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UNDAUNTED
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JEFF CLARK

BY HOLLY BENNETT

Prior to her fth-place nish at this years Ironman World Championship, where she was also the top American woman, Mary Beth Ellis had lost only one Ironman raceKona 2011, where she nished 15th. A ve-time Ironman champion, Ellis recently got a taste of the Hawaii podium, which has only made her hungrier for the Kona crown. And with her dogged resolve, she just might be USAs greatest hope for the world title.

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ary Beth MB Ellis has struggled through more than her fair share of injuries and illness in her 35 years. Shes faced the disappointment of a dashed Olympic dream. Shes twice stood in the bridesmaids spot at the Ironman World Championship 70.3. I thought: Should I keep doing this? admitted Ellis. On the brink of crafting an exit strategy from the sport following a particularly disappointing 2010 season, Ellis instead went all-in with a renewedand to some, questionably wisecommitment, signing on with Brett Suttons Team TBB. Ensconced in the ranks of Team TBB, in a notoriously tough training camp tucked away in the Swiss Alps, led by a man who embraces a hard-driving approach many believe borders on unhealthy, Ellis found what would prove to be her best distance: the Ironman, winning her first three attempts at the distance. But long before Sutton helped shape what may be Ellis ultimate triathlon triumph, her evolution to Ironman began.

Boarding schools are often hotbeds of adolescent hijinks, with teens habitually busting out of their dormitories after hours, or sneaking in

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alcohol and members of the opposite sex. But in 1991, Mary Beth Ellis, then a freshman at the prestigious Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, wasnt looking for trouble when she slipped out of her dorm room in the pre-dawn hours. She was simply looking for more time to train. I didnt know what time we were allowed out. I wanted to run early in the morning, so I snuck out of my window. All I did was run laps back and forth right behind the building! admits Ellis. I would also break into the pool, she continues. You were supposed to have a teacher there to lifeguard. Even though I was a competitive swimmer and I begged my teachers to let me swim alone, they said no. So a few times I left a window unlocked during practice, then snuck back in later to swim more laps. But I was too much a goody two-shoes to do that more than once or twice. Despite her dismal attempt at delinquency, Ellis succeeded at everything else she pursued. By the time she reached high school she was a finely honed athlete, claiming MVP and allstate titles as an underclassman on the varsity eld hockey team, MIP (most improved player) in Ellis uses this apartment at varsity lacrosse and Team TBB headquarters in Leysin, Switzerland, as her numerous swimhome for much of the season, ming accolades. but she travels extensively to race and train. And as for track? I

never lost a race, says Ellis. (She ran the mile, 2 mile, and 800.) Academically she was equally successful, a straight-A student at Lawrenceville who went on to earn a double major in economics and industrial engineering, as well as a graduate degree in marketing at Northwestern University. And while Ellis credits her parents, Kathy, a nurse, and Stephen, an attorney and Vietnam veteran, with her deeply ingrained East Coast Irish Catholic work ethic, Kathy is quick to deect the credit for her daughters extreme drive. She got that on her own, she says. We work, but were not as driven as she is. I really do think that some people are born different. Theres just something in them. Fresh out of college in 2000, Ellis focused her attention on distance running. Her rst attempt at the marathon netted a 2:46 (Chicago 2000), followed by a 2:41 (Philadelphia 2001), times quick enough to qualify for the U.S. Olympic trials. But 2001 also marked the start of a long period fraught with injury and frustration. I would get an injury, get healthy, log about six solid weeks of training, maybe race a half-marathon in the plan of building to a full marathon and then get injured again, Ellis says. I had all kinds of stuffa stress fracture in my bula, a stress fracture in my heel, plantar fasciitis, a stress reaction in my shin.

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T h e k ic k e r ca me i n 2005 when Ellis was diagnosed with osteoarthritis. T hey sa id if I kept ru nning 100-mile weeks Id need new hips in my 30s, says Ellis. I think at the time they were probably being overly cautious, but it scared me enough that I thought my running career was over. Rather than follow her doctors orders and hang up her athletic ambitions, Ellis decided that cross-training would provide the key to keep her body balanced and strong. Thus she turned to triathlon. Ellis went pro in 2006 and a certain level of success soon followed, with two ITU victories and back-to-back second-place finishes at the 2008 and 2009 Ironman World Championship 70.3. But like many young athletes, Ellis dreamed of being an Olympian. When you grow up in swimming and track, the Olympics is everything, she says. Having completed the Olympic trials process but failing to qualify for

An egg white, cheese and veggie combo casserole is Ellis go-to recovery feast.

the Beijing Games in 2008, Ellis again focused her training on the draft-legal ITU format throughout 2010, looking toward London. Yet her obsessive drive, coupled with a signicant spell of over-coaching, nearly proved career-ending. I buried myself, says Ellis. I had three different coaches, each one treating me like a single-sport athlete. I was doing really hard workouts for all three sports. It was ne for a little while, but after a few months it caught up with me. You just cant do that.

