How they train: Elise Thorner

We talk to a British steeplechaser whose faith in her own abilities paid off when she moved to the US for college and is now taking great stride forwards

“I remember it so well because it was terrible,” laughs Elise Thorner, recalling the 10:47.74 3000m steeplechase she ran in Loughborough before arriving at the University of New Mexico in 2019. “I said to my coach [Joe Franklin]: ‘If you give me time, I promise we can do something with this, but I’m not there yet’.”

It turns out Thorner was right – her current personal best now stands at 9:15.06 – but so too was her former coach and schoolteacher Abi Tickner, who suggested that the US would be a sensible next step if she wanted to progress her running career. Then, when others might have focused on a quick win, her future coach Franklin also made the right call by committing to the long game.

“I was so incredibly lucky,” says the former multi-eventer who finished fourth in the 3000m steeplechase at the 2023 European Under-23 Championships. “I know it’s different everywhere, but I feel like a lot of kids go to the States and they’re pushed to the brink, but he [Franklin] just built me up in such a great way from about 35 or 40 miles a week at the start – which was still a lot for me – to about 65 miles a week in my fourth year. He was focused on the future and not so much: ‘We need to be the best freshman in the country right now’. It completely made me.”

Now a professional athlete and coached by Helen Clitheroe as part of Team New Balance Manchester since October 2024, Thorner’s positive coach-athlete experience continues.

She opened her 2025 outdoor season with a 9:30.41 clocking at the Drake Relays in April, only two seconds outside her then-PB of 9:28.49, then went on to destroy that mark a month later with 9:17.57 (a World Championships qualifying standard) at the Sound Running Track Fest in Los Angeles. 

While she had expected to go back into a training block after LA, Clitheroe had a different plan; she wanted her athlete to learn how to race: “I think as soon as I hit the standard Helen was like: ‘Goal number one is obviously to make it [to the World Championships]’ – and I still have to finish in the top two at the British Championships to do that – ‘but goal two is that we don’t want you to be a fish out of water when you get there, so you need to race against these women who are a lot better…