Abdihamid Nur — Once He Walked, Now He Wins

THE CURRENT U.S. OUTDOOR leader in the 5000 after scoring a 13:05.17 win at the USATF Distance Classic (Westwood, California, May 26), Abdihamid Nur bears little resemblance to the prep junior version of himself who walked the middle portion of his first cross country race.

This year’s Nur, now a 25-year-old Northern Arizona alum with a Nike contract, kicked to a runaway win in LA over ’19 NCAA XC champ Edwin Kurgat (13:08.46), Morgan Beadlescomb (13:08.82) and a field in which the first 8 all set personal bests. Nur’s mark was also a PR, by 1.15, and impressively achieved.

Taking the lead with a kilo to run, Nur finished with a series of effortless-looking gear changes as he had in winning his 3000/5000 NCAA Indoor double for the Lumberjacks in March of last year.

Covering the last 800 in 1:56 and change, Nur glided to victory with a last lap of about 58.2. What’s more, he had been tripped from behind in the first lap, falling hard enough to incur a raspberry on his back and lose nearly 40m to the leaders. As the result shows, he reeled ’em all back in.

Nur told usatf.tv, “This just gives me confidence that we’re doing the right things in training, you know? I have a great support system and a great team that I train with, and if I’m running 13:05 this easy, I can’t wait to see what my other teammates do in the next couple coming weeks in Europe. So it just shows, our biggest aim this year is to medal, like always, to bring American distances back to the top.

“To be honest. I thought it was gonna be harder, but it was great in California, [UCLA’s Drake Stadium]. It just made for a great night and yeah, I felt really smooth doing that.”

When Nur — who placed 3rd in the USATF 5000 last year and 11th at the World Championships — talks about his team, he means coach Mike Smith (also his mentor at NAU) and a group that includes Olympians Woody Kincaid and Luis Grijalva. They labor, of course, at altitude in Flagstaff.

But Nur’s first race in the distance training haven perched at some 7000ft (c2100m) gave the then 17-year-old a very different impression. He might not have ever toed the line but for a near-fatal vehicular accident the previous school year.

“I had a torn ligament in my knee and I broke my collarbone and had to get surgery on that,” says Nur, who had arrived…