For Victoria’s Katelyn Ayers, the Victoria Track Classic offers her an opportunity to race the 1500 metre event again.

By: Christopher Kelsall, Athletics Illustrated

For Victoria’s Katelyn Ayers, the Victoria Track Classic offers her an opportunity to race the 1500 metre event again. The metric mile is a distance that she hasn’t competed in much since her University of Guelph days when she studied for her Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture. Recently, she has focused more on the 5000m and 10,000m distance events or the road equivalents over 5K and 10K.

The 28-year-old Orillia, ON native, found her way out west in Victoria and is now being coached by two-time Olympian Hilary Stellingwerff, who happens to be the head coach of the University of Victoria Vikes. Stellingwerff knows a thing or two about the 1500m event having competed in the London and Rio Olympic Games at the distance.

For 2023, Ayers has set new personal bests with a 5000m clocking of 15:50.71 set in Portland, OR at Griswold Stadium on May 6. Then she did it again in the 10K with a 33:38 in Ottawa at the Ottawa 10K National Championships where she placed fourth and just 46 seconds behind winner Natasha Wodak.

“With a focus on longer distances the last couple years, it’s always fun to go back to my “roots” and race the 1500. Last year I ran 4:20, so I would like to dip well under that,” shared Ayers, when asked about her goal for the Track Classic.

Her personal best is much faster at 4:09.74. With her new level of fitness demonstrated in May, she will likely do just that — clock well under 4:20. However, sometimes the field can hold back in a race and wait until someone gets impatient and decides to drop the field. Tactics make the 1500m event fun to watch. With Ayers’ experience and Stellingwerff’s expert coaching, she should be ready for whatever the field hands her.

“I am surrounded by a very experienced and knowledgeable IST, which I am incredibly grateful to have access to in Victoria,” said Ayers. “I love the personal programming that Hilary writes, and she integrates a human-athlete lens to training (yes, I am an athlete but also have other life things going on like work, family, and partner, that can influence training) She is also all about long-term development, which I really appreciate.”

Ayers grew up on a cattle farm in Southern Ontario and only ran when she played lacrosse. In fact, she didn’t run competitively until she attended the University of Guelph.

When asked about sports growing up in Orillia, she said, “My family didn’t follow televised sports very much. We were always outside working or playing on the farm. Lacrosse was how I “trained,” running up and down the field as a mid-fielder. When I do visit home, I train on flat country roads, and in town, there are some nice trails along Lake Couchiching.”

The Anglicized name, Lake Couchiching, is from the Ojibwe word “gojijiing” meaning "inlet." Couchiching connects to the Great Lake Simcoe by a narrow channel. The lake offers a popular recreational area.

During the National Track Tour, there are several other events happening across Canada. On the West Coast there was the Pacific Distance Carnival on June 23, Harry Jerome Track Classic on July 14, and the National Track and Field Championships on July 27-30. All taking place at McLeod Athletic Park in Langley.

Ayers raced the Pacific Distance Carnival 10,000m, which acted as the Canadian National 10,000m Championships. She finished second to Wodak clocking a new personal best of 33:11.77.

Ayers, who has come to embrace the longer distances has raced twice at the World Cross Country Championships. In 2019 in Aarhus, Denmark, and in February 2023 in Bathurst, Australia.

Asked about her experiences in the two championships, she said, “I would say the Aarhus course was marginally harder, but we didn’t have the heat to contend with in Denmark. Bathurst was hot and that really played a role in how we prepped and planned our race strategy.”

It was so hot in Bathurst that multiple world record holder Letesenbet Gidey of Ethiopia collapsed just metres from the finish line to relinquish the lead. She hit the ground hard and had to be helped up. It was one of the hottest World Cross Country Championships in history at 36 Celsius, two degrees warmer than the Tokyo Olympic marathon that took place in Sapporo, Japan.

Aarhus was the beginning of the new generation of cross-country, where the races are more difficult than in the past and offer unique course features. The anthropological Moesgaard Museum in Aarhus was used, where competitors ran over the slanted roof multiple times. In Bathurst, winding corners separated by stacks of car tires made for an unusual snaking running pattern, which some athletes hurdled to avoid being elbowed into a hot stack of black rubber.

As for the remainder of the tour for Ayers, she will race the Harry Jerome Track Classic meet, and will attempt to further improve upon her new 5000m best and carry that performance into the National Championships to have another go at the 12.5-lap race.

The latter three meets — including the Victoria Track Classic — are bunched together over a short period of time to take advantage of athletes’ travel plans and racing repeatedly. The repeated racing is a good trial run for those who qualify for the 2023 Budapest World Athletics Championships happening in August.

The 1500m event can be a physical adventure, much like the 800m. Elbows come out, athletes accidentally spike each other, cut one another off, and block opponents on the inside lane to prevent being passed or boxed in. Although the 800m event is not on her schedule, asked if she would like to race with a lacrosse stick, Ayers said, “I haven’t raced an 800 in a very long time, but I wouldn’t say no to an opportunity to run around with a lacrosse stick again!”

All kidding aside, at the end of the day, Ayers, like everyone else, wants to get on the podium — with or without weaponry.

“Like all races, Nationals are unpredictable, but these races tend to be more tactical. I’m motivated to run a fast time, but we’ll see how tactics work out amongst the field. I’d like to position myself for a shot at a podium spot.

“My goal for this season is to run sub-15:30 for the 5000. I would be stoked to run under Pan American Games standard of 15:26.”

And at the Pacific Distance Carnival she would be “over the moon,” if she would have achieved the Pan American Games standard of 32:28 in the 10,000m but even Wodak settled for 32:42.77 for the win even though she has run the distance in 31:41.59.

There are always more opportunities to race.

For Victoria track fans attending the Track Classic, if Ayers is in a position to take advantage of a kick, she just may display her mix of aerobic and anaerobic fitness to land a spot on Team Canada, which will make for classic hometown racing at Centennial Stadium.