Garrett Kaalund of USC is the newly crowned 2026 NCAA indoor champion in the 200m. His winning time of 19.95 seconds was not only an NCAA record and American record, but was barely off the 30 year old World Record of 19.92, making him the 2nd fastest athlete in history.

Garrett is in his final year at USC and now has his sights set on the 2026 outdoor season where he looks to upgrade his 3rd place finish in the 200m last year and sweep both the indoor and outdoor NCAA titles.

In our conversation, we do a full breakdown of his record breaking indoor race, including his mindset and execution in both the heat and the final. We discuss his transfer from Nebraska over to USC last year and the changes he has made to training which has led to all this success. Garrett also shares some of his favorite sprint races throughout history and gets super analytical with each of them including races from Usain Bolt, Yohan Blake, Asafa Powell and Noah Lyles. And finally, he shares his goals for the 2026 outdoor season, which includes possibly winning 4 titles.

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Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:18 Becoming an NCAA Champion

02:42 Being being surprised running 19 seconds

06:03 Staying focused throughout the indoor season

08:28 Breaking down Garrett's NCAA 200m win

14:31 Training and transition from Nebraska to USC

19:00 Understanding Technical aspects of sprinting

22:46 Being a student of the sport

25:57 Breaking down historical sprint races

31:32 Running the 100m outdoors in 2026

35:25 Goals for 2026 Outdoor season

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