This article was originally published on RUN.

In a sport that seems to increasingly demand “main character energy,” Nia Akins is happy to stay out of the spotlight.

“Before my last race, I deleted all social media and decided to just ignore the noise and distraction that comes with it,” says 25-year-old from San Diego, who won the 2023 U.S. national indoor and outdoor 800-meter titles. “I don’t really know how playing into that affects me yet, so I’m avoiding it right now.”

But it’ll be hard to ignore all of the eyes on Akins at the U.S. Olympic Trials taking place at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon June 21-30.

A two-time NCAA runner-up while at the University of Pennsylvania, Akins was eyeing the opportunity to break the collegiate record in the 800 as a senior in 2020, but then Covid struck, prematurely ending her college track career.

But while the world was pretty much shut down, she actively began pursuing two new directions in life..

First, she signed with the Seattle-based Brooks Beasts professional track club in June 2020, even though the U.S. Olympic Trials were indefinitely postponed at the time. Then she started playing guitar, taking lessons from an online teacher and also spending a lot of her spare time during the team’s first training camp strumming to her heart’s desire.

By the spring of 2021, she released her first song, called “Paper Boats” (under the pseudonym Teddy Oliver) and also lowered her personal best in the 800 twice leading up to the rescheduled U.S. Olympic Trials in June 2021, nearly breaking the 2-minute barrier for the first time. At the trials, she and her teammates stayed in a house that had a grand piano, and despite no formal training, she started to teach herself how to play and, between rounds of 800 races, she began working  on a new song, called “Smoke.”

On the track, she ran confidently and effectively, advancing to the semifinal and then the finals. The 800-meter final was delayed because of record heat, but once they did, Akins finished in a lackluster ninth, clocking a 2:12.87.

“The world looked really different in 2021, and then on top of that everything was so new to me,” she recalls. “I very much felt like a rookie, and like I was still shedding some quirks I had from being a collegiate athlete.”

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A Banner Year

Since then, Akins has been racking up experience on the national and global stages. Her outdoor U.S. title last June earned her a spot at 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, where she ran a new personal best in the final—1:57.73—to finish sixth. That same month, she made her Diamond League debut in a high-level race in Zürich, finishing fourth in 1:59.29.

Over the past three years, Akins has positioned herself as one of the top American middle-distance talents to watch, and 2024 is shaping up to be her best year yet. In May, Akins finished fourth (and top American) in the 2024 Prefontaine Classic with a solid 1:57.98 effort, and then she followed that performance with a win at the Portland Track Festival on June 9, clocking a 1:58:04.

On June 21 in Eugene, she won her preliminary race of the 800 in the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials, advancing to the June 23 semifinals with a 2:01.18—the second-fastest time of the four heats.

If she places among the top three in the semifinals or is one of the fastest two times remaining, she’ll qualify for the nine-runner final on the evening of June 24. If she makes the final, it will be an all-out race for the top three places to earn a spot on Team USA and get the chance to race at the Paris Olympics.

“I’m pretty confident in where I’m at, and I think I have a really good shot at making the team at Trials,” says Akins. “I feel like each year [since the last Trials] we’ve taken risks and those risks have worked out and I’ve gotten a little better each time.”

Her passionate pursuit of music has continued, too, as she has continued writing and releasing songs as an alternative folk singer.  In 2022, a month after finishing a breakthrough season, released a four-song EP called “Smile More, Pt II.” Most recently, she dropped four new singles in March—”Woah You’re Lovely,” “Oh No!,” “The Juniper Tree,” and “To The Moon” in March.

With influences ranging from R&B and jazz to pop and gospel, her music is a captivating blend of soulful melodies, thoughtful, storytelling lyrics and her velvety voice, Nia’s music transcends genres and resonates with a wide audience. Her songs often delve into personal experiences, touching on themes of love, self-discovery, and empowerment.

“It’s a positive distraction for sure,” she says. “We recorded it and produced it in the fall, which was really great because it really forced me to shut my brain off and focus on something else other than the big year that was coming up. And it’s just really fun. After the (Olympic) Games—hopefully after the Games—I’m going to release a full album. That’s the goal for sometime in the fall.”

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Leveling Up

Needless to say, she knows she belongs running among the best athletes in the world. She’s settled into her training environment under the guidance of coach Danny Mackey, has become more familiar with championship-style racing, and is ready to level up in order to punch her ticket to Paris.

“I’d say the biggest difference this year is training partners,” she says when reflecting on the recent risks she’s taken in training. “I’ve been lining up with the milers for their workouts a lot more; the goal was making strides on the endurance side without taking away from the speed, because that was the area where Danny thought I could grow the most.”

She’s also been doing bigger training blocks—racing less and spending more time training at altitude. (The Beasts wrapped up a six-week training camp in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in early June).

“It’s a risk because you want to race to get into racing shape a little bit so you know how to tactically move, but it’s been worth it to avoid potential injury.”

Akins has been watching more film than she has in the past to fill in the gaps, and Portland was meant to serve as a benchmark fitness test before Trials. (She passed.). “Training-wise, I’ve been doing things I haven’t been able to do in the past,” she adds. “Now, it’s just about putting it all together for a race.”

Outside of the gym, Akins has continued to shed that “rookie” mentality and dialed in her mental game.

“I’m a big overthinker,” she says. “The biggest mental work I’ve been doing this year is surrendering my thoughts, just letting go of what I think is going to happen.”

She works with a therapist, keeps a gratitude journal, and spends a lot of time meditating—just sitting under a tree or in the grass after a workout, literally thinking about nothing.

“Honestly, it was very hard at the beginning, but it’s becoming more mundane and I’m hoping that when I get to the bigger races, I’m not wasting energy thinking too much or being too nervous—I can just really relax and use all that energy to race.”

And she knows she’ll need it. The women’s semifinals are stacked with talent with Athing Mu, the returning Olympic gold medalist and American record holder (1:54.97), 2020 Olympic bronze medalist Raevyn Rogers, 12-time national champion Ajee’ Wilson and 2024 U.S. indoor champion Allie Wilson, and up-and-comers including Michaela Rose, Juliette Whittaker, Kaela Edwards, and Sage Hurta-Klecker.

“It’s important for me personally to not count myself out,” says Akins about her competitors. “I actually think it’s really exciting that the field is so deep, because it’s a great opportunity to pull out the best you—there’s so much room for you to improve against women who are going to challenge you.”

In fact, Akins says she thrives in championship racing, even though she’s still building experience when it comes to competing all-out on fatigued legs and with a tired brain after multiple rounds of races. “I feel like all the times I focused on racing people without really paying attention to the clock, just being really engrossed in the race itself, I got my best times,” she says.

Obviously, Akins can’t predict what’s going to happen at the end of June—but she’s betting on herself when it comes earning one of those top three spots.

“You go into everything super hopeful and confident,” she says, “but you also have to go in with a tenacity and an understanding that it could be me, it could not be me, but I’m going to work as hard as I can to make sure that it is me.”

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