Curtis Beach is at his best when he is his own point person. The former decathlete showed his ability to evolve when he put all of his focus into the 400m hurdles this year. The tough decision has paid off in various ways on and off the track.

In February, Beach announced that he was training for the hurdles, an exciting new challenge for the multi-event talent who won two NCAA titles in the heptathlon and recorded a fourth-place finish at the 2016 World Indoor Championships.

"After the Olympic Trials last year, I was pretty burnt out from the decathlon. … I told a few close friends and hadn't announced it publicly yet, but I'm done with the multis and don't want to do the decathlon anymore," Beach told FloTrack at the New Mexico Collegiate Classic in early February. "I want to focus on the 400m hurdles and 800m. That to me is a lot more exciting. It's a little bit more risky, but to me, that's just more fun."



Five months later, the decision has resulted in four personal bests across a range of events, a competitive performance at the highest national level, and time to develop professional career pursuits.

This Wednesday, Beach will be competing at the Morton Games in Dublin, Ireland. It will be his first 400m hurdle race since placing sixth in the semifinal of the USATF Outdoor Championships where Beach missed the final round by just two spots. Prior to USAs, Beach recorded personal bests of 21.57 in the 200m, 1:16.38 in the indoor 600m, and 49.83 in the 400m hurdles. The USAs performance marked his first national championship since 2001 in which he competed in one event, as opposed to 10 for a decathlon.

Watch the Morton Games LIVE on FloTrack, Wednesday, July 12th at 1pm ET!

After 15 years with over 70 multi-event competitions on his resume, Beach felt exhausted and yearned for a balance that combined both the highest level of competition and a step towards furthering his career beyond the track. Besides the decathlon, the 400m hurdles provided the next best opportunity for Beach to compete for a spot on Team USA. Last summer, Beach posted a then-personal best of 49.87 in his only 400m hurdle race of the season at the American Track League meeting, which gave him a lot of confidence. The mark was a three-second personal best and would have placed seventh in the final of the 2016 Olympic Trials.


Focusing on one event also freed up some time for Beach to figure out a career passion.

"You know what motivates me? Athletes who can pursue other things, manage it, and be successful," Beach told FloTrack in an interview from Dublin on Monday.

One of the athletes Beach referenced was Sara Vaughn, who strikes a balance between motherhood, a full-time job as a realtor, and professional running. She also just made her first world championship team in the 1500m. In his own pursuits, Beach is currently developing a stopwatch app with the hope of one day building an online training journal. The Duke grad also mentioned interest in sports marketing and consulting.

On the track, Beach stokes the competitive fire through a collaborative relationship with his coach Mike Boykin at the Altis Training Center in Phoenix. The coaching dynamic has been a learning process. Beach competed in his first multi-event competition in fifth grade and completed his first decathlon in eighth grade. During his formative years as a multi-event athlete, he organized his own training while consulting with expert coaches along the way, but ultimately worked as his own "point-person."

"Every decision I made was based around if it would help or hurt track, but so much tunnel vision over time was tough," he said.

In college, Beach switched to a more direct coach-athlete relationship and is now somewhere in-between with Boykin -- a creative collaboration.

Transitioning to the 400m hurdles at the USATF Outdoor Championships gave Beach a deep respect for the tough U.S. field, which includes "the best of the best from the past decade." Beach was disappointed that he didn't make the final but had to recognize the quality of the competition that he was up against, which included multiple Olympic, world, and NCAA champions who have focused solely on the hurdles for their entire career as opposed to one season.

"What I like the most is just going for the highest level, and when you do beat them, it's just unbelievable," he said.

Outside of the 400m hurdles, Beach has accomplished recent breakthrough performances in the 800m. While a decathlete, Beach posted an 800m personal best of 1:47.75 in 2012, indicating undeniable potential as a talented middle distance athlete. Last week, Beach lowered the mark to 1:47.36 at the TrackTown Summer Series: New York. Less than a week earlier, Beach ran 1:47.93 at the TrackTown Summer Series: Portland. Both performances were a pleasant surprise.

"With the 400m hurdle training, the last time I ran over a lap for an interval in practice was in March. So I was pretty nervous heading into Portland," Beach said. "I didn't know what the 800m would feel like, but I was glad that I surprised myself."

Beach, who logs all of his training online in a shared Google document, posted a workout of "450, 400, 350, 300 - medium hard" on March 23. It was the only workout in which Beach ran further than 450 meters for a track interval during his outdoor training cycle prior to the Summer Series.

"I'm not sure what that tells you [laughs]. Maybe it shows that you don't need much beyond sprint training to run the 800m," Beach said. "I won't really know what my potential is [in the 800m] until I truly train for it. I might want to pursue that next year."

No matter what Beach decides to pursue, there is no denying the talent and perspective of the athlete who has competed in almost every event on the track.

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