Ostrander with USA teammates Abby Nichols and Emma Hurley. Photo courtesy Allie Ostrander Instagram.
After strong performances in the mountains last fall and on the trails this winter and spring, Alaska’s Allie Ostrander this week announced she’s headed back to the track.
The 27-year-old from Soldotna, who is based in Seattle, said on her YouTube channel of more than 50,000 subscribers that she is returning to the steeplechase for the first time in three years and aiming to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Trials.
“It’s time to get back on the track,’’ Ostrander said.
Ostrander, who won three consecutive NCAA steeplechase titles (2017-2019) for Boise State, last raced a steeplechase in June of 2021, when she finished eighth at the U.S. Olympic Trials in a personal-best 9 minutes, 26.96 seconds. She trained for the Trials while undergoing treatment, and partial hospitalization, for an eating disorder.
She said she’s in a much better place emotionally and physically three years later.
“Whatever little shot that I have at making the Olympics this year, I want to shoot it,’’ Ostrander said. “We’re gonna do a full track season, just see what happens. I haven’t been on the track in so long, but I really feel like I have unfinished business there.’’
Ostrander said she will race the steeple at Stanford’s Payton Jordan Invitational on April 26 in a bid to earn the qualifying standard for the Trials, which are June 21-30 in Eugene, Ore. The automatic qualifying standard for the Trials is 9:41.
Ostrander won the steeple at Payton Jordan in 2019. Later that season, she finished fourth at the U.S. championships, which earned her a spot in the World Championships in Qatar.
The Kenai Central High legend, still the state high school record holder in the 1.600 and 3,200 meters, has raced on the world stage in three disciplines. Besides track, she is a former junior champion at the World Mountain Running Championships and less than two weeks ago finished 30th, and second among Americans, at the World Cross-Country Championships in Serbia.
“I got a confidence boost from my performance at Worlds,’’ Ostander said.
She qualified for worlds by finishing fourth at the U.S. Cross-Country Championships in Virginia in January.
Last fall, Ostrander finished seventh at the Golden Trails World Series short race (8.7 kilometers, more than 400 meters of vertical gain) in Italy and 19th in the long race (26K, more than 1,400 meters of vert). That elevated her to 20th overall despite racing just two of six events before the final two races.
Between the U.S. Cross-Country Championships and World Cross-Country Championships this year, Ostrander jumped in the Woodinville (Wash.) Leprechaun Leap, a community 5K, and crushed 336 souls.
Ostrander is sponsored by NNormal, a manufacturer of running shoes and apparel, and coached by David Roche, an accomplished trail runner and coach based in Boulder, Colo.
Ostrander, who is also a six-time junior girls Mount Marathon champion and record-holder, and one-time senior women’s champ on the 3,022-foot slab of pain in Seward, will be inducted into the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame on April 30.