After an Achilles injury forced her out of the 2025 World Athletics Championships, Gabby Thomas appears to have put that disappointment behind her as she builds toward her return to competition in 2026. The 200m Olympic champion has spent months focusing on recovery, and glimpses of her training show a growing confidence.

Recently, Thomas shared a carousel of Instagram photos of herself on the track, wearing a big smile after completing her last mile time trial as a part of offseason training. Even though sprinters don’t typically train for such a distance, sessions like these help athletes build endurance – much needed after 5 months away from competition.

She captioned the post: “Smiling because I just ran my last mile time trial of the season…guess what my fastest time was 🫣😂” For context, in 2025 Thomas ran a personal best of 5:43 for the mile and this year she clocked 5:53 suggesting that a return to top form isn’t far away.

Last year Thomas had joked about running the mile, calling it her “toxic trait” on social media, thinking she could run a sub 5‑minute mile despite being a sprinter.

But she also explained the real purpose behind the run: “We don’t get a lot of mileage in. The furthest I will run is one mile. We do a mile in the fall. It’s a gut check. We do it to tap into your mental side: ‘Can you finish a mile?’ It’s really difficult for us.”

Since then, the training mile has become widely discussed in the track world. Former sprinter and track legend Michael Johnson even said that running a mile is “a different kind of pain” for a sprinter like Thomas.

Now, as Thomas makes a slow return to the track, her smile shows she’s once again finding joy in training particularly after months of recovery from injury.

Gabby Thomas’ goals after suffering achilles injury

Last year, Gabby Thomas suffered an Achilles tendon injury, which first time appeared in May 2025 when she was training to compete in the season. But with time, the discomfort worsened. However, she went on to compete in the USATF Outdoor Championships in early August, where she placed 3rd in the women’s 200m race.

With it, she earned a spot on the U.S. team for the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo. Her time of 22.20 seconds was impressive under the circumstances, though still short of her personal best of 21.60. By early September, it became evident that her Achilles had not healed sufficiently to compete safely at the World Championships. Faced with the risk of worsening the injury, Gabby and her coaching team made the tough decision to withdraw.

“I understand that it will be disappointing for some track fans to hear this news, but I’ve finally come to the realization that it’s OK to be human and take care of myself,” Thomas said at the time. The injury also ended her participation in Athlos, the new league she had been set to compete in. “Just started rehab, so sadly I won’t be running at Athlos, but I will be there and I will be meeting and talking to everybody there since I’m not running,” she explained.

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Now that Thomas is back on track, the upcoming season is particularly significant since she is now fully healed. In addition to her personal ambitions, she is a major figure in the Athlos league of Alexis Ohanians, along with other elite athletes such as Sha’Carri Richardson and Tara Davis-Woodhall, in promoting the new initiative.

Thomas, having won three gold medals in the 200m, the 4×100m and 4x 400m relays at the Paris Olympics, has proven herself to be one of the most versatile sprinters in America, and this season she plans to show the world that she really does deserve to be called that.