ELON, N.C. – As senior Hannah Miller began the final two laps of her collegiate track & field career, she heard a familiar voice in the crowd – associate track & field head coach Kevin Jermyn – cheering her on. 

“I vividly remember going into two laps left, my coach yelling at me something like, ‘This is it, Hannah. Give it what you have. These are your last laps,'” Miller said. “Because I’m never going to get to do this again. Those last two laps, I was just trying to think about the fact that it was my last chance to do it and that I wanted to make sure I was happy when I crossed the finish line.” 

Miller competed in her last steeplechase on Saturday, May 25, in Lexington, Kentucky, for the NCAA East Regionals. 

An All-CAA steeplechaser in both 2022 and 2023, this was Miller’s second time qualifying for regionals in as many years, as she joined Tereza Novotna (2015, 2016) as the only two-time qualifiers in the steeplechase in program history. Although excited, Miller said she knew early on in the season she had a strong chance of qualifying for the second year in a row.

“They take the top-48 times in the region, and so obviously it varies year to year what that is, but it’s typically around the same time,” Miller said. “I knew going into this season that if I could run below a 10:30 that would probably qualify me for regionals.”

Miller smashed the under-10:30 goal earlier in the season at Penn Relays on April 25, running her personal best 10:11.96, which also marked the second best time in Elon history. After knowing she had qualified, she said it was rewarding to watch her four other teammates – Jette Beermann, Anna Twomey, Kaitlin McGoogan and Piper Jons – join her. 

“Even though I already knew I was in, finding out the official entries of who got in was really exciting to see,” Miller said. “Now it was a group of five of us going instead of just three of us like it was last year.”

The five members of the Elon University track & field team who qualified for regionals tied for the most in program history with the 2014, 2015 and 2016 squads. Miller said having extra support at such an important event was comforting.

“Even though I knew that everyone had their own things going on and their own schedules, we were all still watching each other’s races,” Miller said. “I didn’t race the day Piper [Jons] raced, so we were just sitting in the bleachers cheering for her. With Anna [Twomey] being done on Thursday, it was nice because she was just there to help out Jette [Beermann] and I and keep our nerves down and get us what we needed, that sort of thing.”

By the time her race rolled around, Miller said conditions in Kentucky were extremely hot. She went out in last place, as she does in most steeple races, and was able to persevere, passing competitor after competitor and running a time of 10:27.28, placing 22nd overall.

“A lot of the girls in my heat were literally walking over to the start line with ice vests on and then taking them off right before the race,” Miller laughed. “Even though I know that I can run a 10:10, my coach told me before the race, ‘If you can run 10:20 to 10:25, it’ll be a really good day for you.’ Just because it is so hot and we knew that I would probably go out in the back and have to run by myself and then start catching people.”

Miller ran four seconds faster than her 2023 regionals time of 10:31.67. She also climbed four placements higher, as she previously placed 26th overall in 2023. 

“If I ignore the time and just think about how I raced and how the race experience went as a whole with placement, it’s like, ‘OK, I came in, everyone had to handle a hot day, but I handled it better than others because I moved up in placement,'” Miller said. “In terms of wanting to feel good about my last race, I really tried to just focus on the placement and the race strategy rather than the time.”

As she finished her final collegiate laps and crossed the finish line, putting a close on a stellar five-year career, Miller said she was proud of her last performance in the maroon and gold. 

“It wasn’t just three laps left of this race,” Miller said. “It’s three laps left of racing ever in your life. I also like going out in the back of a steeple race, even if I have to run by myself and then catch people, because it gives you something to focus on. It’s really hard to push yourself to run faster and leave it on the track, but if there’s a girl 10 feet in front of you slowing down, then you just focus on her and tell yourself to catch her, and then you move up to the next one. I just really wanted to make sure that I wasn’t disappointed when I crossed the line and that I could have a happy memory for my last race ever.”

 

‘Rising Phoenix’ is a new student-led initiative to cover Elon Athletics. Through innovative content creation and storytelling, Elon University students will have the opportunity to highlight the moments, people and events that make an impact, leveraging the athletic department’s various web and social media platforms for distribution. Follow Rising Phoenix on Twitter (@EURisingPhoenix) and Instagram (@elonrisingphoenix). Interested in joining this initiative as a content creator (video, graphics, writing, storytelling, or more)? Contact Chase Strawser at cstrawser@elon.edu.

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