2025 Summer Mileage Program, July 18, 2025, Week Two , Day Five, running in a park, Katie Moon , pole vaulters are just plain cool.

This is the second week of RunBlogRun’s Summer Mileage Program, day 5 and our focus is Katie Moon .  

I have to admit, Katie Moon is one of my favorite athletes. When I see her at a presser, she is always full of positive energy and takes the time to speak with all of the media.

Katie Moon is the Olympic champion for 2021 and silver in 2024. Katie has won the gold at World Championships in 2022 in Eugene and in 2023 in Budapest. Her best are 4.94m indoors, or 16 feet, two inches. Her best outdoors? 4.95 meters, or 16 feet , 3 inches out doors. To say that Katie would like to hit five meters is an understatement.

Katie Moon is one of the most competitive athletes that I know, and it is here, dear cross country runners, where you can learn from this mighty pole vaulter. When Katie came back from Tokyo, she was exhausted, physically and mentally, she just could not find her regular self. Have you ever been there? Well, Katie Moon shared this with our RBR Europe senior writer, Stuart Weir. Katie Moon spoke to her team, focused on her technique and gave herself a break. She did not stop challenging herself, but she let herself know that it would get better. In Eugene in 2022, she was surprised a bit to win.

Last year, at the LA Grand Prix (2023), Katie no heighted. That happens to the best of vaulters. It was a little treacherous, and it shook Katie up. She came back strong and competed well throughout the season, she even took gold in Budapest, where she shared the World gold medal, an offer to Nina Kennedy, that transfixed the sports world.

Here is what Katie Moon told Stuart Weir, our senior writer in Europe, on how she battles the challenges of the pole vault. We can all learn from her experiences:

She explained, too, that being in a stronger place mentally this year, she is better able than sometimes previously to accept and move on: “In the past, it probably would have messed with my confidence, but I feel like I’m at a place now where I just know what I’m capable of, and the very next meet I won a Diamond League, so I chose to look at it as a fluke. This is a one-off. Yeah, it happens. Just something was weird, whatever that may be, it’s OK. I chose to not let that get to me. I look at it and kind of laugh and say, ‘OK, like we’re human, this happens. OK, on to the next meet’”.

I do not know if Katie Moon ever ran cross country. She is incredibly fit. I have to…