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Jonathan Simms - Get To Know - Nike Elite 2023
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Jonathan Simms If you can just imagine for a moment that you are Jonathan Simms of Allen HS. It’s the end of July. It’s hot and it’s been a long season. It’s been two months and 18 days since the Texas 6A state meet where you won the 400m dash(46.48), run a leg on the fourth place finishing 4 x 100 m relay(40.91), and anchored your team (splitting 45.9-46.0) to a second place finish in the 4 x 4 in 3:12.58. It’s been 32 days since you finished second in then new personal best of 45.90 to take second at the Brooks PR Invitational in Renton, WA on June 14 before you hop over to the Nike Outdoor Nationals in Eugene, OR four days later and win the 400 m in 46.09. You have been named to the Nike Elite program and have spent three days(July 27-July 30) in Beaverton, OR, Oregon before arriving in Des Moines, IA for the ‘23 AAU JO National Championships for the six day meet. You then proceed to have one of the most spectacular track performances by a 16 year old sophomore in US history by doing the following: Monday, July 31 Thursday, August 3 Friday, August 4 400m prelims- 1h13(1) 46.53 Saturday, August 5 400m final- 1. 45.12 4 x 400m final- 3. 3:16.43 (44.36 FAT split) The accolades for those performances are a bit muted, but to reiterate, Jonathan Simms rewrote the record books on that sixth and final day. His 45.12 in the 400 broke the US High School sophomore and age 16 record of 45.14 set by the legendary Obea Moore(Muir, Pasadena, CA) in 1995. The time was also the fastest time in the world by a 16 year old. To cap it off, he ran one, if not the fastest relay leg in US high school history, in the 4 x 400m with a resounding 44.36 to bring his team from eighth to third in 3:16.43. For a kid who started off as a soccer player early on and has been setting records over the years, his success came as no real surprise, but yet to see it in print, one realizes how astonishing his performances were during that six day stretch. As a young seven year old soccer player, Simms’ father, Daryl, saw that he was fast; able to cover the length of the field from his defensive position. It was on a drive home that his father began to talk to him about running. “One day, we were in the car and he was asking me if I wanted to run in the Olympics. I was seven at the time and I was thinking I'm going to the Olympics that year. That's really cool,” he recalls. “ Next thing I know, I'm out at track practice on my own thinking I can go to the Olympics. Later that year I figured out that I wasn’t going to the actual Olympics.” Even though he wasn’t going to the actual Olympics, he still did well finishing third in the 400m(70.74) at the Texas Amateur Athletics Federation Summer Games track and field meet in that first year of running. By the time he reached age nine, he had set the still standing AAU JO meet records of 59.25 for the 400m and 2:19.43 in the 800m. At age 10, he set the still standing 800m record of 2:16.44. At first he didn’t expect to be that good, but as he kept training and running, the records became a reality, a goal. “When I first started, I didn't expect any of that. I ran the 800m at nationals at age nine and just each year, the record seemed attainable. So I kept working for it.” His father was a track and field athlete at Iowa and Tuskegee Institute. His background has helped him in his coaching, Jonathan says. His father is an avid learner and researches and takes notes from YouTube videos he watches on athletes and training. “My father has a coaching background and was a hurdler and high jumper at Iowa and Tuskegee. He has that college experience, but he's also continuing to learn. He watches YouTube videos and makes measurements on stride length, drills and workouts to help us get better. And of course, he has a couple other coaches out there as well to help him out.” Jonathan has always mixed the long sprints and relays with the 800m. In those 800 meter races, his father and his other coaches felt Jonathan would have success employing the simple strategy of staying behind the leader until the end where he would sweep by and take the lead. The training and conditioning had other benefits for him as well. “I think it was more of a conditioning thing to make me a stronger runner. Also, I think him and a couple other coaches on my team saw that I could do well and it could help with every other race.” Jonathan complements his high school training with his Impact Track Club training to run pretty much year around. The name Impact Track Clubs is part of the North Dallas Community Fellowship and the impact it has on track and field and running for Christ. Jonathan began with the club as a youngster and followed the lead of the older runners in the track club. Now, he is in that position and the success of the club and his teammates has raised interest in the club, drawing membership from all over. He has been running for a long time, but his father has preached balancing fun with the training that needs to be done. “Ever since I was little, my father has said you can have fun, but when you are at practice we're not going to waste our time out there. So it was a mix of getting our work in and fun. You can't switch out the work. That's not optional. You can still have fun and play around and talk with your teammates and things like that. So the training was serious and it's increasingly getting more serious as I get older, but it's still fun. I still just run meets for fun as well and, of course, for the bigger meets we are more serious.” After what seems like a career's worth of running, Jonathan began his high school career at Allen HS only a year ago. A hamstring injury suffered on the indoor track at the Arkansas HS Invitational 400m hobbled