Published: Jun 19, 2024 8:30 AM EDT.
Download Your Training Plan indoor mile and the 3,000 meters, the second while upsetting 5,000-meter world record holder Gudaf Tsegay to win gold at the 2024 World Indoor Championships in Glasgow.
She’s dazzled in practice, too. In mid-May, she clocked a With her racing sense and lethal kick, she’s poised to shine at the Olympic Trials in the 800 meters, at 3,400 feet of elevation. She then ran five more 800s around 2:20, and a couple of fast 200s, before calling it a day and heading back to her one-year-old son, Ivan.
Even St. Pierre, the reigning Trials champion in the 1500 meters, seems pleasantly taken aback by her year. “Honestly, it’s more than I could have asked for, so I’m really excited,” she told Runner’s World after the Prefontaine Classic. There, in her first 1500-meter race since Ivan’s birth, she ran 3:56.00. Races - Places.
Her teammates, too, are momentarily shocked at her achievements, until they remember who they’re watching. “How I felt at indoors—I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe she did that,’” said Millie Paladino, who’s known St. Pierre since college and now trains with her on Team New Balance Boston. “And then I was like, ‘Of course she did that. It’s Elle.’”
St. Pierre’s combination of natural talent, strength, and dedication to hard work have long made her a formidable competitor. Having Ivan last March seems to have made her even better, affording her happiness off the track that’s translated into yet more success on it.
At this week’s U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials, St. Pierre plans to toe the line in both the 5,000 meters and the 1500 meters, hoping to make her second trip to the Games. Here’s more about what makes her a heavy favorite to head to Paris, and even to medal there.
She works hard—really hard
Growing up on a Vermont dairy farm imbued St. Pierre (who was Elle Purrier then, and Elle is short for Elinor) with an unwavering work ethic and a tolerance for tough conditions. As she tells her coach, Mark Coogan, cows don’t care if the weather’s bad or you’re unmotivated: “There are no days off if you’re a farmer.”
She applies that philosophy to every endeavor. “There’s not a single thing in her life—whether it’s being a mom or doing a track workout—where she is just like, ‘It’s okay if I just give 90 percent today,’” Paladino said.
St. Pierre doesn’t shy away from tough sessions, even if they’re sprung on her. In January, the Team New Balance women planned to run a tempo workout together in Camp Verde, Arizona. But when they arrived, Coogan told St. Pierre to try running with the men, tackling the two-mile tempo segments at 5-minute pace. “I remember her just being like, ‘Okay, I’ll try,’” said another of her teammates, Katrina Coogan, Mark Coogan’s daughter. “Then she absolutely crushed the workout.”
But early on, she stayed patient
St. Pierre showed athletic promise at a young age. At Richford Junior-Senior High School, she juggled running with basketball and didn’t exceed 30 miles a week. Still, she ended up with a 17th-place finish at Nike Cross Nationals and multiple state crowns in distances from 800 meters to 3,000 meters.
She was sought after by college coaches, including Coogan, then at Dartmouth. But rather than sign on at a powerhouse program, she chose the University of New Hampshire, where she slowly progressed under coach Robert Hoppler. She broke 4:30 in the mile indoors her sophomore year, competed in the 2016 Olympic Trials in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, and left UNH an 11-time All-American and the 2018 NCAA champion in the indoor mile.
Coogan, who’s friends with Hoppler, began coaching Team New Balance Boston in 2014. His roster includes many athletes with New England roots and degrees from smaller programs, leaving them with chips on their shoulders and room to keep improving. When St. Pierre graduated in 2018, he once again recruited her, this time successfully.
She knows what she needs to perform well, and chooses it
As her choice of college shows, even in her teenage years, St. Pierre had a strong internal compass and the conviction to follow it. “She knows how to align herself in her life where she’ll be the most happy and the most successful,” Paladino said. “And that is a superpower.”
Home and family center St. Pierre, and she signed with Team New Balance Boston, in part, to maintain that grounding in her pro career. She relocated to Boston at first, and she would head back to the farm on weekends.
When she married her high school sweetheart and fellow dairy farmer Jamie St. Pierre in 2020, she moved back to Vermont permanently. Now, she does many miles alone, commuting the four hours to Boston for harder team workouts. The setup works for her and for Coogan, who respects her priorities. “The sport hurts so much; it hurts so much when you race,” he said. “You’d better be happy.”