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The low point came at the ITU World Championship in Budapest, where Ellis then-boyfriend Eric Olson witnessed his future wifes painful struggle to the line. I almost pulled her off the course, he recalls. I wanted to, and if I didnt know MB so well and know that she would punch me if I tried, I would have. She was injured, she had fatigue stuff going onit was a combination of everything. She was in the lead pack off the bike and absolutely melted on the run. Everything caught up with her. The everything that Olson refers to had a clinical name: Epstein-Barr virus, a disease characterized by debilitating fatigue. Id tra i ned mysel f i nto the ground, Ellis says. I also had a stress reaction in one of my hips, so I took a whole month off and didnt do any-

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thing. I walkedthat was it. Thats when Ellis considered quitting triathlon. But her favorite quote, by poster child success story President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, hints at what she did next: When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. By the time she was healthy again, she had been unceremoniously dropped by her team. Trakkers. With no sponsors and none on the horizon, retirement would have been an easy out. Rather than quietly exit the scene, Ellis decided to give the sport one more go. A round of interviews with potential coaches ensued, and Ellis ultimately landed under the tutelage of Sutton, whose former disciples include four-time Ironman world champion Chrissie Wellington and world champion triathlete-turned-coach Siri Lindley. In part, Ellis was drawn to the requirement that Team TBB athletes arrive as a blank slateafter all, she had no existing sponsor conicts and truly needed support. But more so, she wanted this nal ing to be her best possible chance to reach the top. I wanted to give Ironman a shot. So why would I go to a second-rate coach when I could work with the one who has coached almost all the top iron-women? she Admittedly shy, Ellis is clearly condent in the water; her 56:06 explains. Theyve all been swim split was the third fastest coached by Brett, or else by through the rough swell in Kona this year. somebody he has coached.
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Its like six degrees of separation. With Sutton, Ellis seems to have found the path to success in the distance that her body and mind are perfectly designed for. Almost by accident, she powered her way to victory in her rst, second and third Ironman races (2011s Austria, Regensburg and Canada), all in the span of eight weeks. Yet her plan had been only to test the Ironman distance in 2011, then build toward Kona in 2012. After Austria, thats when things changed, says Ellis after she set the fastest Ironman debut performance ever. I think Brett was surprised at how well it went. Sutton sent Ellis for a follow-up performance five weeks later in Regensburg, and she won there also. Brett thought that with two Ironman wins, even though I didnt have enough KPR points [Kona Points Ranking, the world championship qualication system for professionals], WTC [World Triathlon Corporation] would let me into Kona. He told me to lobby for a wild-card entry, says the admittedly shy Ellis, who struggled to make the request. The answer came back: no. But with the allure of Kona too tempting to ignore, she did what she needed to do to qualify by the book. She raced and won Ironman Canada. Should there be any question
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whether Ellis rapid-fire Ironman three-peat was a uke, consider this: Her Austria race marked the fastest ever female Ironman debut (8:43:34), set a new womens American Ironman record and broke the previous course record. In Regensburg, despite a nagging glute injury, Ellis 9:18:55 was good enough for the win by a 10-minute margin. And in Canada, she handily slashed a course record that stood for more than 20 years, clocking 9:03:13. Yet piling another 140.6 miles atop that already hefty tally, a mere six weeks later, proved a bit much even for Ellis. I was so fried, physically and mentally, she recalls of her 2011 Kona race. I dont think anybody, until theyve done an Ironman, really understands going to the well. Each race takes a piece of you. Deep down, I struggled with the fact that I was going to have to hurt myself as bad as I had in Canada again so soon. In Canada I was trying to prove to my coach that I wasnt a soft biker. So I biked harder than at any other race, and then on the rst mile of the run I was like: Uh oh! Im in for a long marathon. But its a lot easier to deal with that when youre winning. In Kona I was like: Im in for a long marathon and Im 30 minutes behind! But Im glad I didnt stop, continues Ellis, who posted a so-so swim,

struggled through vomiting and a flat tirewhich she rode the final 11 miles into T2on the bike and survived the run, nishing a disappointing 15th. The only thing worse would be if I hadnt finished. It was pretty abysmal as it was, but it could have been worse. While Kona 2011 came as an afterthought for Ellis, Kona 2012 served as a focal point, with a far more forgiving lead-up schedule. And with wins thus far at Ironman Texas, the Ironman U.S. Championship and Ironman 70.3 Singapore, two secondplace 70.3 finishes (St. Croix and Mooseman), Ellis easily qualied for Kona. Yet the question remains: Has Ellis zealous over-training tendency been resolved with the help of her new coach? Bretts background is in training racehorses, says Olson. And MB is exactly like a racehorse. A racehorse cant tell you when its tiredit will go and go and go until its broken. Brett has this innate sense with his athletes, and Im sure it was the same with his horses. If MB needs to be pushed, hell push her. If she needs to chill out, hell tell her to take a day off, whereas she never would have taken that day off on her own. And while Ellis no longer sneaks out of a dorm window to log extra laps, it took some time before she

