For most high school athletes, the track and field season ends around the last days of May. If you’re really that good you’re competing at state championships in mid-June. Then you’re calling it a season, taking some time off, and training for fall competition. But if you’re Juliette Whittaker (and her future teammate Roisin Willis), you just ended your season. Like, a week ago. At the U20 World Championships in Santiago de Cali, Colombia. With a medal and a near-PR time.
I’m used to St Moritz season on my Instagram feed: when every professional runner is in Europe racing the Diamond League circuit. But Whittaker just finished up high school, was born in the 2000s, and absolutely just crushed a season like a…well, like a pro.
I talked to Whittaker the day after she returned home from Colombia. I always feel at my absolute worst the day after international travel, but Whittaker had nothing but a smile to show from what must’ve been an exhausting week. Her face got even brighter when I asked her if it was her first time traveling to Colombia. She said yes, and that this was her first time racing internationally. The U.S. team stayed in the same hotel as many other countries and teams, so they ate meals together and got to know one another. Gazing above the computer screen on our Zoom, she said she hadn’t wanted the trip to end at all.
It sounds like a whimsical ending to a whimsical year for Whittaker. One that was also so, so long. I knew I could find all this information, all of Whittaker’s races this year and her times, online. But I wanted to hear about her year in her own words. So let’s talk this one out.
Whittaker raced cross country until December at the Eastbay National Cross Country Championships. A week later, indoor track season started––with an abrupt halt.“I actually started the season with a stress fracture in my foot. I had to take off a lot of time and I had a few meets that I was supposed to be running, but I ended up having to pull out of them. But honestly I’m kind of grateful for that. It was kind of nice to take a step back,” Whittaker told me. Injuries can be extremely difficult to cope with, but the body is good at giving us warning signs, if only we listen. Whittaker listened; she took her rest.
And it paid off. In a matter of weeks, Whittaker was back on the track racing indoors. She won the mile at Millrose and at New Balance Nationals. She did a 1K race in February where she set the new high school national record at that distance.
We’re all still somewhere on the learning curve, and Whittaker is no different as an incoming college freshman. While last year was a fantastic year, too, Whittaker was taking some serious notes on what to do differently––and better. The importance of rest. The importance of recovery. Allowing herself the flexibility to move a workout to the next day if she wasn’t feeling her best.
How many 800s did she run this season? She did zero indoors this year, and only four in the outdoor season before the rounds at Worlds. Miles came first for strength and then came the sharpening speed for 800s later in her year. And was this on purpose?
“Yeah, not a ton of 800s, a lot less than last year. Last year I did a lot of 800s and I kind of got sick of them by the end. I was just trying to prepare for the trials. But with all that preparation, it kind of got me a little bored of the 800. So this year I didn’t want that to happen again. By the time I got to Worlds, I didn’t want to be very sick of the 800, especially with three rounds of it. Going into it, I definitely wanted to do the least amount I could, while still like getting in speed and training and stuff,” Whittaker said.
Looking back on such a long season that transcended three of nature’s four seasons, I wanted to know something else that was only natural: how did she deal with lulls in motivation?
Whittaker didn’t hesitate in her response. She was playing her long game: “I just kept this goal [of medaling at Worlds] in the back of my mind. It really was the end goal of everything that we did. I probably would’ve raced a few more meets, but then I was remembering, ‘This season will hopefully go into August and I didn’t wanna be so tired by the end of it.’ I took that into account with choosing the races I wanted to do.”
She had great guidance to help her plan such a smart season of racing. Her high school coach was none other than her dad, who took over as her coach a few years ago once his daughter’s seasons stopped lining up with the rest of the high school team’s. Now, he coaches at her alma mater as well as their brother school, where the girls’ school team would practice. This summed up a question I was gathering in my head: “I was gonna ask, were there any boys that you could work out with?” (Because who, really, can keep up with her?)
Whittaker laughed.
Then I had to get real serious. “Okay, so, now. It’s August and now it’s cross country season. Like are you taking––I hope you’re taking some time off right now.”
Whittaker nodded enthusiastically.
“Yes. Okay. Two weeks completely.”
Whittaker laughed again. Kind of at me, I think, but that’s okay. “I know,” I said. I’m a chronic rest enabler. I can’t help it, so I just have to say it one more time: “I’m like, get your two weeks in.”
I made her confirm, again, two whole weeks of rest. “No running, nothing. I’m excited for it,” she said. The girl needs rest, not only from such a long season but guess what? It’s two weeks of rest and then she’s moving across the country from Maryland to Stanford.
“Are you excited for, I mean Stanford, exciting. What are the feelings around college in general?” I asked.
“I’m super excited. Especially with the incoming class that we have. They all are incredibly talented, but also, like, a lot of my closest friends. We all know each other which is great and we’ve gone to meets together and all these things. So it’s been really fun and exciting just to look forward to that and just to, honestly, have training partners that are other girls that I can run with. I just know I’m gonna be pushed, in every workout and every run, even sometimes I’ll probably get dropped, but it’s okay.” At this, Whittaker laughed and after a pause said: “It’ll be worth it.”
Whittaker has learned a ton this year, about running and about herself. One of those things is realizing how helpful it’s been to write her goals down on paper. And even the ability to do that with confidence has changed this year. “Obviously breaking two has been a goal of mine for a while, but I was scared to even write it down. Cause I was like, well, what if it doesn’t happen? Or you know, what, if I’m not good enough or things like that. But I feel like just going into the season when I finally just wrote down my list of goals, I think that just gave me a lot of confidence,” she said.
Maybe the length of this season taught her the most simple yet crucial thing: that she could. “I would doubt myself at every race and would just step up to the line, and if I looked around and saw big names, I would just be like, oh, like they’re so much better than me or things like that. I never felt like I belonged on the starting line. I think that the biggest takeaway from this year was running with confidence and stepping up to every line with confidence because when I did, fast times would come and I’d race well. So yeah, I definitely will use that for the future.”
Racing through August isn’t easy and for all of what Whittaker has achieved, she deserves endless rounds of applause. Also a lot of rest. But keep your eyes peeled for start lists with Whittaker’s name: if she’s now toeing the line with confidence, everyone is in big trouble.
