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Ellie Barlow – GRIT Athlete of the Week – April 8, 2024

Nominated by Coach Travis Cummings, “Ellie has consistently been one of our club’s leaders over the past 6 years, she also recently achieved acceptance into Medicine Hat College and will be running for the Rattlers Track/XC programs under Coach Bill Corcoran. She will be pursuing a Bachelor’s of Applied Health Sciences for Paramedics in Fall 2024.

Ellie has been a consistent member of the Cochrane Endurance Project since the club’s inception in 2018. She has quietly shown leadership throughout her time with us. Ellie is a humble supporter of her teammates; she is a compassionate and empathetic listener when her teammates need someone to talk to. Ellie also inspires younger athletes to feel welcome and included in our group. She goes out of her way to help them with drills, makes them feel less overwhelmed when they first join us, and she has helped children develop their running with our feeder organization, the Cochrane Sparks Triathlon club. Ellie persevered through serious injury and subsequent issues with confidence last season to obtain a berth on the Zone 2 Alberta Summer Games team, and ran a very strong race in the 3000m. Ellie worked diligently in the weight room to overcome some nagging functional weaknesses, it took many months of hard work and frustration. A lesser athlete in her position would have quit, as we see many of them do, but Ellie show some GRIT and pulled though. Ellie has also shown great honesty and resiliency in dealing with her own struggles with performance anxiety and things related to the mental toughness required to perform in Endurance Athletics. Her very human experiences with such issues are relatable to all athletes, and she uses this as an asset to motivate and support her teammates when they struggle with similar things. We wish Ellie the best of luck as she dons the Rattlers singlet next year, should be a great new chapter in her running career!”

Congratulations, Ellie!