Chanelle Price and her father, Harry, had just come up short in a pickup basketball game against her brother, Domenique, and one of his friends.
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“Dad, you suck!” she yelled. “You let us lose!”
Harry told the story at a homecoming party in Forks Township, Pa., following Price's surprise wire-to-wire victory in the 800m at the world indoor championships in Sopot, Poland. He wasn't trying to embarrass his daughter; he was proud of how she rose above a character flaw that nearly drove her out of track before she could become America's first-ever 800m world champion.
“I was born with this desire to be the best,” Price, 23, says.
That desire motivated her, and by the time she graduated from Easton Area High School, she was a three-time state champion and two-time Nike Outdoor Nationals champ in the 800m.
“In high school it was all glory and winning, all positive,” Price says. “At 16 I was running the 800m against Maria Mutola at the Prefontaine Classic and in the finals at USA outdoors.”
When she got to the University of Tennessee, Price was ill-prepared for collegiate track. A stress fracture kept her out most of her freshman indoor season, teammates were stronger runners, and she lost more than she won. Price says she was a head case. Track became joyless, and she graduated without the NCAA title she had envisioned.
“I wasn't used to any adversity,” Price says. “I worried too much about people's expectations. I didn't go into races with any confidence.”
Unsigned by shoe companies out of college, Price continued competing on the professional circuit last year with her parents' help. When she failed to advance to the 800m final at outdoor nationals, she sat in her hotel room in Des Moines, Iowa, and contemplated giving up.
As he had for four years prior, Price's coach, J.J. Clark, interceded. “Coach Clark could see that defeat in me, and he refused to let me give up,” Price says. “He told me, ‘You know, you're blessed. This gift of running didn't come from nowhere. It came from God, and you don't want to rob God of that blessing that he has given you.’”
Price embraced religion, and in Christianity she found herself. She learned how to manage training and juggling part-time jobs at a health food store and as a student mentor at Tennessee. “The biggest positive was finding that balance where not everything was about track all the time,” she says.
After her victory in Sopot, Price was signed by Nike. But with the track world's eyes again open to her potential, she is also aware of how easy it will be to fall back into her old ways.
On the track, she is looking to improve her PRs of 54.26 in the 400m, 2:00.15 in the 800m and 4:20.29 in the 1500m. But knowing “how dangerous being singular of focus can be,” she says she also plans to continue volunteering with Big Brothers Big Sisters.
“Before I came back to Knoxville, my parents sat me down and reminded me of the path that I put myself on this year,” Price says. “There might be times where I try to put that pressure back on, but if I remind myself of how I got that gold medal, I should be good.”
ESSENTIAL WORKOUT
Who: Chanelle Price, 23
What: The Quarter-Quarter. Two sets of 2 × 400m on the track, with 1 minute rest between each rep and 12–15 minutes rest between sets.
Why: Advertisement - Continue Reading Below.
When: How to Estimate Your Lactate Threshold Pace.
The Details: Price first began running these workouts when she got to Tennessee, where the athletes would complete them before the conference and national meets. It was the one workout that indicated whether she was ready to get through the rounds of a major championship. Price has gotten faster over the years, and now her combined 400m splits are under 1:59.
