“WHAT’S BEEN SO EXCITING this year and this indoor season is the idea that I don’t really have a ceiling.”
And that is the most honest explanation of how Isabella Whittaker, now a grad student at Arkansas, demolished the American Record at 400 in running 49.24 to win the NCAA Indoor title, the second-fastest performance in history.
“I’m not trying to cap any sort of ceiling for myself,” says the 23-year-old Penn grad, who is out of outdoor eligibility. “I’m going into the outdoor season with the same energy. There’s no limit to what I can accomplish and that’s what makes it so fun.”
What’s fascinating about Whittaker’s story is that she was not tabbed by outsiders early on as the sort of athlete who could break major records and win major titles. As a prep at Mount de Sales Academy in Catonsville, Maryland, she barely broke 55 in her signature event, hitting 54.71 when she won the state title as a junior. She lost most of her senior season to the pandemic.
At Penn she started out on a strong note, hitting 51.92 to qualify for the ’21 Olympic Trials. The next year injury derailed her. “That really set me back and honestly I Just feel like it took me a while not just physically to get back to where I wanted to be but like also mentally and emotionally. I just had a bit of a hard time.”
In ’23, she ran 52.65 to place 2nd in the Ivy League. The next season, her last at Penn, was the one that opened a lot of eyes to her potential. She won her section at the NCAA Indoor in 52.93, placing 4th overall. Outdoors she captured the Ivy League, placed 5th in the NCAA in a PR 50.17, then made the Trials final, taking 6th.
“Everything just kind of came together and a lot of kudos to my coach [Chené Townsend] because I feel like she really got to know me as an athlete and she really shifted the training to what I needed in those hard coming-back-from-injury moments. I do owe a lot to her because I feel like she really figured out the kind of athlete I was and what I needed in training.”
Finally, the track world started to take real notice of Whittaker. It was a long time coming and all the while she had to deal with people making comparisons with her sister Juliette, a high school phenom who has since become an NCAA champion and Olympic 800 finalist.
“I don’t like to really compare myself much to my sister just because we’re doing very different things,” Isabella says. “It’s been so exciting watching her really excel. And watching her excel just made me really want a piece of it as well. That was another big motivator, kind of like, ‘Yeah, I do have something in me.’ It’s really inspiring watching her compete and watching her kind of chase after everything that she’s gotten. It’s been a really big motivator trying to find that within myself and go after as well.”
That motivation gave her her first U.S. Ranking for her breakthrough season, but there was a touch of the bittersweet that came with the ’24 campaign. Whittaker’s Trials performance got her a trip to Paris, but it wasn’t good enough in the eyes of the relay coaches to let her compete in the Games.
“It was a very emotional first Olympic experience for me,” she admits. “Obviously, I would have loved to compete and so that’s what I’m talking with this kind of ‘don’t count me out’ mentality. Because I feel like I’ve dealt with it a lot and, I mean, it’s honestly been a really big motivator because I told myself that the next time it comes around, I won’t really make it a question.”
With her communications degree from Penn in hand, Whittaker decided that the next step was to move to Fayetteville, which has become a mecca for 400 running under coach Chris Johnson.
“It ended up being a pretty easy decision in the sense of I knew that I wanted to take a leap and try to get to that next level for the post-collegiate me as well. This is as much of a collegiate decision as it was a post-collegiate decision.
“It was honestly quite simple,” adds Whittaker, who is working on a master’s in Marketing. “I said,‘This is going to really be what’s going to make me successful.’ And then coming in, with the girls that are here, I was excited about it. I’ve never really had the opportunity to be in a super-deep training squad. I knew the training was going to be hard but again, I’m a pretty hard worker and it excited me because in order to kind of reach that potential I knew I had to really put everything into that. So it was just a great opportunity and obviously it paid off pretty well so far.”
The string of PRs in every meet this winter marked her as a major contender for the NCAA crown: 51.29, 50.87, 50.86, 49.90. Yet she had taken 2nd at the SEC to Georgia’s Aaliyah Butler, who came to Virginia Beach as the top seed.
Standing on the line for section 1, Whittaker knew she would have to go into the zone if she wanted to achieve her goals. “I just remember thinking, ‘You’re racing against the clock. Every step you take just be more intentional about it.’”
She flew through the 200 in 23.81: “I don’t think I’ve ever like dug deep in the way that I did on Saturday. Probably I just had such a good feeling about it based off the first 200. I felt like I really attacked it. I blacked out in that last little section, the last 100m.”
She describes the next few moments: “I knew it was going to be a good one just based off how I was feeling. Honestly it was the best execution I’ve had in the 400 this season. I was listening to the crowd and feeling good energy from them. So when I looked for the clock, I already knew it was going to be very good. But regardless, I don’t think I pictured a 49.2. That was a shocking thing to see just because it was a really big jump to go from 49.9 all the way to 49.2.”
Just 60 minutes later, she lined up with her teammates for the 4×4. “I was a little nervous about how my legs would feel after that. It’s a kind of short recovery. It didn’t feel great but I got through it for sure.”
Whittaker’s 49.71 carry capped a Razorback win in 3:25.20. “It was really fun to do.”
She concludes, “I’m excited to have come out on top. I guess I always knew I had it within me and the people closest to me always knew I had it in me as well. So I just leaned into them and I leaned into that feeling. And I love being the underdog. I had fun with it. I’m glad that after years of kind of ups and downs, I was able to kind of come out and do something crazy.”
