One year ago, Brett Ely watched the Oregon Twilight meet from the stands as friends and Team Run Eugene teammates competed at Hayward Field. At the time, Ely was running just 10 minutes a day as she was recovering from surgery after breaking the same navicular bone in her foot for the fourth time in 10 years.
This year, Ely’s ankle is fully healed, and she took to the track for the women’s 3,000 meters, finishing in 9 minutes, 44.87 seconds, good enough for second place.
“The moment I had my surgery I said, ‘OK, I’m in,’” said Ely. “As thrilling as it is to see my friends succeed, I wanted it, too. It’s really exciting for me to come back to Hayward Field and be able to run this year.”
Team USA half-marathoner Allison Morgan of Brooks Running won the race in 9 minutes, 36.46 seconds, holding a 10-second lead from start to finish.
Ely and Morgan both qualified for the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials last December. The trials aren’t until February 2016. It will be Ely’s fourth trip to the U.S. trials, including one in which she earned a berth on the U.S marathon team for the 2011 Pan American Games.
“For me, doing these shorter races really helps me remember how to race in a marathon,” Ely said. “Finding ways to keep challenging yourself and wanting more is really helpful and is what keeps me in the sport and what keeps me excited about my goals.”
Ian Dobson, Ely’s coach at Team Run Eugene, talked about goals for her training, and she said the big ones were to “stay healthy, have fun and just get faster any way I can.” Next she will be running the 10K at the Portland Track Festival, and after that, it will be time for training.
“We want to continue to bang it on the track for a little bit,” Dobson said. “In October and November, she’ll start her marathon cycle. By that point, she’ll have some wheels on the track, some confidence from running roads all summer and hopefully she stays healthy and is able to train well.”
Training can be time consuming for runners, especially for those still in school. Ely is a third-year doctoral student at the University of Oregon and is working on her Ph.D. in human physiology.
“Balancing running, marathoning and school is challenging,” said Ely. “The combination of those things make running a track race really unnatural to me, but also a very exciting challenge. I love getting out there and pushing myself as hard as I can, and then going back to the lab and doing research.”
