Fast Women: Şilan Ayyildiz takes down Katelyn Tuohy’s NCAA mile record
Ella Donaghu is thriving as part of the Swoosh TC
Issue 337
Şilan Ayyildiz sets a collegiate record, and time will tell if she’s the best miler in the NCAA
Oregon’s Şilan Ayyildiz set a collegiate mile record of 4:23.46 on Saturday, finishing fifth at Boston University’s Valentine Invitational. The Turkish athlete took 0.8 seconds off Katelyn Tuohy’s record from 2023. Two weeks ago, I wrote that I would be a little surprised if Tuohy’s record didn’t fall this season, and that was no great insight on my part. I didn’t have any one athlete in mind, I was just considering how deep the event, and collegiate running, are in general. And some athletes have run equivalently faster 1500m times outdoors.
Ayyildiz, 25, now sits atop the collegiate all-time list, and she could very well be the NCAA’s best miler. At next month’s NCAA Indoor T&F Championships in Virginia Beach, we’ll find out.
One athlete I didn’t have on my radar as a candidate to break the mile record was NC State’s Grace Hartman. Hartman, 21, is having a huge year. In the fall, she finished fifth at the NCAA Cross Country Championships and was the top American. Three weeks ago, she ran 15:19.72 for 5,000m on a flat 200m track. But until Saturday, she was a 4:36 miler, and I thought of her as more of a distance runner.
Hartman made the most of her weekend in Boston. On Friday, she won the 3,000m at Boston College’s Eagle Elite meet at the New Balance track, running 8:46.57. (Her time was a 29.76-second personal best, but she doesn’t run the event often.)
On Saturday, her seed time was only good enough to put her into heat three of the mile at BU, but she didn’t let that hold her back. Her teammate, Brooke Rauber, rabbited her through halfway. After hitting 809m in 2:13.77, Hartman ran her last 800m in 2:10.99. She won the race by 10 seconds, in 4:24.76, taking 11.76 seconds off her PR, and now she sits third on the collegiate all-time list.
Side note: I was at the meet, and between Ayyildiz’s record and Hartman’s mostly solo dominance, I didn’t get the sense that many people at BU on Saturday realized what they were witnessing in the moment. After Hartman's heat, meet organizers paused the event to let Ayyildiz and team pose with the clock. But it seemed to take a lot of people some time to catch up. When I watched the replay on FloTrack later at home, the announcers didn’t mention Ayyildiz had broken the collegiate record until midway through the third heat of the mile.
Behind Ayyildiz’s run in the top heat, Georgetown’s Melissa Riggins ran 4:24.98 and moved to fifth on the collegiate all-time list. Virginia’s Margot Appleton ran 4:25.03 and now sits in sixth. One week earlier, Oregon’s Wilma Nielsen ran 4:25.78, and she’s currently seventh all time. And that doesn’t even include Oregon’s Klaudia Kazimierska, who is coming back from injury but ran 3:59.95 for 1500m over the summer. Or NAU’s Maggi Congdon, who ran 4:02.79 for 1500m at the Olympic Trials. Or Riley Chamberlain, who split 4:24 for 1600m in anchoring BYU’s record-setting distance medley relay on Friday. (Keep scrolling for more on that.)
So much has changed in running in the last 10 years that I don’t think it’s fair to compare times across eras. But it is fair to compare to last year, and the difference is dramatic. The top 16 athletes qualify for the NCAA Indoor Championships. Some will opt out of the mile, but last year, it took 4:33.04 to get into the meet. That time is currently 33rd on the NCAA performance list. Twenty women have broken 4:30.
There are a number of reasons that athletes are running faster than ever at the moment, but in the NCAA, the influx of international runners has helped raise the bar. Anyone who wants to be competitive really needs to step up. The NCAA meet, which will take place March 14–15, is going to be incredible. (Replay of Ayyildiz’s record run)
Ella Donaghu is thriving as part of the Swoosh TC
Three and half years into her professional running career, things are starting to click for Ella Donaghu. In her indoor season opener on January 27, she ran 14:50.89 for 5,000m, 7.5 seconds faster than she had run before. That earned her a last-minute invitation to race the Millrose Games 3,000m, where she finished eighth in a 7.64-second personal best of 8:38.75.
