BHS Grad Ellie Abraham running well for Navy

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – For Brookings High School grad Ellie Abraham, attending the Naval Academy was a dream come true. A standout track and field athlete at BHS, Abraham was recruited to join Navy’s cross-country and track and field teams. Since joining the team in 2020, Abraham has competed well, culminating in a individual conference title in the steeplechase at the May 6-7 Patriot League Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Abraham took some time from her busy schedule to discuss what life at the Naval Academy is like and how her experiences as a student-athlete has been.

The Naval Academy

Attending the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, is different than attending college at say the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the University of Minnesota or even South Dakota State University. To enroll at Navy, a prospective student must first be nominated by a U.S. Sen. In 2020, Abraham was nominated by South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds.

“Congratulations to Ellie on her offer of appointment to the Naval Academy,” Rounds said in 2020. “Ellie seeks out challenges and always strives for excellence. She works hard at school, and is active in track, soccer and band. She also spends time volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, Meals on Wheels and Harvest Table. She’s a great fit for the Naval Academy, and we wish her all the best.”

After being nominated and accepted into the academy, incoming freshman, known as plebes, must undergo what they call “Plebe Summer.”

“It’s a seven week indoctrination process you go through before your freshman year, which we call ‘Plebe Year,’” Abraham said. “You step inside the yard - ‘the yard’ is what we call our campus - and immediately you just start getting yelled. You’d kind of see that at boot camp but instead of gunnery sergeants and senior sailors being the drill instructors its other midshipmen.”

During Plebe Summer, incoming plebes learn military customs and courtesies, discipline, respect, and how to work as a team. Some of the activities include obstacle courses, sailing and endurance tests. In the mornings, plebes have physical training time and are put into one of seven groups based on how fast they are. For incoming cross-country student-athletes, this means they are put in the first group and usually run together, which often times includes intervals on the track. Because of COVID, Abraham’s Plebe Summer was setup a little different with less challenging “PT.”

A lot of time as a plebe is spent learning the minutia: how to fold things right, how to put on a uniform, how to make your right, and how to render.

“All these little things transitioning from being a civilian high school student to being a midshipman and a member of the military,” Abraham said.

For someone like Abraham, who is also a student-athlete on the cross-country and track teams, all plebes get a “sports period” in the afternoon. This is the time that is set aside for student-athletes like Abraham to train for their respective sports. However, because people are often exhausted at this point in the day during plebe summers, practice is no more than an easy three mile run.

Even after Plebe Summer is over, plebes still have a lot of extra activities when classes officially begin in the fall. This can make competing on a varsity team and being a plebe at the same time, very challenging.

Abraham competed well however, winning the Pitt vs. Nay duel in the fall of 2020. Later that winter, Abraham competed on the track, running the mile, 1000 meters and the 4x800 during the indoor season. During the outdoor season, Abraham finished runner-up in the steeplechase at the Patriot League Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

Day-to-day

After completing her plebe year, Abraham started a more “normal” semester as a midshipmen. A student’s class schedule at the Naval Academy resembles a high schooler’s class schedule, Abraham said, with periods that plan the majority of each student’s day down to the minute.

A midshipmen’s day starts at 07:00, with course formation on the “deck” (where Abraham’s company lives), followed by breakfast. The first class is at 7:55.

“We have six periods in the day and lunch in-between,” Abraham, who is majoring in history, said. “Then we go to practice in the afternoon. Every midshipmen has sports period in the afternoon, from 15:30-18:00 (military time).”

Following sports period, the midshipmen have dinner between 18:00 and 19:00 in King Hall. Dinners are optional for midshipmen but for breakfast and lunch, all 4,500 midshipmen are required to eat together in the dining hall, Monday through Friday.

Abraham’s favorite class that she has taken at Navy was an environmental policy class last semester.

“I never thought I would be able to take a cool, hippy, tree-hugger class because that is where my true passions lie,” Abraham said. “We don’t have any environmental science or environmental engineering major but they offered that elective because it’s in the political science department. Even though I’m a history major we get to take humanities electives.”

On Tuesday and Thursdays, midshipmen who are student-athletes have mandatory formation. Other midshipmen have formation every day, but student-athletes are excused on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to either lift weights or, what Abraham does, swim. Every midshipmen has to take a swimming class every year and Abraham uses it to supplement her running. Everyone on the cross-country and track and field teams also has a six-period “blocker” in which they can also go swim or lift weights.

“I just like to swim in addition to my running,” Abraham said. “Get some extra cardio in. A lot of people aqua jog but I find that so boring.”

At Navy, they have a strength coach (for the varsity teams), who gives them a lifting program to follow. Abraham and the team lift two to three times each week. The team also does core and push-ups every day.

“That’s not really something our coach makes us do, it’s just kind of something we do being part of the military,” Abraham said. “Everyone does core, push-ups and pull-ups. It’s just something we enjoy – working out together. We try to be well-rounded and our team culture – we really take pride in being the most jacked on the starting line when we get to the race. It’s just something we have a laugh about.”

Training at Navy

In Brookings, Abraham was coached by current BHS head cross-country coach Chris Gruenhagen. Gruenhagen would have Abraham run around 35-40 miles per week during the cross-country season and 35 miles per week during track. At Navy, under the guidance of coach Kim Lewnes, Abraham has upped her mileage to 40-50 miles per week during cross-country and 30-40 miles per week during track.

