Bowerman Track Club’s Elise Cranny After Breaking The U.S. Indoor 5K Record + Running The Second-Fastest U.S. Women’s 10K

“To be able to have a race where we’re focusing on running fast fast and really see the culmination of the hard work and the progress made – both in training and my mentality and my approach to training/racing – was really cool to see come to fruition.”

Bowerman Track Club star Elise Cranny returns to the show for the first time in two years. The last time she was on was in 2020 after she ran 14:48 for the 5000m, which was a major breakout performance. We went through her high school, college and early pro years but ever since then, she’s ramped it up to the next level. In 2021, she won the U.S. Olympic Trials in the 5000 meters and then finished 13th at the Tokyo Olympics. She was also fourth in the 10000 meters at the Trials. Last month, she ran 14:33.17 to break the 5000m indoor American record. Less than two weeks ago, she hit the track outdoors in California at Sound Running’s The Ten and ran 30:14.66 for the second-fastest 10000 meter time by an American woman. Only Molly Huddle’s American record is faster.

I got the chance to catch up with her about all those major runs and where she thinks she can take things from here.

Catch Elise’s first appearance on The CITIUS MAG Podcast here.

Catch the latest episode of the podcast on Apple Podcasts. We are also on Stitcher, Google Play and Spotify.


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Photo by Johnny Zhang/@jzsnapz


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SHOW NOTES AND NOTABLE QUOTES

– “1.5 seconds in 25 laps is nothing, which drives you crazy. I was talking to Jerry (Schumacher) yesterday and I was saying, ‘I wish my second-to-last-lap was faster. I think I could’ve found two seconds there.’ He was like, ‘Elise, you can get into a deep rabbit hole of just exactly how much 1.5 seconds is over 25 laps. That will really drive you crazy. That’s like one stride faster per lap.’ The more that I’ve thought about it, I’m very happy with the way that I ran it. Even with a 5K too, when I talk about trying to work on things mentally that’s something I’ve really wanted to focus on this year: Taking some more risks, leading more from the front. That’s something that I haven’t been super comfortable doing. When I look back at the way I ran that 10K and staying calm and getting into a good rhythm, that’s something that’s exciting to me…It was an incredible atmosphere with the crowd. The pacing lights really helped me rally that last 400. I was in a deep hole and told myself, ‘Just stare at the lights and go.’ I think all of that made for a really good experience.”

– “I would love to get in a race with Emily Sisson, Karissa Schweizer and Alicia Monson. There’s a lot of depth in the women’s 10K. That just brings a whole energy to it too. Watching Grant (Fisher) and Moh (Ahmed), when you’re doing it with a couple of people around you, you can feed off that energy. We’re in something together and we’re all running really fast. I also think hopefully some more 10Ks (would help). This one being my third one, it was set up very differently from the one last year. I don’t remember what we came through – last year, we were more conservative for the first 5K. The plan was for Karissa and I to squeeze it down. Courtney (Frerichs) and Vanessa (Fraser) rabbitted us through about 7K or something. We didn’t have to lead very much. Having had that stimulus now of ‘OK. You’re going out in 15:05 and then have to run another 5K after that – I have that experience and I’m able to work on the strength side of things more so I can better handle that last 2K.”


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Chris Chavez

Chris Chavez launched CITIUS MAG in 2016 as a passion project while working full-time for Sports Illustrated. He covered the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and grew his humble blog into a multi-pronged media company. He completed all six World Marathon Majors and is an aspiring sub-five-minute miler.