MBs

CLUES TO COPE WITH INJURY

Keep sight of the end goal. Ive heard it said that the injury process is like the grieving process. You go through the ve stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I think thats true with every injury. But you just have to keep your eye on why you do what you do, the light at the end of the tunnel. Focus on the positives, and even the perks. With triathlon, most of the time you can do one sport, if not two. Plus you can make improvements while youre injured. I turned pro in 2006, but I still worked full-time. In 2007, I nally left my joband within a week I tore my labrum. I was already questioning whether I should I have quit my business career, and suddenly I was on the injured list. But in retrospect, it was ne. I needed to improve my bike and my swim anyway, so I biked and swam and aqua-jogged for a few months. I even won a race without having run more than 20 minutes, twice a week.
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accepted Suttons credos. I came in categorized as injuryprone, so initially he took a really conservative approach. I was one of those people that if I wasnt hurt, I would run every single day. Brett said, No, youre not running every day. And I was like: Yes I am! I wasnt skeptical exactly, but I wasnt ready to fully drink the Kool-Aid. But the longer Ive been with him, the more impressed Ive become. I listen to things he says, predictions he makes or things about me, and they come true a month or two later. Hes good at knowing when to hold me back. Also, seeing my training partners doing so well, says Ellis, referring to Team TBB stars such as Caroline Steffen and Nicola Spirig, gives me even more condence that Im on the right path. Sutton also believes that Ellis is headed in the right direction. What I saw in MB, that made me want to help her, is the very thing that makes her good and also destroys her, explains Sutton. Most dont realize that the ferocious will to win can sometimes be ones fiercest opponent. MB had not been taught to harness hers for good, but instead fanned it until it became her biggest enemy. Knowing when to push on and when to pull back can be Ellis early athletic dreams an unclear thing to of becoming a professional marathoner were a person who wants quashed by osteoarthritis. it so bad it hurts. Im
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not frightened to tell it how it is, and I thought: If shes not frightened to listen, we can make her good again. And possibly, if she keeps listening, great. Five Ironman wins later, I still think we are a work in progress. Its a work in progress marked by milestones of success. Aside from the 2011 and 2012 wins, there are day-today training gains where Ellis is forced to test her toughness. Once last winter at camp in Australia, Brett dropped MB and the guys on the squad off in Noosa and told them to run to Mooloolaba. Thats 45K, says Olson. Afterward, Scotty DeFilippis [another TBB athlete] told me, Your girl smelled the barn with 10K to go. She dropped it to a 6:30 pace and dropped us boys off the back. MB told me later, If I ever run over 3:20 in an Ironman you have to shoot me, because we were running a 3:20 marathon pace and we were jogging! At 5-foot-4 this tough-as-nails muscle-packed mini-dynamo is a force to be reckoned with. Olson, an aspiring age-group athlete who trains with Ellis when his schedule allows, tries his best to keep pace with his wonderwife, who routinely chicks him in every pursuit. We were in Mexico recently for a friends wedding, and everyone asked why they didnt see us during the day, says Olson. Its because we
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were busy riding in circles. Ellis had a 50-mile ride on her training schedule and dragged Olson along to the only place appropriate for cycling in Playa del Carmena one-mile loop, peppered with speed bumps. We rode it 50 times, laments Olson. She said to me, I have an extreme tolerance for boredom. Shes the toughest person Ive ever met, male or female. She can handle anything. Its a toughness Ellis turns on the instant the race cannon res. Shes incredibly focused when she races, says Olson. She truly gives her all the entire way. She just wont let up. Thats why she rarely has a good nish photo and usually misses the post-race interviews. Shes absolutely toast by the end. Ellis subscribes to Coach Suttons belief that triathlon is akin to boxing; second place means losing. But shes matterof-fact in her condence. I think I have to improve, but if I didnt think I had a shot at Kona then I wouldnt race, she says. What would be the point? Ellis acknowledges that Ironman may be the sweet spot in triathlon that suits her abilities perfectly, though shes not one to close any other door completely, nor will she wax nostalgic once her Ironman chapter is over. I kind of always knew that I was
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a bit more of a diesel than a turbo. But thats not to say that I wouldnt mind, depending on the course in 2016I mean the Olympics is always going to be the Olympics. But Im not sure if I would have that speed, and for now Ironmans a good challenge. I like it. And until I have a good race in Kona Id like to at least go there a couple more times and see if I can crack it. I wont be like Natascha Badmann though, 45 and still racing triathlon, because Ill want a new challenge, she continues, already excited by her future plans. Ive always wanted to race the Comrades Marathon [a grueling 56-mile ultra marathon] in South Africa. Other adventures on Ellis life list include running the Leadville Trail and Western States 100-milers, hiking the entire Appalachian Trail and, at some point, motherhood. For now shes giving triathlon everything shes got, says Olson. But when she gets to a point where she doesnt feel she can win, shell walk away without any remorse, without a single look back. But for the time being, Ellis gaze is rmly xed on a line drawn across Alii Drive in Kona. Its a line marked Finish, Ellis is striving to reach rst. Im excited for another shot, she says, undaunted as always.
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