him that first season. He had to nurse it during the outdoor season and it limited him to 200s and 400s during the high school and summer track seasons. The injury stemmed from some weakness in his glutes that he has since been working on. By the outdoor season, he was able to recover and came away with a sixth place finish at the Texas State 6A meet in 47.78. In the summer, he strained his lower back. He thinks that was a result of the overcompensation for the hamstring injury. The injury still lingers, but it doesn’t bother him when he is running. At 6-03 or 6-04(he isn’t quite sure how tall he is) and 170-180 lbs, he is quite a lanky and powerful runner. He has the ability to dunk off of two feet and does the more dynamic strength training with a mace, a steel bar with a 20lb weight ball at the end to go along with traditional weights during the school year. "Just during the school year we lift weights. Outside of that, I'll do mace workouts. Mace is a bar with a 20 lb ball on the end of it. We just swing that and it gets the full body. It's not static lifting so it strengthens different areas that wouldn't be strengthened if you just do like the four core lifts and stuff like that.” Very well spoken, Simms has a very mature demeanor and speaks articulately about himself and his running- it belies his 16 years of age. He has a lot of interests outside of track and field including riding his Trek 10 speed bicycle, playing basketball and PlayStation video games. He also is very studious. His mother had him do math workbooks at home during the summer- “which I didn’t like”- but it has paid dividends in school and his career path he wishes to pursue in the future.
“ I just like putting things together, figuring things out and designing stuff as well, “ he says of his goal to become an aerospace engineer. “It's just always interested me because just the thought of me designing or putting something together that goes in the air or goes into space seems like a cool thing to do. I looked into it, and I didn't lose interest in it after I looked into the jobs and what people do.” This past season went better than expected. His second race he ran 47.27 and a week later he dropped his time to 46.35. The high school season was focused primarily on the shorter sprints races and relays. He sees a benefit of sprint and 800m training on his racing as he matures. “When I ran the 47 in my second race, I was surprised. I thought, that’s pretty good. And then next week, I ran a 46 low. I was also surprised by that because I didn't expect to jump that much. I’ve been dropping steadily in the 800. I feel like if I can get faster or stronger, the 800 will drop. And then if I can get faster and stronger, then it'll be a really, really, really good time.” One quality he has developed over his nine years of running is that he is able to run fast against any type of competition, anywhere, in any conditions. Whether it is a close race or a blow out, a win or a loss, his outlook towards competition keeps his running in a healthy perspective. “Honestly, I think it might be the success when I had when I was younger, ” he says of his attraction to the 400/800m events. “I like seeing myself progress, getting faster and just seeing that time drop, I really don't even think about how hard the race is. I really just think, since I'm doing this already. How much better can I do? How much faster can I get? How much time can I drop?” His two races in June proved his attitude towards competition. He flew to Renton, WA in tight quarters and had a sore knee afterwards. The weather in Renton was much cooler than McKinney, TX and he wasn’t quite used to it. Yet he still produced his fastest mark of the season(45.90). Then, at Nike Outdoor Nationals, he was in lane eight. He got out quickly and caught the runner in lane nine and then won in 46.09. Though it wasn’t his fastest time, he was pleased to put together two ~46 flat races back to back. Also, his luggage was lost by the airline before he arrived in Eugene, throwing a wrench into his plans. He did get them the day of the meet though. “Honestly, it was a good race. I'm surprised that I performed how I did and I'm proud of myself, “ he says. “ But there's still a sign that there's still faster people out there so I gotta keep working. It's a good reminder because you can’t get first all the time. It's like a reminder so you don't get complacent. It just reminds me that we might not always run our best on that day, but it's about how you perform on that day. Tevin[ Underwood] has a PR faster than he ran that day, but he went out there and he got the win. That’s all he needed to do.” Simms is still working on becoming better at both his events. He thinks he’s figured out how to run the 400m, but the 800m is still a work in progress. “For me, I get out fast, relax on the back straight, a comfortably fast pace, and then just bring it home, and if I start feeling that lactate, just don't give in just like at least finish the race on my feet,” he says of the 400. “For the 800, it's a little bit different. I'm still trying to figure it out, because I didn't run it last year. It feels different this year. At first that really feels more like a cool jog then I really start feeling that pain in my legs in that second lap. I'm just trying to figure out how to manage that first lap pace because sometimes I get out too fast and I feel it on the back on the back end of the race. I know with the push, I can run a little bit faster as well. In most of my races I just try to finish as strong as I can. If I have competition nearby, you know, try to beat them out, but at the end of the day, as long as I do my best....you know.” The competition is always changing and he knows that his future is not guaranteed. That’s what keeps him going.
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