Ellen Hart: Running to Catch the World's Best

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.--After nibbling at a buffet of competitive sports, Ellen Hart '80 has settled down to her main course.

The Albuquerque resident competed in the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore., at the end of June and earned a berth on the team by placing third in the 10,000-meter run.

Hart is a novice in a sport where experience seems mandatory. Her interest in track has been lifelong, but she had not run 10,000 meters until last March. Now, the 22-year-old ranks in the world's top 15.

Despite winning the two-mile in a national AAU meet at age 15, Hart stopped running competitively her sophomore year at Albuquerque Academy because of what she terms "motivational and coaching problems."

She turned instead to basketball, taking it up seriously her first winter in Cambridge. "I thought basketball was going to be my sport," she says. "Then, I discovered soccer."

When she tried out for the Harvard women's soccer team the next fall, Hart had never played the game. She made the squad and kept improving, leading her junior-year teammates to an Ivy League title and earning second team All-Ivy honors in the process.

Meanwhile, she had been reintroduced to track. A visit to the Boston Marathon freshman year sparked the interest, and led to casual participation on Pappy Hunt's women's track team. She sprinted, high-jumped and did just about everything else except run the distances.

The Boston Marathon experience stuck in her mind, however, and she resolved to run one before she graduated.

The thesis-laden Fine Arts major began to train last winter with that as her goal. She ran the Lowell Marathon in March, qualifying for Boston's Patriot's Day event as an official entrant, then capped her "comeback" by fulfilling her goal in May.

On the verge of committing herself to distance running at the beginning of last year, Hart had held back. A summer of inactivity ("I hardly ran at all"), coupled with the fall's renewed dedication to soccer, forced track into the background again.

An ankle injury in October changed everything. Her soccer season ended after three games, and though she stayed part of the team, she missed the competition. For the third time in her life, she turned to track.

"In a way, being hurt and the feelings of frustration helped me to focus my energies on something new," Hart says. Track was an old story, but the 10,000 was novel. She ran her first in late March for fun, but an unexpectedly fast time and the support of coach John Babington got her thinking more seriously.

"That race opened my eyes to the possibility that I could run the event," she says. "I decided if I was going to run track I'd do it seriously."

Her new attitude gave her a victory in the 10,000 at the Ivy Championships in Princeton, and a strong second at the Easterns in Pittsburgh. "For the first time since I was 15 my times were improving," she says.

Her transition from a good runner to a world-class runner came at the AIAW Championships in Eugene May 23.

"I wanted to see how I stacked up against the best runners in the country," she says. What she saw was a personal best of 33:46, a fifth-place finish and a national top-ten ranking.

Such rapid progress is unusual, but to Hart it's no mystery. "I've been able to get in shape faster than most people," she explains. "A great deal of the credit goes directly to Coach [Babington] and then there's the support of my family. I call them after every race."

The Hart clan must have especially enjoyed the call they received June 30. Elated just to be at the trials, Hart came up with a late kick in the grueling 10,000 and nabbed a spot on the team.

Of course, the Olympics have arrived and Hart hasn't left New Mexico, but that doesn't bother her.

"I've always wanted to represent the United States--it's part of a dream I've had since I was about ten," she says. "The experience of running in the trials was really special, and one I'll remember for a long, long time."

Her future is a teaching job in a small Colorado school, but that doesn't mean the end of her running career. "Right now I feel like I want to stay with it," she says. "I'm serious about it and I'm really excited to continue. I feel like a newcomer and I'm anxious to learn."