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When Ellery Lincoln lined up at the Jesuit Twilight meet, she had only raced twice this outdoor season: a conservative 800m effort and a relay leg. But with just one lap to go, she sat poised on the leader's shoulder, waiting to strike. At the perfect moment, Ellery surged. She closed with a dominant final 300m to take the win in 4:39 for the full mile.
A Disrupted Start
Ellery, a high school sophomore from Oregon, came into the outdoor season on the rebound. She came down with pneumonia the day she landed in New York for Nike Indoor Nationals. "I didn't race there," she said. "I was tracking my data pretty closely when I was sick, and I was obsessed with my heart rate and HRV during that time."
After five days off completely, her recovery was careful and calculated. She gradually rebuilt her training load, leaning on the foundation built over winter. "I'm surprised that my base fitness didn't dip down more than that because it felt really bad," she said. "But all the work was already done from the winter."