She had always wanted a baby
St. Pierre also knew she was destined for motherhood, and Ivan has eased her longing. Before, traveling to altitude camp in Flagstaff—which the team does in the winter and spring—made her homesick. Now, Ivan comes with her, and Jamie, his mother, and Elle’s mother have all rotated through to provide childcare.
So instead of missing home, she takes pieces of it with her. “I think I’m more efficient with my time. I’m more fulfilled as a person,” St. Pierre said. “It takes some of the pressure off of racing and everything, because I’m just excited to go see Ivan.”
Balancing an infant and an athletic career does pose challenges. When Ivan and St. Pierre share a pre-race hotel room, there’s a chance neither will sleep well. And sometimes, in Flagstaff, gaps between family visits mean Ivan has to come to practice.
But the team makes it work. Instead of biking next to his runners on long runs, Coogan drives, Ivan in the car seat. During warm-ups and cooldowns at the Northern Arizona University track, the coach pushes the stroller through a nearby cemetery.
Ivan waits trackside during the workout, and only occasionally cries; St. Pierre, mid-interval, might ask someone to bring him a snack. Still, he’s more of a mood-booster than a distraction. “Honestly, it feels grounding to me as well,” said Emily Mackay, another teammate. “Children are so precious. It’s a nice reminder, having him around, how much bigger life is than just running.”
She stayed healthy during and after her pregnancy…
St. Pierre aimed to run for as long as she could while expecting, and she made it to January before round ligament pain forced her to stop. In the months before and after Ivan’s birth, she took a holistic approach to her well-being.
“My body was working extra hard to grow a human, and I was just so proud of my body. I treated it well,” she told Runner’s World in late April. “I tried to sleep the most I could and fuel the way I needed to.”
On the last point, St. Pierre pooled knowledge from her college degree in nutrition with advice from a USA Track & Field dietitian and other athlete moms, like Molly Huddle and Abbey Cooper.
She knew postpartum and breastfeeding athletes run the risk of stress fractures. So she took care to take in plenty of calories and nutrients like calcium—convenient for a dairy farmer. “It can deplete you if you don’t keep up with that. I think you need to eat more than one might expect,” she said.
…and gave herself grace during the comeback
Some of St. Pierre’s success so soon after childbirth is likely luck. Her relatively young age also works in her favor, said Kara Goucher, a two-time Olympian and distance analyst for NBC Sports, who had a child at age 32 and returned to pro running.
But though St. Pierre swiftly surpassed her previous fitness, she felt supported by New Balance and Coogan not to rush things. “I just kind of went based on how I felt and tried not to put too much pressure on myself and had fun with getting back into training and the love of the sport,” she said.
She took her first jogging steps about three weeks postpartum, aiming to get back faster from a walk to feed Ivan. They didn’t feel great. But she gradually ramped up, and by July, she was back to 80-mile weeks with some workouts on the roads and trails.
Early on, she’d put the 5th Avenue Mile on the calendar as a potential first race, held loosely. She decided she felt good enough to line up on September 5 and ran 4:23 Grant Fisher Wins Olympic Trials 5K.
Before her first indoor race—the 3,000 meters at the New Balance Grand Prix on February 4—she and Coogan didn’t even talk about times. But she finished second to a fast-charging Jessica Hull in the final meters, and St. Pierre’s time of 8:25.25 was then the second-fastest by an American.
The time gave her confidence, and the loss to Hull, motivation. The following week, she flipped the script to outkick Hull in the bell lap of the Wanamaker Mile at the Millrose Games, running 4:16.41 to break her own American indoor record in the process. From there, she kept rolling in the 3,000 meters, claiming the U.S. title and then the global one.
She’s aerobically strong…
Though he knew her potential in the 1500 meters, Coogan had St. Pierre focus primarily on the 5,000 meters in the first year of her pro career. His thinking was twofold: Training for the longer distance built strength and an aerobic base, helping her maintain a fast pace without tiring during a four-lap race.
Plus, with top talents like 2016 Olympic bronze medalist Jenny Simpson still racing, the 1500-meter team was tougher to make. The 5,000 offered a better chance for her to compete on the world stage earlier, gaining experience and confidence along the way.
