As Clayton Young stood atop the Montparnasse Tower in early April, he took in the sprawling city of Paris beneath him.

Young was not only sightseeing but visualizing. He imagined toeing the starting line at the Hôtel de Ville, racing to Versailles, and then running all the way back to the finish line at the Esplanade des Invalides. He had a bird’s eye view of the 26.2-mile course that he would spend 16 weeks preparing to run.

To get to the Olympics, Young finished in second place with a time of 2:09:06 at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials in February on a hot Orlando day just steps behind training partner Conner Mantz.

Paris will be Young’s first Olympic Games, and he hopes to soak in every moment.

Young’s trip abroad marked the first time he had flown internationally, and he learned a lot in the process from both a visitor and athlete perspective.

“I was still running every day and sometimes twice a day, but I got to really check the tourist box of Paris,” Young said. “So that way I don't feel like I have to check the tourist box in August. I say that once I get to Paris in August, I'm going be in ‘monk mode.’ I'm literally going be door closed in a room — eat, sleep, run; eat, sleep, run; eat, sleep, run.”

While in Paris, the marathoners took a tour of the course. Because Young is a big believer in visualization, he stuck his Go Pro on the very front of the bus. Young and his wife, Ashley, took videos and notes of each mile.

Young also got the chance to train on the course.

“I ran that every single day and I just got to know every tangent, every hill, every incline, every gradient.

“And now I know both with the video and then obviously running on the course, I have a really good image of what I need to do to prepare,” Young said. “I feel like preparation is what brings confidence and I'm going need a lot of confidence on the start line in the Olympics.”

Since his trip to Paris, Young has been visualizing during his training runs stateside, especially the uphills and downhills.

“It's the downhill that if you don't prepare accordingly, your legs are just going to be shot and that last flat 10K is going to feel like you're walking up a mountain essentially,” Young explained. “But I feel like anybody that gets to the bottom of that hill and still has their legs under them is really going to be able to capitalize on that opportunity and run people down. So that's kind of my secret strategy.” 

Young is a self-described nerd and an engineer by trade.

In addition to balancing marathon training, he works at the medical device company, Stryker. While his hours have been scaled back, Young continues to work mostly from home in the company’s sports medicine division.

Young combined his engineering knowledge with his love for running at the Olympic Trials in Orlando, where he used a unique bottle strategy that included frozen hats.

At the Trials, each runner was allowed six bottles throughout the course that were distributed about every four miles, beginning at mile two. Runners could decorate their bottles to make them easier to spot and they were also allowed to attach gels or hats, like Galen Rupp did at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

Young decided to use a stainless steel cannister, which would contain his bottle with fluids as well as a hat. He experimented and froze the cannisters, calculating that it was exactly 19 hours from when he would turn in his bottles until the race began the following day. This was a delicate balance as Young wanted the bottles to remain cold but not frozen.

“I had to practice because it's picking up a big canister,” Young said. “I'd have to pick it up and I'd pop the top off, get rid of my current hat, pull out my new hat, put on my new hat, and then essentially reach in and grab my new bottle, toss the canister and then drink.”

All while maintaining about 4:55 minute per mile pace.

Young’s frozen hats strategy was successful, and he is considering using it again in Paris.

An important aspect of Young’s success at trials was his training partner, Conner Mantz. Young and Mantz met at Brigham Young University, and they are both still trained by BYU coach and two-time Olympian Ed Eyestone.

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“I often say that goal No. 1 heading into Orlando was to make the Olympic team,” Young said. “That was what I was there for, regardless of Conner or anybody else in the field. But goal No. 2 was to do everything I could to help Conner make it across that finish line.”

With about 8 miles to go, Young and Mantz broke away from the pack and Mantz gave Young a high-five that served as a big confidence boost. Fast forward five more miles, and Mantz let Young know that he wasn’t feeling great and to take the lead.

Young had to decide whether he should push ahead and drop Mantz or help his friend cross the finish line.

“I kind of had this moment where I was like, ‘OK goal No. 1 check, but goal No. 2, can I do anything to help Conner? I knew that preparing for Paris was going to be really tough and having a teammate there and a friend and a mentor side by side with me throughout that training build was going to be valuable for us to be able to perform our best in Paris.

“And so that's kind of where I decided, you know what I'm going to do everything I can.”

As Young encouraged Mantz through the final miles, he began to think about his celebration with about a half mile to go. Always the visualizer, Young had watched the 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020 Olympic Trials in the marathon to see what success looked like for those who had come before him. Young thought about Ryan Hall pumping his fists as he ran down Central Park in 2008. He remembered Meb Keflezighi in Houston in 2012 interacting with the crowd and grabbing an American flag.

Young decided that his moment — that future aspiring Olympic marathoners would one day look back on — would be crossing the finish line alongside his friend.

While Mantz has played an important role in Young’s success, so too has his family and faith.

Young is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which helps him maintain perspective.

“When things are going good in running that's great,” Young said. “But when everything is taken away at the end of the day, it just matters that I get to be here with my family, enjoying this mortal experience, and I get to have them for eternity in the next life as well.”

Young has been married to his wife, Ashley, for seven years and they have two young daughters, Lucy and Jenna. Young had the chance to celebrate with them all when he crossed the finish line at the Olympic Trials in Orlando, which was not an easy feat because his girls were initially trapped on the other side of the course. Young’s family cut off the wristbands of other spectators to get inside the finish area.

The Olympic Trials marked the first professional race that many of Young’s family had ever attended. So about three weeks before the Trials, Ashley held a meeting with the entire immediate family to tell them what to expect.

“One of the things that I eventually said was like ‘Hey, you didn't hear it from me, but you have my permission to be sneaky,” Young said. “’Find your way to the finish line.’ And they did.”

To celebrate alongside his family and friends upon crossing the line was a special moment for Young.

“Ashley's always been very supportive,” Young said. “But her support has become incredible over the last year. She's undertaken a lot to support me and my dream, and I often say that my dreams have now become her dreams.”

This Olympic dream began for Young back in fifth grade. Every Friday during lunch, Young ran laps around the school’s soccer field. While running, Young collected tickets as part of an individual and classroom competition. After every file miles, he received a multicolored foot charm to put on a key chain.

“I've been taking with me that crappy cheap keychain that means everything to me and now this silver medal from the Olympic Trials,” Young said.

“It's really cool to share both of those stories. How in fifth grade is when I fell in love with running and, it was at the Olympic Trials that you could say I finally made it.”

Young’s daughters keep him grounded throughout the success.

“I crossed the finish line where I got to look my 5-year-old in the eye and say ‘Hey, do you realize what just happened?’ And she's like, ‘What the heck is happening?’ And my 3-year-old is like, ‘Why are you giving me the sweaty hug?’

His daughters might not appreciate the significance of Young’s accomplishments now, but Young believes that to be to his benefit.

“Here I am on top of the world in this special moment," he said, "but it's really grounding and nice to come home and to interact with them and just realize that it doesn't really matter."

His oldest daughter, Lucy, tells her dad to have fun and race hard before competitions. And when Young laces up his runs, his daughters often put their shoes on to race him down the sidewalk.

Young, who visualizes the streets of Paris in his mind as he prepares to represent the United States and compete on the Olympic stage, knows that racing his daughters down the sidewalk is just as meaningful.

Young, Mantz and Leonard Korir will represent the U.S. in the marathon on Saturday, Aug. 10, at 2 a.m. ET.