Hilary Stellingwerff: 1500m

Name: Hilary Stellingwerff
Hometown: Sarnia, Ontario
Club: Speed River Track Club
Coach: Dave Scott-Thomas
Age: 31
Personal Best: 4:05.08 (1500m)

Hilary Stellingwerff of Sarnia Ont., took a huge step towards making her first Olympic team at the Rome Diamond League, with a gritty 4:05.08, beating the “A” standard time of 4:06.00 by almost a second. Stellingwerff attended St. Christopher’s in Sarnia and won a number of provincial titles throughout high school.

Stellingwerff attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison and graduated in 2004. She was surrounded by professional runners, including Kathy Butler, which helped her realize her running potential and inspired her to compete internationally. She started training with coach Dave Scott-Thomas in the summer of 2002 while her husband worked on his Ph.D in Guelph.
Despite her focus on the 1500m competition, Stellingwerff has competed in events from the 800m to 3000m and has personal bests of 2:02.20 and 9:09.53 respectively. Stellingwerff managed to run the Olympics “A” standard at the Diamond League event despite fighting a stomach illness and high fever.

Running under the standard in her physical condition is evidence of Stellingwerff’s strength and persistence as an athlete. Stellingwerff and her coach were overjoyed to bring her chances of qualifying to a near certainty after having to miss out on the 2008 Beijing Olympics due to persistent anemia, which was diagnosed just two weeks prior to national track and field championships. Hilary is married to Trent Stellingwerff, who is a sports nutrition and exercise physiologist. He helps develop her training and nutrition program with her coach.

(Photo courtesy Margaret Gallagher)

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Stellingwerff beats food poisoning, strides closer to London