TicketsCINCINNATI - Bearcats cross-country senior Ellie Leather was born to run.
Her great aunt, Diane Leather, was the first woman ever to record a sub-5-minute mile back in May 1954.
Leather's expectations for her season are exactly what you'd expect for the school's record holder in the indoor mile.
"Hopefully I make a good impact at conference, then at regionals and then going into indoor and outdoor, I hope to break more records, said Leather. "Hopefully I make it all the way to NCAA this year so I can hopefully continue professional career after college," said Leather
Ellie Leather started her collegiate career at Fresno State University in Fresno, California. Leather was able to reach the Mountain West Conference finals for the indoor mile and outdoor 1,500m, but fell short of her personal standards.
"Just coming from like a smaller school where I just wasn't performing where I wanted to and then I think coming in and seeing, even after such a short amount of training, that I can be where I want to be and can perform my best," said Leather.
Leather has accumulated a good amount of frequent flyer miles since graduating from North Bristol Sixth Form in Bristol, England. Her journey total tallied 7,555 miles.
"Sure, I miss home a lot, but Cincinnati is definitely an amazing home away from home for me so, yeah, I love it here and I want to continue to run here," said Leather.
Leather said surrounding herself with great people has helped her at Cincinnati.
"Being in a team where there are people to train with all the time, girls always hype each other up, and I like being on a big team here," said Leather. "I like all the athletes being around each other, supporting each other, and I like how the cross-country team mixes with the track team, so, that was amazing. I think that it was just, the people you surround yourself with really help you improve."
Associate Head Coach for Cross-Country and Assistant Coach for Track and Field Lara Rogers has made an immediate impact on the runners.
"I think it's really special and that's kind of what drew me to Cincinnati the most was Coach Rogers because she really cares about not just running, but how we're doing as people and outside of running, which means if we're happy outside of running, we're happy in running," said Leather.
Coach Rogers uses the metaphor of 'stacking bricks', in reference to the season and preparing for the conference championships.
"Lara always talks about stacking bricks, that's her little motto, so we've been stacking the bricks and now we're just going to go into the last like two, three meets of the season just feeling confident in what we've done," says Leather.
Leather thinks the team, preparing for the final run of meets leading to nationals, has returned a lot of the runners from last year and have found their groove.
"We only lost like one or two of our top five, so, we've still got a really super strong team," Leather explained. "I think that's really been an improvement this year, just doing more as a team, spending more time together and I can really see the bonds in our team."
The Bearcats will be competing in the American Athletic Conference Championships on October 29th in Lakeland, Fla. Leather says the work the team has been putting in will show up.
"We'll be racing against very good teams, so, it's definitely more nerve-racking, but, like I said, training has been really solid this season and now it's just about believing in what we've been doing."
After the conference championships, the Bearcats will race in the NCAA Regionals in Evansville, Ind. on November 12th.
Her great aunt, Diane Leather, was the first woman ever to record a sub-5-minute mile back in May 1954.
Leather's expectations for her season are exactly what you'd expect for the school's record holder in the indoor mile.
"Hopefully I make a good impact at conference, then at regionals and then going into indoor and outdoor, I hope to break more records, said Leather. "Hopefully I make it all the way to NCAA this year so I can hopefully continue professional career after college," said Leather
A great race today in South Bend for Ellie Leather, who finished 4th with a time of 17:24.9 at the Notre Dame Invite ❗️ pic.twitter.com/3WXBPcUq8c
— Cincinnati TF & XC (@GoBearcatsTFXC) October 1, 2021
Ellie Leather started her collegiate career at Fresno State University in Fresno, California. Leather was able to reach the Mountain West Conference finals for the indoor mile and outdoor 1,500m, but fell short of her personal standards.
"Just coming from like a smaller school where I just wasn't performing where I wanted to and then I think coming in and seeing, even after such a short amount of training, that I can be where I want to be and can perform my best," said Leather.
Leather has accumulated a good amount of frequent flyer miles since graduating from North Bristol Sixth Form in Bristol, England. Her journey total tallied 7,555 miles.
"Sure, I miss home a lot, but Cincinnati is definitely an amazing home away from home for me so, yeah, I love it here and I want to continue to run here," said Leather.
Leather said surrounding herself with great people has helped her at Cincinnati.
"Being in a team where there are people to train with all the time, girls always hype each other up, and I like being on a big team here," said Leather. "I like all the athletes being around each other, supporting each other, and I like how the cross-country team mixes with the track team, so, that was amazing. I think that it was just, the people you surround yourself with really help you improve."
Associate Head Coach for Cross-Country and Assistant Coach for Track and Field Lara Rogers has made an immediate impact on the runners.
"I think it's really special and that's kind of what drew me to Cincinnati the most was Coach Rogers because she really cares about not just running, but how we're doing as people and outside of running, which means if we're happy outside of running, we're happy in running," said Leather.
Coach Rogers uses the metaphor of 'stacking bricks', in reference to the season and preparing for the conference championships.
"Lara always talks about stacking bricks, that's her little motto, so we've been stacking the bricks and now we're just going to go into the last like two, three meets of the season just feeling confident in what we've done," says Leather.
Leather thinks the team, preparing for the final run of meets leading to nationals, has returned a lot of the runners from last year and have found their groove.
"We only lost like one or two of our top five, so, we've still got a really super strong team," Leather explained. "I think that's really been an improvement this year, just doing more as a team, spending more time together and I can really see the bonds in our team."
Our ladies started off the season strong with @leather_ellie _ and Maddie Walker both finishing in the top 10 tonight! #GoBearcatsTFXC pic.twitter.com/zotowICLPn
— Cincinnati TF & XC (@GoBearcatsTFXC) September 4, 2021
The Bearcats will be competing in the American Athletic Conference Championships on October 29th in Lakeland, Fla. Leather says the work the team has been putting in will show up.
"We'll be racing against very good teams, so, it's definitely more nerve-racking, but, like I said, training has been really solid this season and now it's just about believing in what we've been doing."
After the conference championships, the Bearcats will race in the NCAA Regionals in Evansville, Ind. on November 12th.