Ellen Hart: Candid, Courageous and Real

By Bill Plock

Ellen Hart grew up with seven brothers and sisters in New Mexico playing basketball and pioneering all kinds of sports in her schools. In this podcast she mentions how the newly enacted Title IX afforded many opportunities for her in school, but in the end, her favorite thing to do was simply head out the front door on a run. And ran she did, all the way to an American record at one point, to two Olympic trials and across the finish line in first place at the Bolder Boulder when she was just 23.
She turned to triathlons over a decade ago and has competed and won world championships in all distances many many times. She says Kona 2017 is where she probably learned the biggest lessons of her career when things didn’t go as expected.
She talks about many triumphs and many stumbles throughout her career and life in general. We talked about her well documented eating disorder and what catalyst finally happened to get her through that. She shared the experience of making a Hollywood movie about her life while she was married to the Secretary of Transportation and former mayor of Denver. We talked about her future and how she is using her law degree to help others and her platform as an athlete to make difference. The lessons her parents taught her come to light and she talks about being a mom, an athlete, an advocate, and a messenger for so many things.
I find myself amazed when I think how much she has accomplished in sports and life, but I am equally amazed at how much of a life she has lived and more impressed than anything at her humbleness and genuine kindness. Along with it all, comes a pressure to be the be a good role model and accept that through her running and triathlon endeavors she can and does make a difference.
We are so lucky to have her in our Colorado triathlon community!