Fourth place is the kiss of death for most elite runners. Fourth is first off the podium. And every four years, fourth is the first one left off the Olympic team.

But Jess McClain knows a thing—actually two—about fourth place. And this year, fourth place represents rebirth.

At the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon on February 3, McClain hard-charged into downtown Orlando, Florida, to place, you guessed it, fourth. Her time of two hours, 25 minutes, and 46 seconds (5:35 minute per mile pace) was just 15 seconds shy of third-place Dakotah Lindwurm. But despite the hot and humid conditions under the midday sun, it was a personal best for McClain by nearly four minutes.

Just five months later, after a sharp pivot from training on the roads, McClain laced up on the track to finish fourth once again—this time in the 10,000 meters at the U.S. Olympic Trials for track and field on June 30 in Eugene, Oregon.

McClain now holds the elusive honor of serving as a double alternate on Team USA at this summer’s Paris Olympic Games. It’s an agonizing position, a waiting game to see if someone, god forbid, gets injured or sick and can’t compete.

That’s how most athletes would view that position, anyway. But not McClain.

“Fourth is apparently my favorite number,” she said a few days after the Trials. “It actually feels really cool to be able to say I’m top four in the U.S. in two very different events.”

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Go Fourth Bravely

To those who didn’t know her, McClain was a dark horse at the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon. She had no coach, no sponsor, and was working as the executive director of a non-profit and as a marketing consultant heading into the race. But those who know McClain, née Tonn, know that she’s been a standout since high school. She won 14 individual state titles for Xavier College Preparatory in Phoenix, Arizona (12 in track, two in cross country), and qualified for the highly competitive Foot Locker Cross Country Championships all four years.

Her stardom continued to rise at Stanford University, where she earned NCAA Division I All-American honors seven times and won the 2015 Pac-12 Conference Championship in the 10,000 while finishing her master’s degree in business.

McClain turned pro upon graduating, signing a contract in 2015 with the Brooks Beasts Track Club, a professional team based in Seattle, Washington. In 2018, she left the Beasts and moved back to Phoenix to train with her high school coach, Jeff Messer, finishing fourth at the U.S. 20K road running championships in 2019, then setting a personal best of 15:12.33 in the indoor 5,000 meters in February 2020. The plan was to debut in the half marathon in March 2020, but the pandemic put a stop to that and McClain shifted her focus from racing to, well, regular life—she started a full-time job in marketing and got married in 2021.

By the time she stepped onto the start line at the trials in Orlando, sporting a nondescript pink Nike tank and a new last name on her bib, many didn’t even realize who she was, much less that she was a viable threat to make the team.

“I think she surprised a lot of people, but it didn’t surprise me at all,” says Rosie Santos, a marathoner from Great Britain who lives in Phoenix and has trained with McClain for the past few years. “Before the marathon trials, I really knew something special was going to happen, and I was really happy to see it all come together for her on the right day.”

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For the Love of the Sport

For McClain, that performance in Orlando was proof that stepping away from the pressure of professional running and leaning into the love of the sport could pay off. “I just love the competitive nature of racing, and I realized I missed it—so it was cool to find that spark in an organic way again,” says McClain.

Ironically, returning to running for fun landed McClain right back in the professional sphere she fled: She signed a contract with Brooks once again in March. It may have seemed like déjà vu, but this time she was committed to approaching professional sport differently, on her own terms.

“I think a lot of runners would have had a sort of meltdown after coming in fourth and struggled for the rest of the season, but she didn’t,” says Santos. “She used it as motivation.”

After focusing on the marathon for the past few years—and seeing other pro runners opt into the 10,000-meters after the trials—McClain decided to give track another try.

The catch: McClain hadn’t stepped foot on a track in four years—since before the pandemic. “I was so nervous to put spikes back on,” she says. “It was kind of like ripping the Band-Aid off.”

Following the marathon trials, McClain took a two-week break, then started to build her mileage back up while sharpening her fitness by incorporating lots of strides and shorter hill reps, then one or two speed workouts per week. Her self-coached approach worked. In May, she won the women’s 10,000-meter race in a lifetime-best of 31:35.28 at the Sound Running Track Fest, which qualified her for her third Olympic Trials on the track, despite having never actually competed at the meet. (Injury prevented her from competing in the 5,000 in 2016, and she had left professional running by the time the 2020 Olympic Trials were held a year late.)

“When we started training this spring, she was so fast in the workouts we did on the track—speed has always been her forte,” Santos says. “So when she stepped down to the 10K, I had a feeling it was going to be just as spectacular as her marathon.”

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Even with the momentum of the win and a personal best time at the Sound Running Track Fest, McClain knew that making the team in the 10,000 was a long shot. She was up against some of the best distance runners in the country, including 2020 Olympian in the 10,000 Karissa Schweizer, American half marathon record holder Weini Kelati, and six-time NCAA champion and collegiate record holder Parker Valby.

“I remember Des [Linden] saying at one point, ‘Fight for every spot at the trials. You never know what’s going to happen with scratches and people wanting to join the 5,000 or the 1500, and then shifting people away from the 10,000,’” McClain says. “I just knew that I wanted to win the race that I was going to be in, which was probably going to be for fourth or fifth.”

McClain did just that. Parker ratcheted down the pace over the final six laps and Schweizer and Kelati followed. The eventual Olympic team literally ran away from the field. But McClain kept her cool, fighting for every spot to the end. She finished fourth in 32:04.57—25 seconds behind Kelati, Valby, and Schweitzer, but nearly seven seconds ahead of Amanda Vestri in fifth.

Focus on Fun

Focusing on racing others, rather than herself, has been a major shift for McClain—one that’s brought the joy back to running for her. “It’s a fun-sucker when it’s all about pace and you’re focusing on splits every 200 meters,” she says. “I would much rather be racing on the roads and literally just focusing on taking bodies in front of me. I think a lot of what I was doing before was just wrapped up in the noise of trying to be an athlete that I wasn’t, so I’m glad I gained that perspective.”

“There is just a lot of joy in Jess’s running,” says Santos. “The Jess that I’ve always known is very positive, and she doesn’t put pressure on herself, because she knows that that spoiled it for her last time. She just gives it her all.”

That approach is no different as the Team USA alternate. “I’d be stoked to hop in either the 10 or the marathon, but I’m just hanging tight,” says McClain. “It’s the worst place to be in as a Type A planner, so I’m just kind of training to maintain.” In the meantime, she’s looking beyond the Paris Olympic Games towards a yet-to-be-disclosed fall marathon.

“I’m more motivated than ever to get back to marathon pace now,” she says. She’s locked in a race (she’s not sharing which one…yet), and her build will look similar to what she did leading into Orlando: peaking around 80 miles per week and focusing on long run efforts. She’ll also be incorporating more hill workouts, since those worked out so well for her leading up to the Olympic Trials on the track.

“The cool thing about Jess is she doesn’t want to change things, she stays very true to herself,” says Santos. “She got the most out of the track season, but I know she’s itching to get back to the roads and marathon training—she’s said it’s just kinder on her body, more volume, but not as intense. And when she’s excited about racing, she’s going to race really well.”

While she may still be stuck in fourth place limbo for the Olympics, she’s still charging forward. Just five days after the 10,000 in Eugene, McClain won the women’s race and took third overall at the Patriotic Crown City Classic 12K in Coronado, California, running 39:35 (5:17 minute per mile pace).

It wasn’t a big race, but it was an improvement over fourth. “I was just so over being average,” McClain says. “I’m happy to be back in it and enjoying it, and being a part of the conversation again.”