Donaghu, 26, knew her training was going well, but she got some validation with those race results. And they proved her recent move to Utah to train with the Provo branch of the newly announced Swoosh TC, under coach Diljeet Taylor, was a wise one.
Growing up in Portland, Oregon, Donaghu was never pushed to become a runner, but she was always around the sport. Her parents, Laurie and Michael Donaghu, met as members of the cross country and track & field teams at Dartmouth, where they were both All-Americans. Michael coached high school cross country and has worked for Nike his entire career. And Ella’s older sister, Piper Bartelsmeyer, competed collegiately for Georgetown and now works for Nike as well.
Coached by Doug Winn and her father, Donaghu won 10 Class 6A state titles for Grant High School, finished second at NXN her senior year, and set a state record of 4:14.11 for 1500m. She dealt with some injuries early in her Stanford career, but she became a seven-time All-American. She had two top-10 finishes at the NCAA Cross Country Championships and a third-place finish in the 1500m at the 2021 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships, her final collegiate race.
Donaghu was open to signing with other shoe companies when she graduated, but it was hard to compete with the fact that Nike had pro groups based in her hometown, and she had grown up wearing the brand.
During her first year as a pro, she produced some solid results but began to question whether the lifestyle was really for her. “I felt like there was this expectation that you didn’t really have a life,” she told Fast Women. “You’re kind of expected to be living out of a suitcase constantly, traveling to these training camps, and putting a lot of yourself aside to pursue the goal. To me that was very draining and not fun at all.”
She also felt pressure to be thinking constantly about how every choice she made might affect her career. If she wasn’t working out, she needed to be recovering as well as possible.
Over time, she found ways to chase her goals with a less all-consuming mentality, and her recent move has made that even easier. Donaghu knew her body responded well to altitude training, but as a self-described homebody, she didn’t enjoy going away to training camps for six to eight weeks at a time. Now that she lives 4,265 feet above sea level, in Salt Lake City, training camps aren’t necessary.
And more time at home has made it possible for her to fulfill her longtime wish of getting a dog. Because she changed so many aspects of her life at once when she moved to Utah at the end of September, Donaghu thought maybe she should settle in and adjust to her new routine and surroundings first. But then she visited a local dog shelter “just to look.” She managed to walk out without a dog that day, but a few days later, only 12 days after moving to Utah, she went back and returned home with Stevie, who is about one and a half.
“So much of running is self focused, and it really narrows your world,” Donaghu said. “Having a dog and taking care of her needs forces me to focus on something else.”
Donaghu’s move to Utah has also allowed her to live in the same city as her boyfriend, Philip Quinton, for the first time since they began dating nearly two years ago. Quinton is a Major League Soccer player and last year, he got traded to Real Salt Lake. The two have known each other since they were kids, and Quinton, who was an Oregon state runner-up in the 800m, understands the commitment required to be a high-level athlete.
Donaghu chose to live in Salt Lake City, 45 minutes from Provo, because she was more familiar with the city, and as someone who is not a member of the LDS Church, she appreciated that the city has more religious diversity. She and teammate Simone Plourde carpool to Provo for workouts two days most weeks. Plourde finished out her NCAA career at the University of Utah, but before that, she spent a year running for BYU, so Donaghu is currently the only runner on the team who doesn’t have any BYU ties.
Though Taylor’s previous pro team, Taylor Made Elite, was exclusively made up of BYU grads, Donaghu says Taylor has done a good job of drawing a line between that and the new group, making it clear this is something different. And Donaghu has felt welcomed and supported by her coach and new teammates since day one.
Racing against BYU athletes during college, Donaghu always admired how much passion Taylor invested into each of her runners, and she’s enjoying being on the receiving end now. “You can feel that she wants you to succeed so much,” Donaghu said. “It’s not a requirement for pro coaches to be like that, and I think that a lot of them aren’t. A lot of them just kind of show up for the workouts and hold the watch. While I think you can be successful with that, it’s just a lot more fun to have a coach who is fun and funny and shows up with so much energy and is so invested not just in your athletic performance but who you are.”
