- March 24, 2025
-
-
Loading
Loading
There’s a moment toward the end of every Tuesday and Friday when John Rivera Jr. has to remind himself of why he’s doing this.
The sun has long set over Albuquerque's Mount Taylor, his home base for the month, and he finds himself alone, standing at the edge of a pool, dreading what’s to come in his cross-training session.
“Pretty much every time I go, this is the last thing that I want to do,” said Rivera Jr.
Then the Lakewood Ranch High alum gets to thinking. He thinks about the broken foot he suffered in 2022 during his senior track season at the University of Mississippi, pressing the pause button on a professional running career that was about to be shot out of a cannon. He thinks about the sponsorship opportunities that he missed out due to the injury.
He thinks about the fact that despite being the 47th ranked athlete in the 800-meter dash last year, he was not one of the 48 selected for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
He dives in the water.
The workout, a grueling affair, lasts about an hour, focusing on high threshold efforts and breath work to build Rivera Jr.'s VO2 max, the highest amount of oxygen that a person can use during intense exercise. Think of it as the air intake on a high-performance race car — the more oxygen that Rivera Jr. can use, the faster his engine will run.
“The cross-training allows me to get another hard effort in without further taxing my legs,” said Rivera Jr. “I’ve already done a hard running workout in the morning, followed by a lift, so this gives my legs a rest while working to increase my oxygen intake when I’m running.”
Oxygen intake is why Rivera Jr. finds himself in Albuquerque this February. He’s in an altitude training camp with the Brooks Beasts Track Club, a Seattle-based team of professional runners who compete in distances from 800-meters to 10,000 meters.
Rivera Jr. signed with Brooks Beasts this January, the culmination of what has been a steadily rising track career since his days at Lakewood Ranch High. Rivera proved to be an elite high school runner when he won gold in the 800-meter at the 2017 FHSAA’s Class 4A state championships (1:53.12).
During his five-year career at Ole Miss from 2018-2022, Rivera Jr. grew from good to great. As a sophomore, Rivera Jr. earned second-team All-American status when he placed 13th at the 2019 NCAA Outdoor Championships (1:49.03). In 2022, he placed third in 800-meter at the NCAA Division 1 Indoor Championships (1:48.03).
After graduating in 2022, however, Rivera Jr. has had something of a tough road. Yes, he’s had success as a professional runner — the Lakewood Ranch native of Puerto Rican descent has represented Puerto Rico at the 2023 Word Athletics Championships in Budapest and in the 2024 World Indoor Championships in Glasgow.
His time in the 800-meter dash — which he runs almost exclusively along with the 600-meter during his indoor season — has gotten better and better. In July 2023, he placed third at the DC Track Championships with a 1:45.29. In July 2024, he ran a personal best 1:44.76.
The Olympic cutoff at the 2024 Games was 1:44.70. As of Jan. 28, Rivera is ranked 48th in the world for the 800 meter dash, a ranking decided not only by time, but by points accrued over the season.
Being a professional runner, however, is not easy. Until he signed with Brooks Beasts, Rivera Jr. was not sponsored by a corporate entity, instead training on his own with funding from the Puerto Rican national team.
Running, Rivera Jr. said, is not nearly as glamorous of a professional sport as people may think.
Not only is it grueling both mentally and physically, but it’s also a lonesome sport. When training on his own, Rivera missed the team that he had at Ole Miss, the camaraderie and the friends he’d made. He missed having a life outside of running.
“It’s a big, difficult shift to make,” said Rivera Jr. “I enjoyed every single year at Ole Miss more than I did my last two as a professional. There was so much more to do. As a professional runner, you have to be okay with being bored. Your life revolves around running and recovery for 10 months out of the year.”
It’s a lifestyle that Rivera Jr. almost gave up last summer after missing out on the Olympics. He’d been steadily climbing in the world rankings, reaching 47th, but found himself without a team to represent.
Universality rankings allowed nations without athletes represented in the games to select their own — runners with times slower than Rivera’s were slotted in front of him, despite his higher world rankings and faster time.
“I almost ended up quitting after that,” said Rivera Jr. “I’m a pretty realistic person and while I have goals and ambitions, you set a timeline for yourself — if I can land a better contract by this date or make the Olympics this year, I’ll keep going.”
Rivera Jr., however, decided to keep running. He said that missing out on the 2024 Olympics filled him with a renewed motivation to not only to qualify for the 2028 Games, but to represent Puerto Rico at the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Glasgow this March and the Outdoor Championships in Tokyo this September.
He hopes to break the Puerto Rico 800 meter record (1:43.82), set in 2019 by Wesley Vasquez, this season. To compete for an Olympic medal, Rivera Jr. said that his time needs to be in the 1:43-1:42 range. The top three times at the Paris Olympics were all within 1:41.
Rivera Jr. believes that training with the Brooks Beasts team, which features Olympians and world champion medalists, will help him reach his goals.
“When you have to think a lot about your training and how you’re running, that's when things go south,” said Rivera Jr. “I’m doing the least amount of thinking that I’ve done in a long time and it’s paying dividends. I knew that if I could train in a team atmosphere and be part of a team with people that are better than me, I could get to where I needed to be.”
