Coach Johnny Gray on Khadevis Robinson

©Track & Field News, 2006

Khadevis Robinson: Hard-Charging Frontrunner

Perhaps you've noticed it: a pattern shift in Khadevis Robinson's running. The 29-year old TCU alum is attacking from the front, he's now won two USATF titles in a row, and in the three-plus weeks since the Nationals he's been consistent in the 1:44s.

Last week in Rome the runner known as "KD" took the pace out hard, and when the chase pack tried to swallow him, he fought back to place 2nd behind Amine Laalou's 1:43.25 world-leader—with a new PR, 1:43.86.

Robinson has even changed the timing of his fast runs. In ’04 and ’05 the man once known for setting seasonal bests in May, June and early July cranked his fastest of the year in August in Zürich.

Pile facts like these one atop the next and pretty soon you've got a U.S. athlete the rest of the 800 world has to take seriously.

American Record holder Johnny Gray just happens to be Robinson's coach. Gray has been for four seasons, but this is the first in which Gray can actually attend KD's workouts. With his eyes in the mix, Gray can tune the training more carefully, and says the coach, "I get inside his head… I don't yell at him to chew him out. I yell at him with motivation."

When times get tough at the Thousand Oaks, California, track where Robinson trains, Gray says, "I know what he's feeling because I've been there. I know what he's thinking. I have a bullhorn. I pull that bullhorn out."

Says Gray, "My workouts are very difficult. KD will vouch for that."

The difference from the phone-coaching Gray used to provide—since work commitments precluded his presence at the track—is that Robinson pulls that much more out of himself.

"I'm watching him and I tell him he can do more. We've even had times when he thought he couldn't run another step. I told him he had to run another step, and he did things he'd never thought were possible."

Gray, for all his success in two decades of world-class running, had his down days also and understands how confidence can ebb from time to time.

"When it's time to do battle," Gray says, "you're really trying to look for a way out of it. By being there, I stop KD from finding that out."

Gray adds that even a distraction as seemingly minor as taking one's own splits can detract from 800 training. "I want him to concentrate more on the rhythm of running, and not having to worry about clicking a stopwatch," says Gray, who now operates the watch.

Robinson, in Gray's view, also came into the season newly receptive to guidance. He followed Gray's advice on race strategy and finished ’05 on a high note in Zürich. "'Man, I should have listened to you before" Gray recalls KD saying. "He's just starting to do that. He'd never done that before."

In the right race this season, Gray thinks Robinson "could dip under 1:43… if I were with him, if I can stay in his head." Not so easy when Robinson's in Europe and Gray is home in California, but that too is a familiar angle.

During Gray's career his coach, Merle McGee, only traveled with him on occasion. Cost and McGee's reticence to fly due to back pain,saw to that. Fortunately, there's this device called a telephone.

"My coach and I used to do it that way," Gray says. "We had to do it a lot."

Next year Robinson—who has been to seven World Championships indoors and out plus an Olympics—hopes to make the first global championships final of his career.

"After seeing him run 1:44.21 in his first race over in Europe and then 1:44.92 and 1:43.86 within a week and a half, I know he's strong enough to run competitive rounds and then a final," Gray says. "And besides, there were things I wanted him to do in training this year that he wasn't strong enough to do, but after what he's done this year, he will be strong enough next season. He's going to benefit from that as well." /Sieg Lindstrom/