Taylor is known for her enthusiastic cheering on the sidelines, but Donaghu says that’s just one way Taylor shows how much she cares. “She’s a people person,” Donaghu said. “She knows how to communicate, and I think what it really comes down to is developing a real, genuine relationship, where I feel like she knows me and she understands me, and I feel like I know her and understand her. I think that’s the foundation for trust in general, across any relationship.”
Taylor is also known for hosting elaborate parties, which she does for her professional runners as well. Donaghu has been to three already. At the last one, Taylor gave her team Valentine’s Day-themed gift bags, something Donaghu can safely say none of her past coaches have done.
Working with Taylor has also helped Donaghu enjoy race day more. “I’ve shifted my mindset to yes, you’re going to have to work hard on the track, but you’ve done all the work, so it’s like a performance. Have fun with it. Do your hair, put on some glitter or whatever. It’s fun to have a female coach who kind of pushes you to embrace that fun piece of it, because what we do is super hard.”
Donaghu says the key workouts she does with the Swoosh TC are a bit more intense than what she has previously done, which adds to her confidence on race day. “I think it’s cool to go into races knowing my body is capable of doing X, Y, and Z, and then it’s just up to my mind to stay composed and poised.”
She represented the U.S. in the mixed relay at last year’s World Cross Country Championships, where she ran a monster second leg and brought her team from eighth to third. (The U.S. team ultimately dropped back to eighth.) She would love more opportunities to represent the U.S. internationally, especially on the track. She’s toying with the idea of making her 10,000m debut at The Ten on March 29.
But first up, she’ll race the 3,000m at the USATF Indoor Championships on Saturday. Despite the personal best Donaghu ran at the Millrose Games, she believes she has an even better 3,000m in her. Millrose was an excellent opportunity to be part of a high-caliber field, and she’ll have a similar chance this weekend. “I think the only way you learn how to be competitive with those women is just to race with them,” she said.
Other News and Links
Next year, teams that participate in the NCAA’s proposed revenue-sharing settlement will have a maximum track and field roster of 45 athletes. Some conferences are enforcing stricter limits. BYU coach Ed Eyestone told the Deseret News that BYU’s teams will get the maximum number of spots, but that will mean cutting 18 women and 15 men from their current roster. Schools will now have the option of offering every athlete on the roster a full scholarship, but Eyestone said BYU will stick to its current 12.6 track scholarships for men and 18 for women. The settlement is not final yet; the final hearing is scheduled for April 7. Schools are clearly expecting that the change will go through, but given the way everything else is going in this country, who knows?
Marathon world record holder Ruth Chepngetich of Kenya is scheduled to run April’s London Marathon. She had a slow start to the year, but we’ll get a chance to see how things are progressing when she runs the Lisbon Half Marathon on March 9.
The USATF Masters Indoor Championships begin on Thursday in Gainesville, Florida, and I’m looking forward to following four-time Olympian Joetta Clark Diggs, 62, who has indicated she will be racing the 200m.
James McKirdy recently announced that Grayson Murphy would run the McKirdy Micro Marathon at the end of March. But last week, he said on Twitter that she has pulled out of the race because illness had put her behind in training. Murphy said she’ll be announcing where she’s racing soon.
Last week, World Athletics announced that they’re considering bringing back sex testing for all athletes who want to compete in the women’s category. Rose Eveleth, host of the Tested podcast, wrote a good piece in response. After the announcement, I went back and listened to episode three of Tested, titled “Card-Carrying Females,” for a refresher on the history of sex testing in sports. Eveleth explains in the episode that from 1968 to 1999, every woman who competed in the Olympic Games had to undergo a chromosome test verifying that they were female. Athletes, doctors, and ethicists worked hard to end the testing, and 26 years ago they were successful. Eveleth mentioned that there’s speculation that World Athletics president Sebastian Coe, who is hoping to become president of the IOC, wants to be able to say he has “sorted out” how to handle DSD athletes as part of his campaign. Others think he’s feeling emboldened by the transphobic bills and executive orders in the U.S. Regardless of the logic, it would be a giant step backwards, and I wish more athletes were educating themselves and speaking up on the matter.