The approach worked—St. Pierre ran 15:17.46 to win bronze at the 2019 U.S. championships. That qualified her for the World Championships in Doha, Qatar, where she made the final and placed 11th in a personal best 14:58.17.
From there, she began dominating at shorter distances. In February 2020, she broke the indoor mile record for the first time at the Millrose Games, running 4:16.85 to better Mary Slaney’s 4:20.5, which had stood for 38 years.
Though she now does more workouts geared to the 1500 meters, such as the 800/200 session, St. Pierre’s training keeps strength as a priority. She does long runs of 16 or 17 miles and regular gym sessions. And on May 17, she ran a personal best and U.S.-leading 14:34.12 to win the 5,000 meters at the USATF LA Grand Prix, suggesting the potential for two Trials victories (though, Coogan noted, the schedule for Paris would make doubling at the Olympics challenging).
…and a smart, versatile racer
Her strength gives St. Pierre the ability to kick hard off a fast pace. That, plus her racing savvy, means she can change tactics on the fly. “Some of the athletes are time trialers, some of the athletes are more championship-style racers, and she kind of has both,” Goucher said.
For example, in the finals of the 2021 Trials, St. Pierre planned to run with the pack for the first 400 to 600 meters. Then, she’d take the lead and push the pace to wear everyone else down. But in the first 100 meters, she got tripped and stepped into the infield, nearly twisting her ankle.
Once she regained her footing, she charged to the front and didn’t let up, winning in a meet-record 3:58.03. “She was just like, f this—I’m taking care of business right now, because I’m not going to have someone knock me over,” Coogan said. “I don’t know anyone else that can run 3:58 all by themselves, besides Elle and [world record holder] Faith Kipyegon.”
She has a strong team around her
St. Pierre isn’t the only person to benefit from Coogan’s approach to the 1500 meters. Her teammate Heather MacLean placed third at the 2021 Trials to join St. Pierre on the 1500-meter team in Tokyo.
Meanwhile, in her second year as a pro, 26-year-old Mackay is in the midst of a breakout season. She won a bronze medal in the 1500 meters at world indoors, ran a personal best 3:59.76 Shoes & Gear 1:57.87 in the 800 meters at the Adrian Martinez Classic.
While they’re fierce competitors on the starting line, in practice they work together. St. Pierre often shares a joke or encouraging words—“we got this,” “one more hard rep”—to power them through a tough session. And off the track, they’re friends—she’s shown her teammates around the farm, and MacLean was in St. Pierre’s wedding.
In a deep field—including indoor silver medalist and U.S. champion Nikki Hiltz, Elle St. Pierre Wins Gold in World Indoor 3K Elise Cranny and Cory McGee—all three Team New Balance athletes are considered contenders for Paris. And after finishing 10th in 4:01.75 in the 1500-meter final in Tokyo—due in part to a lingering foot injury from the misstep at the Trials—St. Pierre has her sights set on the podium this time.
Of course, the depth at the distance isn’t limited to the United States. Kipyegon recently returned from injury to dominate the Kenyan Olympic Trials, winning the 5,000 meters in 14:46.28 James Corrigan Makes the Olympic Team 3:53.99. And then there’s Diribe Welteji of Ethiopia, who ran 3:53 in winning the Prefontaine Classic, Tokyo silver medalist Laura Muir, and Hull, who recently said Results: 2024 Olympic Track and Field Trials.
Simpson’s bronze in Rio makes her the only American woman to win an Olympic medal in the 1500 meters since the event was introduced in 1972. If St. Pierre joins her, one person who won’t be surprised is Coogan.
“If Elle gets to Paris healthy and feeling good, there’s no doubt in my mind that she can get a medal in the 1500,” Coogan says. “That doesn’t mean she’s going to, but there’s no doubt in my mind she can.”
—Sarah Lorge Butler contributed to this report.
Cindy is a freelance health and fitness writer, author, and podcaster who’s contributed regularly to Runner’s World since 2013. She’s the coauthor of both Breakthrough Women’s Running: Dream Big and Train Smart and Rebound: Train Your Mind to Bounce Back Stronger from Sports Injuries, a book about the psychology of sports injury from Bloomsbury Sport. Cindy specializes in covering injury prevention and recovery, everyday athletes accomplishing extraordinary things, and the active community in her beloved Chicago, where winter forges deep bonds between those brave enough to train through it.
