- Ellie Pell of Ithaca, New York, won the Green Lakes Endurance Run 50K outright in 3:58:37 on August 10, earning awards for both first place woman and overall winner.
- Since a woman has never won the race before Pell, there was no award prepared for the first place male.
Heading into her fourth and final lap of the Green Lakes Endurance Run 50K in Fayetteville, New York, on August 10, Ellie Pell figured she’d make one last pit stop before kicking it into the finish. The 27-year-old ultrarunner from Ithaca, New York, was having a great race so far, splitting between 7:00 and 8:00 per mile on the grassy, uneven loops that were each about eight miles long.
“I’ve been running that pace for my easy runs lately, so the first two laps felt really smooth,” Pell told Runner’s World. “I thought the third lap would be the hardest, but I didn’t slow down this time. Miles 20 to 30 are always my sweet spot in an ultra—that’s when I start feeling really good. So the fourth lap was cake.”
When she approached the aid station halfway through her final lap, she saw the first place man taking a drink. And just like that, she squashed her thought of stopping for the bathroom: It was go time.
“I blew past the aid station,” she said. “It was like a switch flipped. I’m not usually competitive—in workouts, I usually run behind my training partners—but there was no way I was going to lose that race.”
During her last four miles, Pell held sub-7:00 mile pace, her fastest splits of the race. She broke the tape as the overall winner in 3:58:37, which meant she averaged around 7:40 mile pace for the 50K. Behind Pell, the first place male winner (second place overall), Richard Ellsworth, finished in 4:06:22.
“The race director was blown away, since a woman has never won this race before,” Pell said.
“She’s a hell of a runner,” race director Tim Hardy told Runner’s World. “Ellie was in third behind two guys for most of the race, and I wasn’t trying to pick favorites, but I was rooting for her. On the fourth lap, I told her that she was just 30 seconds from first place. I said, ‘You can run those guys down.’”
Unfortunately, while there was an award made for the first place female, there was no award prepared for the first place male. Instead, there was only a trophy for the overall winner, which was predicted to be a man.
“It was great, but also an awkward situation,” Hardy said. “Obviously there’s a lot of great women runners, but you don’t see them winning ultras outright a lot. When it happens, they get two awards.”
“I ended up taking both awards—the overall winner and the first place female,” Pell said. “I felt bad that the first place man didn’t have one, so I tried to convince them to blot out the ‘fe’ on ‘female,’ but they said to just keep both trophies. It was pretty funny.”
After the race, Hardy ordered a first place male trophy to be made for Ellsworth. When asked whether the race might offer first place male trophies in the future, Hardy said probably not. Instead of giving out more awards, he is more interested in awarding the top six finishers, regardless of gender.
“It’s tricky, because in the world we live in now, people would think I was being sexist if I just gave out overall awards and didn’t have female-specific awards,” he said. “But I think a race is a race, and the best women can beat the men on a given day. And that’s awesome. Other times, they don’t make the podium. What we don’t want to do is water down the prestige of placing on the podium, no matter if you’re a man or woman.”
Pell said she’s proud of how women are holding their own against their male counterparts in ultrarunning competitions. “This community is fantastic. It’s not cut-throat, but rather supportive of each other. Women are getting faster,” she said.
“Also, the playing field between men and women levels out as the race distance gets longer,” Pell added. “There’s a lot of variability in an ultra compared to a marathon or shorter road races. If a guy is having a bad day in an ultra, and a girl is having a really good day, she can win.”
“A lot of factors come into play when you’re racing an ultra, and it requires a lot of mental toughness,” Hardy said. “The pace slows down when you’re going farther, too. While ultras might not be leveling the playing field, exactly, they stretch out the playing field between men and women.”
At home in Ithaca, Pell trains with Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier Chelsea Benson and the Red Newt Racing Club, typically running around 80 miles per week with two workouts and a Sunday long run. This fall, Pell—who has a marathon PR of 2:48—said she is aiming to run an OTQ (sub-2:45) at the Hartford Marathon.
“I definitely have the ultra bug, so I’ll be back on trails again soon,” Pell said. “I have a feeling my marathon training will pay off in longer races.”
