Relive high school sensation Sadie Engelhardt's incredible season, and see the data she used to reach new heights.
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By Matt Goeckel - COROS
In the world of high school track and field, few young athletes have made as significant an impact as Sadie Engelhardt.
The 2024 season marked a historic year for the rising star out of Ventura High School as she focused her efforts on the mile and 1,500 meters.
Along the way, she captured several major victories and even earned her place at the U.S. Olympic Trials.
Her journey wasn't without its challenges -- primarily the rigorous demands of racing almost every week.
Yet, through it all, Engelhardt remained resilient and driven by a belief in her potential and supported by COROS' cutting-edge technology.
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A Preseason Breakthrough
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Engelhardt's 2024 journey began with cautious optimism. Her sophomore campaign in 2023 had been successful, resulting in a CIF outdoor state title in the 1,600m and a New Balance National Outdoor win in the mile.
However, her times were similar to the year before. Understanding that an upward progression of her times was not a given, she trained hard in the offseason and through cross country.
Early in the year, before any major indoor races, Sadie ran a 1,000m to test her fitness. The result was a major eye-opener to her true fitness and potential. She dropped an effort of 2:41, which in the record books would have been the fourth-fastest of all-time.
At that point, the thought of qualifying for the U.S. Olympic Trials went from a dream to a realistic goal.
With her focus on a qualifying mark, Engelhardt's season was focused on hitting a standard. At New Balance Nationals Indoor, she felt the pressure of winning along with the need for a fast time.
She handled it well, winning in 4:36, but knew she needed a the time would come soon for her to go after a 1,500m mark.
A week later, in a completely different environment, she ran the 1,500m at The TEN, a professional outdoor meet.
As a high schooler in a professional race, there were virtually no expectations. Looking back on it, Sadie said, "I went from the most nervous I've ever been to the calmest I've ever been in a week. And I think it was mainly just because there's not a whole lot of pressure on me to do something crazy in a pro race."
With the pressure off, Engelhardt took down the entire professional field, finishing in 4:09.7.
What's more, she became one of the top Americans in the 1,500m on the season. The qualifying window was open for another two months, so she knew she may need to go faster to stay in that position.
Leveraging New Data
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Prior to the outdoor season, Engelhardt began using COROS. The PACE 3 provided cutting-edge technology and meaningful data and a colorful style.
"My first impression: I was super excited about the watch bands, and the variety," Engelhardt said. "Once I got the actual watch, I was pleasantly surprised with just how much data's on there. I'm super data oriented, very analytical."
Throughout her training, Engelhardt stayed attentive to her data.
"I am always looking at my heart rate," she said. She also kept a close eye on her intensity trend and training status.
These two metrics showed how her current training compared to her base fitness, which indicated how well her body could handle the current training load.
"I think those three things have been super helpful," she said.
Building Confidence
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After The TEN, Engelhardt started following a more typical California high school season.
She built up to a key midseason invite, had brief down training period, and then started her final build into the postseason.
"The season was a little different just because we were trying to get that time for the Trials pretty early," she said. "I'm pretty sure we started doing mile pace in January.
Engelhardt and her coach, Josh Spiker, replaced much of her early-season strength work with faster-paced workouts. One of these was a "Race Simulation" workout, where she completed two sets that each totaled to 1,500m at race pace.
The workout broke each set into three reps: 400m, 800m, and 300m. Her rest was 90 seconds between reps and 5:00 between sets.
Her pacing was impeccable, with splits of 65, 2:15 and 46 for the first set and 65, 2:15 and 47 for the second.
"Those 800s at mile pace are super tough" Engelhardt said. "Stuff like that, where I could do longer reps at mile pace, definitely gave me confidence. Doing it in practice made me feel like I could actually do that in races."
With that confidence, she went a perfect 8-0 in the mile and 1,600m during her high school season, winning the CIF State Outdoor Championship for a third time.
Despite the successful season of racing, though, she still had more work to do. Her time from The TEN had fallen off the qualifying list.
Despite being one of the best high schoolers in history, Engelhardt needed to go even faster.