ZAP Endurance’s Amanda Vestri has had a breakthrough in her first year of professional running. In May, the 24-year-old took third at the Night of the 10,000m PBs in London, running 31:10.52 and improving her personal best by 43.69 seconds.
Even more impressive than her time was the athletes she was able to challenge during the race. On a night when most runners weren’t running personal bests, Vestri stayed close to Great Britain’s Megan Keith, who ran 30:36.84 earlier this year, and Fiona O’Keeffe, who won the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in February.
Three weeks later, on June 8, Vestri finished fourth at the New York Mini 10K and was the top American finisher, running 31:17. Though the performance wasn’t a surprise after her run in London, it caught the attention of more U.S. fans. Next up, Vestri will run the 10,000m at the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials, on June 29.
Her pro running dreams started early
Many professional runners will tell you that when they were kids, they didn’t know their profession existed. But Vestri started running when she was 11, and she knew in middle school that she wanted to be a pro runner. “I’m kind of an all-in type of person,” she told Fast Women. “I’m either going to go all-in on something or I’m not going to do it at all.”
And growing up in Webster, New York, where she faced runners like Katelyn Tuohyand Kelsey Chmiel, Vestri had to work hard to be competitive. She never won a state title, but racing tough competition prepared her for success on the national level in high school and beyond. She graduated with a 3,000m PR of 9:35.73.
Vestri kept her training volume around 30–40 miles per week in high school, but she kept her foot on the gas. “I ran everything at like 6:20 pace; I was sprinting every run,” she said. Her coach would tell her to slow down, but she didn’t listen. “Now I try to be a little bit more conscientious about not killing it every run,” she said.
She had three different college coaches, at two different schools
Vestri started off her collegiate career at Iowa State, coached by Andrea Grove-McDonough, but during her sophomore year, Amy Rudolph took over. Vestri says she still has great relationships with both coaches. At the end of her first year, she qualified to represent the U.S. at the World U20 Championships, where she finished 14th in the 3,000m. But at the end of her sophomore year, she decided to transfer to Syracuse, which would bring her closer to home.
“I felt like maybe [Iowa State] wasn’t the perfect fit for me and I just wanted to go somewhere where my long-term career was prioritized over anything in the short-term,” she said, pointing out that the Iowa State program has a different director now.
Vestri also chose Syracuse because she clicked with head coach Brien Bell. During the winter of 2021, she won the ACC indoor 5,000m title. And by the following fall, Vestri was in the shape of her life. She dominated the NCAA Northeast Regional in cross country, winning by 23 seconds over Kayley DeLay and Emily Mackay, who both run professionally now. But three days later, she suffered an injury and was unable to compete at the NCAA Championships the following weekend.
“I thought I had a chance to get top three at NCAAs, and cross country is my favorite season,” she said. “I had to watch the race and it was the worst feeling ever.”
Vestri had no cross country eligibility remaining, but she returned with a vengeance during the 2023 track season and earned first-team All-American honors by finishing sixth in the 5,000m at NCAA indoors and seventh in the 10,000m at NCAA outdoors. One month after finishing her collegiate career, she finished eighth in the 10,000m at the USATF Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
When she graduated, shoe companies weren’t knocking down her door
As a two-time All-American who had run 32:08.26 for 10,000m, 15:42 for 5,000m, and 9:04.36 for 3,000m, Vestri did not get a lot of attention from shoe companies coming out of college. “It’s kind of tough out there, when you’re not an NCAA champion,” she said. “And as much as I advocated for myself, unless you have the times or the titles, no one really wants to believe that you’re going to do something.”
Vestri talked to the teams that were interested, and last fall, she signed with ZAP Endurance, based in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, where she’s coached by Pete Rea. The team is actively looking for a shoe sponsor, but in the meantime, Vestri can train and race in any shoes she wants, and ZAP pays her salary.
There are two other women on the ZAP team at the moment—Tristin Van Ord and Annmarie Tuxbury—but Vestri has been doing most of her workouts with Josh Izewski, who is on the men’s team. He’ll do her workout with her and then do his own the following day, or vice versa.
She has (carefully) made a big jump in mileage this year
Vestri has gradually made a significant jump in mileage over the past year. In college, her mileage tended to be in the 50s or 60s, and it peaked around 80 miles per week. Now she consistently runs 90-mile weeks, and her mileage has peaked around 110. She manages the higher mileage by prioritizing her health and recovery. That means making sure she’s eating and sleeping enough, and that she has the energy left over to enjoy her life outside of training.
The marathon is in Vestri’s future, but she says she probably won’t touch the distance for a while. “I think we’ll probably look to make the (Olympic) team in 2028, but before then, I’m definitely still very focused on the distances I’m currently running,” she said.
Vestri cheered on her teammates at the 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials in Orlando, Florida, and was inspired by the race, to a point. “It looked like it hurt really bad,” she said. “I was like, ‘Yeah, maybe I won’t run this for a little while.’”
She believes she can make the Olympic team
Vestri won the 2023 USATF National Club Cross Country Championships in December. She planned to race the USATF Cross Country Championships in January and earn a spot on the U.S. team for the World Athletics Cross Country Championships. But a poorly-timed muscle spasm in her piriformis took her out of the qualifying race. At the time, it felt like a massive blow, but now that her season is going as well as it is, she sees the silver lining.
Taking ten days off resolved the injury, and she made a last-minute decision to run the 10,000m at the TEN in March. She says the race was more like practice, and she wasn’t going super hard, but she won her heat in 31:54.22, a 14-second PR. In April, she lowered her 5,000m PR to 15:13.38. And though her 31:10 10,000m in London in May was a massive personal best, she was actually a little disappointed in the time, because she thought she was ready to break 31:00.
Vestri wasn’t really thinking about her world ranking until after the London race, when Puma Elite coach Alistair Cragg told her she had just earned a lot of points for her performance. “I was like, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, but that sounds good,’” said Vestri.
Though she doesn’t have the Olympic standard in the 10,000m (30:40), if she finishes in the top three and runs fast enough at the Trials, she could make the U.S. Olympic team. Her best guess is that she would need to break 31 minutes to bump her world ranking high enough.
“All I know is I’m prepared to go out and race as fast as humanly possible,” she said. “Hopefully Eugene won’t be too hot, but if it is, I’ll be ready for that, too.” Vestri says she’ll be focusing both on racing and the time. “If I get top three and I run 32 minutes, that’s not going to do anything for me,” she said. “I think every other woman in the field, other than Weini (Kelati, who has the standard) needs to be thinking about running fast.”
Despite her recent momentum, Vestri will still go into the race as an underdog, with the eighth-fastest seed time. “While I do have a shot at making it, I don’t want to be disrespectful to the women who are in the field,” she said. “It is a hugely deep field and it’s going to take my best day to make the team.”
