In 2022, Kendall Ellis nearly walked away from track and field altogether. In her own words, she “heavily contemplated retirement” because running, the thing she loved the most, no longer felt “worth it”. That was despite having a great season with podium finishes in almost every race she competed in. The reason? Her anxiety, which she had battled with and through since childhood, had become so overwhelming that it left her struggling to get out of bed before major competitions.

So much so, that her mornings before a race always start with a racing heartbeat, as she revealed to Denver Nuggets guard DeMar DeRozan. Ellis talked about this feeling on Episode 8 of Dinners with DeMar, a show the NBA star hosts.

“The morning of is a different story, I think,” Ellis told DeRozan on his show. “I’m gonna wake up with some anxiety, my heart racing, and my stomach kinda hurting. In those moments, I like to just lie down and remind myself, ‘It’s not happening yet.’”

This isn’t something new Ellis was going through. If anything, it’s something the now 30-year-old has battled her whole life, from the moment she started sprinting.

“I started running when I was seven and had anxiety from the very beginning. I think at that age you don’t necessarily know that it’s anxiety and you don’t have the words for it. It’s just you’re told you’re nervous, you have butterflies,” the sprinter explained.

“And so I think navigating that as I got older and realizing this is something much bigger than nerves, it’s a bit more debilitating and something was really impacting the way I’m able to compete and perform.”

However, while life has gotten a lot easier now thanks to sports psychologists and therapists, it wasn’t always like that. In fact, Ellis admitted that she had severe pre-race anxiety after the Tokyo 2020 Games that made her want to retire. Finishing fourth by 0.07 seconds in the 2021 trials and missing the individual race at the Olympics made it worse.

In fact, she even admitted to considering retiring in 2022 in an article she wrote for World Athletics.

“For the first time in my life it simply felt no longer worth it,” Ellis wrote in 2023. “Phone calls and texts to friends and mentors saying, ‘I don’t want to run anymore,’ were abundant.

“Before I even stepped on the line at the USA team trials, I had made peace with deciding I would be done with the sport that had given way to so many opportunities.”

However, she battled through the rough patch and “got to the line” to make the team in 2022 for the fifth straight year. Two years later, Kendall Ellis had finally qualified for the Olympics in Paris, where she earned her first individual race. She made it all the way to the semi-finals and eventually finished ninth of all runners with a time of 50.40. 

Not everyone was happy with the result. Ellis, however, was and still is.

“Both the fans and myself are expecting something from me, but I got ninth place at the Olympics,” Ellis further told DeRozan. “I’m the ninth fastest in the world at the Olympic Games. That’s not something I’m gonna beat myself up about. And so how other people feel about that is how they may feel, but I was proud to say, “Hey, I’m the ninth fastest in the world.”

That, however, was after she failed to reach the finals at the 2023 U.S. Championships, which meant she didn’t get a spot at the subsequent World Championships. It’s why she now carefully manages the initial minutes of the race. That same discipline shapes how she handles outside pressure, which she also addressed in the interview.

“My least favorite thing is when people ask, ‘Are you ready?’ Because the gun’s going off whether I’m ready or not. So like it, it don’t matter. But I think the day before I’m really trying to just enjoy kinda my last day of like not thinking about it, not worrying about it. There’s nothing I can control at this point,” Ellis added.

Now, with the 2026 season finished, Ellis is training and recovering with Los Angeles 2028 in view. The routine that carries her there is just as deliberate as her race plan.

Why Kendall Ellis chooses calm music over hype playlists

Once the reassurance is done, the routine turns practical. While many sprinters build adrenaline early with loud playlists and pep talks, Ellis keeps hers low on purpose, and her reasoning to DeRozan was direct.

After all, the 30-year-old Olympian has been dealing with this since she was a child and first started sprinting. Now, with some outside help and her experience, she’s created a routine and a checklist that keep her in the moment. In fact, it helps keep her grounded and her anxiety in check, especially on race day.

“’You’re safe. You’re here. You just woke up. Let’s do our morning routine.’ Take your time with your skincare, do your hair, lay out your clothes, and really try to, I hate the word romanticize, but kinda romanticize your morning routine,” Ellis said on Dinner with DeMar. 

For Ellis, that’s just how she keeps things in check. And it doesn’t just apply to her morning routine; she uses the same logic for her pre-race routine, especially her choice of music.

“I know people like their hype music, but I’m like, I don’t need my nerves. I’m good,” she revealed. “Like, I want the calmest of music there is or silence. I’m listening to a podcast. Like, I’m really trying to keep things like business as usual.”

Her approach connects to her work away from the track. Ellis advocates for mental health in sports and founded The Ellis Effect, a non-profit that offers mentorship and resources to youth athletes.

This specific routine gives young runners a concrete example of managing nerves instead of fighting them, and it comes from an athlete with two Olympic Games under her belt.