12/18/2022 0 Comments Harrison uva courseforum![]() I think I can do better.” That’s Emily’s answer as to whether she’s got any newbie demons to chase down on that course. Already I know so much more now than I did then. “I’m so pleased with the way the race turned out, but it’s a personal goal for me to go back and do it right. In the end, the ultra experience of Ellie likely contributed to her five-plus-minute victory, but Ellie and Emily pushed each other to a respective 17-plus and 12-plus minutes under the old course record. ![]() Plus, it was the 50th annual race, and I thought it would be really cool to run in the 50th edition.” She asked race director Mike Spinnler for a late, elite entry, and I can only guess that he was glad he let her in because what unfolded between Ellie Greenwoodand Emily was a spectacular show. So I thought my skills and the course could match up well. I’m good at locking into a rhythm and sticking with it for a while. I thought I might be able to do well because it’s a fast, runnable course. She continues, “The course is part trail, part towpath. So there was this tie of both my mom and Ian to the race.” She’s speaking of Ian Torrence, the ultramarathon coach at McMillan Running who has more than 150 ultras under his belt and who has brought alive many an ultra champion via his coaching forte. “I was looking to break the cycle of all the road races I was doing. “I was feeling a little rebellious, maybe,” says Emily when I ask her what sealed the deal on her running JFK late last fall. She’s watched her own mother run an ultra, then go run the same one again, even after all of the pain. She’s seen the glint in ultrarunners’ eyes after a race that tells the story of the things they’ve seen in a day. Emily’s stood on the sidelines of an ultra, witnessed the joy and camaraderie and quirk and mud. I’d watch her run down on the canal when I was younger.” Something of that ilk, no?Įmily Harrison with her ultrarunner mom after she won the Virginia state high school XC championship.īut then these three sentences squeak out of her during our early June phone conversation that changes my whole perspective: “My mom’s an ultrarunner. It seems like all signs would be pointing Emily toward the Shalane Flanagan and Kara Goucher trajectories of post-collegiate racing on the pro track and road circuits. ![]() And before that, she was a standout runner on the Warren County High School track and cross-country teams in her hometown of Front Royal, Virginia, where she brought home one individual state cross country championship and two more at 3,200 m on the track. She’s only finished three marathons, which I think makes these numbers all the more stout.) And before that, she ran to sixth at the 2007 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships, her crowning glory to a wildly successful college career with the University of Virginia. ![]() (I can’t go on without qualifying this PR. Her first one, the JFK 50 Mile, was just a smidge more than six months ago.īefore that, she was training with the McMillan Elite crew out of Flagstaff, Arizona, and already in possession of a 2:32:55 marathon PR. I mean, it’ll be her fourth ultramarathon race, like, ever. When I get to thinking about it-really applying the gray matter inside my noggin’ and pondering-I can’t conjure a single, logical reason why Emily Harrison is toeing the line at the Western States 100 this Saturday morning. ![]()
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