Player Profile: Ella Gilson
It's difficult to talk about sports at Hawken without hearing the name Ella Gilson. A six time state champion across three sports - cross country, swimming, and both indoor and outdoor track - Gilson is only improving. Gilson’s sophomore year season consisted of straight first place wins as well as a third place finish for her relay at states. "It felt amazing and I felt really rewarded and humbled by the experience," Gilson says. “I couldn’t have done it without my coaches and my teammates helping and motivating me the whole way. I was really happy that the hard work and all the practices and getting up early paid off.”
And paid off it has, both in previous years and early into Gilson’s junior year cross country season. Starting off extremely well, Gilson broke both Hawken and Mentor's course records, running a 18:44 at Hawken and a 17:52.8 at Mentor. “It makes me excited,” Gilson explained, “because I am really happy that I dropped time this early in the season. It’s given me a lot of confidence going into this season because if I’m already dropping that much time now I should be in good shape.” Gilson is on a great upward trajectory, dropping time consistently and improving with every race. “I’m looking forward to all of the races that are coming up in the season for cross country. Our biggest meet besides, really, states, is in two weeks and it’s a super fun race! It's at night so we get to wear glow paint and race at night so it's super fun and I'm super excited for that.”
But Gilson’s success doesn’t come easily. Playing sports year round and often overlapping seasons is difficult, stressful, and hard to manage. “It’s definitely hard to balance school and sports,” Gilson explains. “but time management is the biggest thing that you can do if you want to do sports and school together.” This is key for Ella, especially with cross training, which means she practices constantly, often both in the morning and at night. And although Gilson is barely into her cross country season, she’s already looking ahead towards the rest of the year with her training. “I always cross train for sports. During cross country I run three days a week and swim every other day. And if I’m running at night I either swim in the morning or vice versa.”
Gilson, although she says her mind is currently on cross country, can’t help but think about other seasons. “I’m looking forward to going to states with my friends and having a really good time. I’m really excited for track because we’re a lot more confident with our relays and we know people’s potential.” And when asked to explain her success? “If you put your mind to something, you can achieve it.”