Olympian Gabby Thomas Won’t Go on a Run With You: ‘We Don’t Do That’

Gabby Thomas is one of the fastest women in the world — but that doesn’t mean she’s always up for a little cardio.

In an exclusive interview with Us Weekly, the 3-time Olympic gold medal winner explained why sprinters are built differently. 

“People are surprised we don’t run much,” Thomas told Us at the 38th Annual Footwear Achievement Awards at Casa Cipriani in New York City on Wednesday, December 4. “We don’t run more than a mile, and the fact that I’ve run a mile in my life is really a lot for a sprinter. Most people haven’t even done that.”

Thomas added, “So when people ask us, ‘Do you want to go on a run,?’ The answer is always, ‘No, we don’t do that.’”

Thomas took home gold medals in the women’s 200m, the 4 × 100 m relay and the 4 × 400 m relay at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. While her races are over in the blink of an eye, Thomas illustrated how preparing for them is a long, arduous process. 

“Getting myself into a competitive mindset, that takes years of mental training,” she said. “I’m not gonna lie. Being ready mentally for Paris was five years in the making of training myself, physically, mentally.”

She continued, “It was meditation, it was getting the right sleep, it was discipline, it was consistency. It was all of those things that I worked on day after day, but I did it, and it’s possible, but it takes years.”

Thomas, who also won a silver and bronze medal at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, detailed how the practice of meditation has become a huge part of her success. 

“I wake up and I do five minutes in the morning, and then I incorporate it into my warm-up during practice and during competition,” she said. “So a lot of it is breath work, but a lot of it is just focusing on being in the present moment and not the past or future.”

When it comes to living in the moment, Thomas noted she’s been “underestimated” throughout her life — “in the classroom at Harvard,” where she was a student-athlete, and “coming up as an Olympic athlete” — but she’s learned to turn all that doubt into competitive fuel. 

“I think over time, it’s just given me confidence,” Thomas boasted. “I’ve proven myself right over and over again, and I’ve proven to myself that I can do what I work towards. And so I want everyone to see that. I want everyone — younger runners, younger girls who want to do whatever they want to do — to believe that they can if they just work for it.”

Reporting by Antonio Ferme