In better news the 2025 USATF Para National Championships will be held in conjunction with the USATF Outdoor Championships for the first time. In the past, the two meets have been run by different organizations and were not at all comparable. Tara and Hunter Woodhall, especially, were thrilled to hear the news.
In 2022, I wrote about Maria Langholz taking 45 minutes off her marathon time in three years. But even more impressive, last week she helped organize and spoke at a rally to defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) from the current administration’s attacks.
Additional Results
Ethiopia’s Gudaf Tsegay, who has twice narrowly missed setting the world record in the indoor 3,000m, made another attempt at Thursday’s Meeting Hauts-de-France Pas-de-Calais. She fell off pace late in the race, but Freweyni Hailu, also of Ethiopia, sat on her most of the way, went to the lead with 300m to go, and then took off over the final 200m. Hailu won in 8:19.98, which places her third on the world all-time list, and Tsegay took second in 8:25.12, barely holding off Birke Haylom (8:25.37). Nadia Battocletti finished fourth in an Italian record of 8:30.82. Ethiopia’s Diribe Welteji also tried to chase the world record in the 1500m. She hit halfway in 2:04 but slowed significantly in the second half. But she still finished in a world-leading time of 3:58.89. (Results)
Three days later, at the Orlen Copernicus Cup in Toruń, Poland, Tsegay bounced back well and ran 3:53.92 to win the 1500m. She finished 0.83 seconds off of her own world record, but she now has the three fastest times ever run in the indoor 1500m. Ethiopia’s Tsige Duguma won the 800m in 2:00.04. Chase Jackson set an American indoor record in the shot put with a winning mark of 20.24m. (Results)
Keely Hodgkinson was the headliner for the inaugural Keely Klassic, where she was hoping to go after the world record in the indoor 800m. But two days before the event, she announced her withdrawal from the meet after she suffered a hamstring tear at the end of a workout. Her M11 Track Club teammate and fellow Olympic medalist Georgia Bell won the 1500m in 4:00.63, and behind her, Sarah Healy set another Irish record, running 4:01.62. (Results)
Australia’s Lauren Ryan pulled out a dramatic win over Alabama’s Doris Lemngole in the 3,000m at BU’s Valentine Invitational, 8:41.80 to 8:41.83. Afterwards, Ryan told Citius Mag that she really wanted the win, in part because her boyfriend broke up with her the day before, on Valentine’s Day. In her first 800m of the season, Michaela Rose won in 2:01.15, with Harvard’s Sophia Gorriaran (2:01.27) and Oregon’s Wilma Nielsen (also 2:01.27, but 0.002 seconds slower) close behind. I was happy to get a chance to see Ajee’ Wilson race again. She ran 2:02.31, her fastest time of the season. She wore an all-black outfit, so it seems she is no longer with Adidas. Nia Akins was also in the race, but she stepped off the track with about 150m to go. Canada’s Lucia Stafford won the mile in 4:21.74 with Dani Jones (4:22.45), Lithuania’s Gabija Galvydyte (4:22.76), and Taryn Rawlings (4:22.76) close behind. Japan’s Nozomi Tanaka kicked away from the field to win the 5,000m in 14:51.26. Running her first indoor race in seven years, Great Britain’s Calli Hauger-Thackery took second in 14:55.68, a PR. Australia’s Linden Hall, who doesn’t race this far often, was third in a personal best of 14:58.43. And Emily Venters also broke 15 for the first time (14:58.77). Georgetown’s Lucy Jenks led the collegians with a big PR of 15:15.58, which ranks her seventh in the NCAA. (Valentine Invitational results)
At the Husky Classic, BYU’s Carmen Alder, Meghan Hunter, Tessa Buswell, and Riley Chamberlain teamed up to run 10:37.58, the fastest indoor distance medley relay in NCAA history. The top five teams in the race all ran faster than UW’s collegiate record of 10:43.39 from last year. But because the UW track is oversized, the record remains unchanged. BYU just missed Harvard’s outright record, set at last year’s Penn Relays, by 0.03 seconds. Stanford’s Juliette Whittaker won the 800 in an NCAA-leading 1:59.44 and Portland’s Laura Pellicoro was second in 2:00.92. In the 3,000m, BYU teammates Lexy Halladay-Lowry (8:40.60) and Riley Chamberlain (8:40.89) went 1–2 in the 3,000m and NAU’s Elise Stearns was third in 8:41.07. They now have the three fastest times in the NCAA so far this season and fourth-place finisher Sophia Kennedy of Stanford (8:42.53) is fifth on the list. NAU’s Maggi Congdon edged out Anna Camp Bennett to win the mile, 4:27.77 to 4:27.83. (Husky Classic results)