“So not a huge difference either but I had never gone up to 50 miles before and I did that several weeks during the summer and in the cross-country season,” Abraham said.

The usual long-runs that Abraham does at Navy are also a little different than what she did in high school. In college, the long runs are designed to be more recovery based, which means the runs are supposed to be easy and conversational. In high school, the long run was meant to be a more progressive, harder workout to supplement the week’s training.

“If we have a Friday meet, or a Friday workout, then the Saturday after, we’ll do a long run between 10-12 miles but it’s all at recovery pace,” Abraham said. “We use long runs as recovery days, which I really enjoy.”

Other differences in training include more “tempo” runs, which are long, more sustained, “hard,” efforts.

“A lot of times in cross-country, if we don’t have a meet, we’ll do a speed workout on Tuesday and then on Friday or Saturday, usually Friday, we’ll have another workout but it’ll be more long distance so we’ll do a warm-up and then three to four miles at ‘tempo’ (pace) and then a fartlek mile, and then cooldown,” Abraham explained. “Or a progressive long run like 9 miles, starting at 7:30 (per mile) pace and ending at 6:00 minute pace. I really enjoy those longer workouts.”

The hardest workout that Abraham ever did in college (so far) was a workout during her first cross-country season in the fall of 2020. It was the Tuesday after her team had lost to their arch rival Army on their home course by a single point.

“We went out to the course and (our coach) had a 1,200 meter loop marked off,” Abraham said.

The goal of the workout was to cut five seconds off of every rep. If they didn’t cut down five seconds, they would have to be done with the workout. Abraham’s coach, Lewnes, ran the first rep with the team to make sure the pace was honest from the start.

“We just cut and cut and cut and people were like absolutely bent over and dead,” Abraham said. “I have never been that exhausted in my life. It was one of the hardest workouts I’ve ever done.”

For practice, the team is able to run off the yard and into the surrounding Annapolis neighborhoods. Abraham’s favorite trail to run on, called “Waterworks,” is a single track mountain bike trail that shoots off into the woods.

“Running in town is beautiful,” Abraham said. “I got kind of tired of running through cornfields in Brookings, I’ll be honest. We just have gorgeous houses (in Annapolis) and you can almost always see a river or the bay. It’s just beautiful here.”

Competing for the Midshipmen

This past fall, Abraham had a successful sophomore season in cross-country, finishing 2nd in the Army vs. Navy dual meet and 8th at the Patriot League Cross-Country Championships. Her finish at the Patriot League Cross-Country Championships helped Navy win their first team title since 2012.

Her indoor season was also successful as she ran a personal record, 4:53.5, in the mile. She also helped her team to a conference title in the Distance Medley Relay (DMR) and a runner-up finish in the 800 at the conference championships.

Abraham’s favorite race from her time at Navy came during the Army vs. Navy dual meet outdoors, this year. Anna Tovkach, a student-athlete at Army, had beaten Abraham almost every meet during the year. Tovkach and Abraham also know each other as Tovkach hosted Abraham when she visited Army West Point on a recruiting trip during her senior year of high school.

“She is an incredible 800 runner, I think she has run 2:05 this year, so when we did Army/Navy outdoors this year – West Point hosted it – I knew Anna was going to be in the (800),” Abraham said. “When she’s in the race its almost always a race for second place, no one’s even close. But my coach told me to keep my options open, ‘you can close 800 faster than her because she always opens up in a 58 second (first 400).’ I let her go the first lap a little bit and then I was able to put on the gas.”

Abraham was able to catch Tvokach on the curve and won the race.

“My teammates went wild,” Abraham. “It’s always intense at Army/Navy meets.”

Abraham also helped her team to a school record in the DMR at the prestigious Penn Relays.

This outdoor season, Abraham has also been focused on the steeplechase, as she ran 10:20.14 at the Virginia Challenge last month, despite falling towards the end of the race. Her time puts her in qualifying position for the NCAA East Regional, slated for the end of May. There’s one problem however: Abraham is scheduled to be on a ship during the first “block” of summer.

Abraham will be on the USS Bataan, where they will be traveling from Norfolk, Virginia to New York City and back. It’s a congressional requirement for all midshipmen to go on a cruise during their time at the Naval Academy.

The cruise will be the week before regionals and Abraham is still trying to figure everything out but she will get the chance to do some training as they have gyms with treadmills on the ship.

“If I can be really nice to the Marines on there they might let me in and use the treadmill for a little bit every day,” Abraham said.

The East Regional meet is scheduled for May 26-28 in Bloomington, Indiana. Abraham said they are still trying to figure out the logistics for her to compete, pending her qualifying for the meet.

Outside of her steeplechase win, Abraham also finished 4th in the 800 at the Patriot League Championships, helping her team to the conference title.

6/1 Update - Abraham wound up being able to compete at the NCAA East Regional in Bloomington, Indiana. She finished eighth in the first heat of the steeplechase in a time of 10:24.53 - four seconds off her season’s best.

Contact Addison DeHaven at adehaven@brookingsregister.com