakob Ingebrigtsen (of Norway) and Timothy Cheruiyot (of Kenya) really earned those spots in my opinion.  They were aggressive, they are obviously peaking at the right time, they have been dominant for years, and to do what they did in the third race in 5 days is outstanding.  That entire men’s 1500 podium is a bunch of aces and I’m super happy and proud of Josh.  

I’m so thankful he came to the Beasts in 2018, I have a lot of respect for him as a man an athlete.  So for me to see a guy like him, who I care about greatly off the track, on that podium, on the biggest stage is humbling.  His Brooks Beast teammates are so fired up for him.

Kerr is entered at the Nike Prefontaine Classic, the lone US stop on the Wanda Diamond League circuit, but will decide in the next few days on whether or not to run.

NOTE: Brooks Running contributed to this report.

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