Fort Lewis College women’s track and field distance runner Hannah Hartwell has come a long way from beating all her classmates in the mile in elementary school while not knowing cross country and track field was a sport.
Fast forward over a decade later, Hartwell has found her groove in running at her third college in FLC. She’s coming off a cross country season where she finished fifth at the Division II national championships in the 5-kilometer race. In indoor track, she broke the Grand Valley State University’s Big Meet 5K meet record in 16 minutes and 8.22 seconds, the third-best mark in Division II.
“I'm grateful to coach someone as talented as her,” FLC associate cross country/track and field head coach Gracen Key said about Hartwell. “I don't know if I will come in contact with someone that has as much talent as what she does maybe ever again in my career. It certainly will be a long, long time.”
Not bad for someone who thought they were done with running in high school.
Hartwell was born in upstate New York and spent part of her childhood there before moving to California. She played a lot of sports growing up and after she found cross country was a sport, she started doing that.
But Hartwell stepped away from the sport in high school in Carlsbad, California, despite her natural talent.
“I just didn't feel like there was any point in me being there and competing if I wasn't putting my whole heart into it,” Hartwell said. “I didn't really care about it at all. I was pretty sidetracked.”
Hartwell didn’t go to college to run. She needed something to do; she was roaming around and doing different jobs. She enrolled in Humboldt State in California after she started running again in the Humboldt community but dropped out after a semester. She had trouble committing to things, reaping the benefits of her commitment and felt stuck living out of her car and traveling at times.
Reed Elmore was a big reason Hartwell got back into running and stuck with it. She enrolled at the College of the Redwoods, a two-year school in California and got into running again. Elmore, the cross country coach at College of the Redwoods, was flexible with Hartwell and persuaded her to compete again. Hartwell said she wouldn’t be in college and wouldn’t be running if it wasn’t for him.
“He just made it so fun,” Hartwell said about Elmore. “It really made me realize how important it is to be a part of something like that, where you can build each other up through it. He also really made me realize I'm capable of actually committing to something and going somewhere with it.”
Hartwell’s commitment paid off as she won the state competition in the women’s 5K.
After finishing at College of the Redwoods, it was hard for Hartwell to leave a Humboldt running community that she loved. But she was drawn to the mountain lifestyle in Durango at FLC in 2023. She loved the beauty of Durango, the trail running options and the overall lifestyle. She’s not just a runner; Hartwell’s a flute player, a lover of food and ice skating on alpine lakes. She found a job she loves at the Rec Center in Durango when she’s not training and likes the sustainable agriculture community in Durango.
Hartwell was recruited by former cross country head coach Shawn Jakubowski, now the Associate Athletic Director-External Relations for FLC. But current cross country and track and field coaches Dalton Graham and Key made it easy for Hartwell to transition to the new coaching staff.
“They know when to force me to chill out a little bit,” Hartwell said about Graham and Key. “Sometimes I get stressed out pushing myself really hard, exhausted and in pain all the time. I'm thinking, ‘What am I doing? I should be working harder.’ They tell me, ‘No, you should just rest. We're going to do a little lower mileage this week.’”
The transition to FLC wasn’t easy in every aspect. Hartwell had to adjust for the altitude, which took a while and the Division II competition. She didn’t feel adjusted to the altitude until the spring of 2024, about six months after she first came to Durango.
Proof of her adjustment came at the end of the 2023-2024 outdoor track national championships, where she finished fifth in the 10K.
A big part of her recent success has been the support of her community. Everyone on the FLC team is a leader and helps pick each other up, according to Hartwell. Everyone is excited to race, work out together and loves the sport.
She felt the support at the cross country national championships in Sacramento in November. Her parents, Lisa and David, came down; friends and supporters from the Humboldt running community showed up along with Elmore.
While Hartwell is grateful for her support, she has some big goals with her remaining eligibility and beyond. She wants to make it to the indoor track nationals in the Distance Medley Relay and the 3K.
At 23 years old, Hartwell has eligibility for next year and will redshirt the outdoor track season to preserve that. After her eligibility runs out, she wants to compete at the Olympic trials in either the 10K or the marathon. Majoring in environmental biology, she hopes to use that to advocate for sustainable agriculture.
Regardless of how far she takes her running career, her experience in her career so far has set her up for success in life.
“Mentally and emotionally, I’m trusting that I'm capable,” Hartwell said. “I've had a long process of building up my self-esteem, trying to convince myself that I'm deserving of these things that I've gotten in life. I’ve so many amazing opportunities through this and I have a really nice place to stay here. It's so much goodness and sometimes it feels really undeserved.”
bkelly@durangoherald.com
