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Article Excerpt
Byline: Tom Kupfer Daily Herald Correspondent
Katie Ellis was a running wunderkind, something of a local legend, after finishing third in the seventh-grade state 1,600 meters four years ago.
A sixth grader, she ran a time that would have done most high school athletes proud. She was nipping at the heels of Gada Qafisheh and Jessie Morgenthal, both of whom moved on to standout prep careers at Wheeling High School.
That type of success was supposed to be Ellis' destiny, too, but something was wrong.
"In eighth grade, I started getting terrible times and I didn't make it downstate in the mile so I got really frustrated," said Ellis, now a Wauconda sophomore. "In junior high, when I was getting those good times, I thought it would carry over into high school and I'd be good, and then I wasn't."
Not that she was awful, posting some respectable freshman performances and showing early flashes last fall during cross country. But when she tailed off and wound up fourth on her own team at regionals, clearly something was amiss.
Fortunately, Katie has an older sister, Jenny, who unfortunately endured similar lapses during her Bulldog years and her first season at Olivet Nazarene. After collapsing during a cross country meet last fall, Jenny was diagnosed with anemia and placed on iron supplements.
"About a month after that my mom's like, 'Oh, maybe we should test you, Katie,' " the younger Ellis said. "I got tested and I was almost as bad as her."
So it was more iron for the Ellis family. And while she isn't gobbling spinach for strength to beat the bad guys, Ellis has been popping eyes with a flurry of times that rate among the state's best from 800 to 3,200 meters.
She cranked out school records of 11:22.8 minutes for the 3,200 and 5:14.9 for the 1,600 last Monday after...
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