Training Blog: Ventura's Sadie Engelhardt


Sadie Engelhardt has been a standout youth athlete from California for the last several years. This past June she broke the 14-year-old age group world record in the mile, clocking a time of 4:40.16 at the RunningLane Track Championships and surpassing a mark that was last set by Mary Decker in 1973. During the indoor season, she finished seventh at the adidas Indoor Nationals in the mile with a 4:51.94 personal best. As Engelhardt begins her first high school season, she's already one of the country's most well-known athletes. This is the third of four blogs in the series of training journals Engelhardt will write for MileSplit this fall. 


Week 1 - Week 2 - Week 3 - Week 4

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Week 3 (August 15 - August 21)


Monday, August 16: 8.20 miles - Harmon Canyon

On Monday, my team and I went to Harmon Canyon to do a hill workout. The workout was to run in 3 miles, do three minutes at race effort up a big hill in the back of the trail, and then run three miles back. The hill added another two miles to the run because once we were finished with the interval, we still had to get to the top.  It was pretty tough, but it was a solid workout. The elevation was around 1,100 feet and the mileage was 8.20 miles. After the run, I went to six flags with a friend and we had a lot of fun. 

Tuesday, August 17:  4 miles - Camino Real

Since today was a recovery day, we headed to Camino Real to do nice, easy grass loops around the park. I did a one-mile warmup, some quick drills and strides, and then finished the run by doing three more miles. Finally, we did core and headed out to get smoothies and then relaxed for the rest of the day. I wanted to keep my mileage pretty low because I had already done an eight-mile run on Monday and I still needed to do a long run this week. 

Wednesday, August 18: 5 miles - Ventura Promenade

Wednesday's run was at the beach. We ran 5 miles along the Ventura Promenade and then jumped in the water after the run. It started raining so we cut the beach day short. 

Later that day, a couple of people from my team and I helped out with a local 5k. We helped set up and when the race was over we helped pack up. After it was done we walked to get some Beach House Tacos on the pier for dinner.  

Thursday, August 19: 4.60 miles - Ventura High School

Thursday was the day we had orientation for incoming freshmen, so I went to school in the morning and then decided to do my workout at the track later in the day. I did a one-mile warmup, some stretches, drills, and strides. I did 4x100m strides going from 5k race pace to mile race pace and then one 300m at mile pace. Then I got 4 minutes of rest and then went straight into 5x 1Ks. The active recovery in between was 45 seconds.  It felt super good to be on the track and it was a really great workout.  


Friday, August 20:  4 miles - Kimball Park

On Friday we had an easy recovery at a flat grassy park called Kimball Park. While keeping my mileage for the week low, I did 4 miles, which is about three laps around the whole park. Afterward, we did core, walking stretches, and wall stretches. 

Saturday, August 21: 9 miles - Forest Park

To finish this week off, we did a long run. We went north into a town called Ojai and did our run at Foster Park. Today, I ran nine miles with a negative split for each mile. Afterward we got burritos at a place called Corales to celebrate my birthday. Later in the day, I hung out with some more friends at the beach which was super fun.

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Total Mileage:  35 miles




Note: This is the third of what will be several training blogs ahead of the cross country season. Stay tuned for more coverage of more boys and girls athletes heading into the 2021 season.