Elise Cranny 4:20.83

Yes she is running the mile at Millrose and was VERY excited about it. Said this week was about getting her legs turned over and ready to race the last 600 (though she didn’t end up picking it up that much as the early pace was quick).

She will have three races in nine days as she is doing the 3k at NBIGP in between today and Millrose.

Always exciting to hear about the exploits of a Bowerman alumni and one of Shelby's besties.

Gabbi Jennings in 2nd with a 4:25. Nice run for her, hope she can get close to 9:00 this spring.

Dude. Give it up. Your girl is washed up and these women are just faster.

I didn't watch the race.

I won't watch the race.

Not going to happen

Cranny rocks. She's had a lot of ups and downs but is always resilient, bounces back well, and is fun to root for.

Hard to miss people that never leave.

me neither but idk why you have to announce it to everybody, i just checked the results and thought it was good

Thx, Jon, for getting this interview & posting so quickly. Great work. A ton more fascinating races for you to cover within the next several hours.

Also, commentary re: Elise's race on the "BU Terrier" thread.

Note that Elise broke Mary Cain's 4:24.11 facility record which stood for 11 years.

Elise's prior indoor mile pr was 4:34.48 back in 2018 while still at Stanford. Not sure, but this may be her first indoor mile since.

Elise was so right when she brought up Grant, how good he's become is part due to how infrequently he's ever sick or injured. Happy to hear that Elise is focusing on being at that level of consistency.

As a fan of both, Elise appears to be at the same stage of training and development as Grant was at this time last year.

Grant had everything put together re: Mike Scannell/coaching when he moved to Park City back in fall 2023 and has been transcendent since.

Elise left BTC for back home in Boulder at the same time, but only later realized that solved only half the puzzle re: her overtraining/inconsistency issues.

As she stated, her private coaching arrangement with Cornfield didn't begin until mid-March 2024 then almost immediately had a hiccup costing training time. She got it together for the Trials but couldn't sustain for a another couple months through Paris. Nonetheless, she knew Cornfield was the coach she had been looking for.

Now, with consistent training since October, we are finally seeing what a healthy, confident & not-overtrained Elise Cranny can do.

Elise ran 8:37/3000 indoor pr at Millrose back in 2023, falling off dramatically the second half of that race which Alicia Monson won in a then-AR 8:25.05. Another example of Cranny's overtraining/inconsistency performances.

Sunday at NBIGP vs Hull, Bell, et al, no reason at this point not to expect something around 8:25, maybe faster.

Then, the Millrose Wanamaker Mile a week later. ESP's 4:16.41 AR looks like a ripe target.

So many parallels now appearing between Grant/2024 and Elise/2025.

Fascinated to see if she can keep the comparison rolling.

Oh. An explanation. Keep grinding.

And Elise's new 4:20.83 BU facility record may have a shelf life of exactly one week . . . with Shelby racing the Bruce Lehane mile next weekend . . .

420!!!!

Not to be a downer but Grant was much closer to the world’s best (Cheptegei and co) vs Cranny ever was, even in BTC

Understood.

If Elise continues looking this good Sunday @ NBIGP then next week @ Millrose, think of her as Grant Light😁

Great result for her, but the Boston’s track seems to be every bit as fast as running outdoors. Rather than other mile races, her 4:21 should be compared to her outdoor 1500m conversion of 4:17.

A$$-STRO!!!

Time to move on buddy.

I'm still not convinced BU is as fast as outdoors. I still think the fast times come down to people using BU specifically to target fast times, and indoors guaranteeing there won't be wind. It might be the only meet where no athlete is saying "I really just wanted to get out there and compete today". Outdoors, when the opportunity arises (good conditions, good pacing, people aiming for times) like at The Ten, lots of people run VERY fast, like 3 Americans sub-27 in the same race fast. We also see it at Monaco every year, and we particularly see it with Jakob and 1500m times dropping. Since Cheruiyot's 3:29 WC gold in 2019, no one has gone sub-3:30 in a race without Jakob. And with Jakob to pace everyone, not only do we see tons of sub-3:30s, but at the Olympics, 3 guys run 3:27.

I'll note that of the top 13 US women indoor mile list, 11 were run at The Armory in New York, and 2 were run at the New Balance Track in Boston (#3, #12). BU doesn't show up until Rachel Smith at #14. 9 of the top 20 times were run indoors if you look at the combined list. That could be due to the mile being run more frequently indoors (particularly Millrose since the Armory is on there so much) and rarely outdoors. If you look at the combined 1500 list, the top 28 performances are all from outdoors, and #29 is ESP's 4:00 split from the Millrose mile. Gotta go down to Hiltz's 4:02 at #61 to get to an actual 1500i race.

Although why not compare to Cranny outdoor mile pb of 4:16? She ran that at Monaco finishing in 8th place about a month before WCs, and 2 weeks after winning the 5k/10k double at USAs, so I think it's pretty safe to say she was in peak shape. She ran 5s slower yesterday at the end of January, beat 2nd place by 5s, and did it as the opener to her season. As a tuneup for Millrose, I don't think you could want anything more. Really great for her either way, since her 1500m conversion is so close to her mile anyway.

What we really need is to get Jingy, Hocker, Nuguse, and Kerr into a mile race at BU in August. If it really is just as fast as outdoors, then it's the perfect time and place. You can control the temperature and ensure there won't be wind. Would be great as an exhibition type thing/specific WR attempt with the fastest guy in the world + the 3 Olympic medalists that beat him, and it would look great on TV packed to the brim.

Sorry if this came off as a bit combative or strongly worded I swear I mostly agree with your post, I just got sidetracked while researching indoor performances

Jon, I just wanted to say that interviews like this are the reason I come back to this site. Good questions from you guys and interesting insight from Elise on where she is and where she sees herself going.

There's a ton of poor or negative content here, both from the community and the BroJos, but every once in a while a gem like this shines through. Keep this kind of content coming.