Elle Purrier grew up on a dairy farm in Montgomery, Vermont. Now, the 24-year-old is one of the best track runners in the state's history, and she's heading to Doha, Qatar, to compete for Team U.S.A. in the .
Purrier told VPR's Mitch Wertlieb that growing up on a farm helped prepare her for the work required to excel athletically.
"There's a lot of similarities between growing up on a farm and the training that I'm doing - working really hard, and not being afraid to have a little grit," she said. "Those type of things prepared me. Life lessons that I learned on the farm translate well into training and preparing for races like these."
Purrier said that at the championships, her goal is to take things one step at a time.
"First of all it's just to gain experience at this kind of level," she said. "I've never made a team like this before, so I know it's going to be really new and obviously I just want to do the best that I can."
She added, "So I have to race twice. The first race is on October 2nd, and if I do well there, then I will advance to the final in the 5k. So that's my first goal. And then from there it's just to finish as high as I can."
Purrier heads to Doha today.