Arkansas’ Sanu Jallow won the Tyson Invitational 800m in 1:59.77, which ranks her second in the NCAA so far this season and fourth on the collegiate all-time list. Her teammate, Paityn Noe, won the 3,000m in 8:47.17, a big personal best. (Results)
At Friday’s Boston College Eagle Elite meet, Harvard’s Victoria Bossong ran her second two-flat 800m in a row, winning in 2:00.85. I wrote about her breakthrough last year, and she just continues to improve. Princeton’s Mena Scatchard ran a four-second personal best of 4:28.43 to win the mile. (Results)
Kenya’s Joyciline Jepkosgei won the Barcelona Half Marathon in an impressive 1:04:11. (Results)
Ethiopia’s Medina Eisa, 20, won Spain’s 10K Fasca Castellón in 29:25, and Likina Amebaw, also of Ethiopia, finished second in 29:40. (Results)
Kenya’s Janet Rono won the Austin Marathon in 2:41:05. (Results)
Podcast Highlights
I appreciated Maia Ramsden’s frank assessment of the start of her professional running career on the Lactic Acid Podcast. The On Athletics Club runner, who represents New Zealand, said her training has been going better than ever, but she described her season opener, a 4:31.16 mile for eighth at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix, as terrible, and said it was one of her worst-executed races in the past couple of years. “Sometimes you’re not quite mentally prepared for how hard racing is going to be,” she said. I also appreciated her optimistic outlook despite the tough start.
It was good to get a Parker Valby update on The Citius Mag Podcast. Valby said finally choosing a sponsor and a team was a huge weight off her shoulders and talked about the subtle changes she has made to her training as a pro. But most of all, I appreciated hearing her tell the story of getting lost on a run in Paris the day before the Olympic 10,000m.
Easier said than done, I’m sure, but I appreciated Amanda Vestri talking about not putting too much pressure on any one race outcome on I’ll Have Another. Vestri provided a good update, said her marathon debut will be within a year, and that she will also be racing a 1500m some time this year with the goal of breaking the ZAP Endurance team record of 4:17. Watch out, world.
Dakotah and Montana Popehn made a joint appearance on the Ali on the Run Show, where Dakotah talked about finding love after a tough first marriage. At the end, she said she’d have a kid tomorrow if it weren’t for running.
Additional Episodes: UNC’s Brynn Brown was great on A & N Track Talk | Josette and Robby Andrews on The Solemates Podcast (recorded pre-Millrose) | Olympic gold medalist Morolake Akinosun, who now works for Grand Slam Track, was on Unexpected Curves | South Africa’s Gerda Steyn on 5 Miles Easy | Age-group world record holders Sue McDonald on Women’s Running Stories and Clare Elms on The Runna Podcast | Clare Gallagher on The Freetrail Podcast | Standout runner and NYRR Board Chair Nnenna Lynch on Set the Pace | Poppy Tank on Fitter, Faster & Happier
A heartfelt thank you to everyone who has supported Fast Women via Venmo or Patreon. I’ve been working very long hours recently and your support helps tremendously.
Today is my mother’s birthday, and it’s not every year that it falls on a Monday, so happy birthday to her (and anyone else who was born on February 17). She always tells me that she reads the newsletter, even though she’s not into following running. I don’t know if she would identify herself as a runner, but she ran a marathon when I was maybe eight or nine, she still goes out for runs now and then, and she was my first-ever running partner.
I hope you all have the best week possible.
Alison
As a recreational runner and fan of your newsletter, I feel honored to get a birthday mention in your newsletter!
Happy Birthday, Ruth Wade! Your daughter rocks…and I suspect it’s partly because you rock too!