Chanelle Price’s trophy case is bursting with the hardware she earned over many years as an elite middle-distance runner. The blink-and-you’ll-miss-her speed she brought to the women’s 800-meter event garnered media attention around the globe and propelled her to world championships and multiple U.S. Olympic trials. But even after all of these accolades in an exclusive spotlight, highs that the vast majority of runners will never experience, a shout-out at her old high school still makes Price downright giddy. In early July, Price learned new signage had been added to the Easton Area High School track: “Home of Chanelle Price,” it says. “For them to still recognize what I achieved there, and to now be there forever, it just feels so great,” says Price. She added hashtags of #RoverNation and #Rover4Life to her Instagram post about the reveal.
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Price was already an athlete at the age of 11 when she moved from Scotch Plains, NJ, to Easton with her parents, Harry and Yolanda, and older brother, Dom. “Our house was a sports household,” says Price. “I tried everything at one point. My parents really believed in keeping us active and in sports as a way to learn hard work, discipline, dedication, teamwork and leadership.” Perhaps they were too effective in instilling in their children a love of athletics; by the time their daughter was entering high school, they had grown weary of shuttling her back and forth between the many practices, games and competitions. They urged her to pick one sport and stick with it. Surprisingly, Price says, track and field was not her first choice. But her parents recognized in her an aptitude and an ability for speed. “It ended up working out,” Price says.
It certainly did. Her lifetime stats could easily fill both sides of more than a few race bibs. Among the highlights: Price was a three-time All-American as a Red Rover at Easton Area High School. She was also a three-time champion in the PIAA Class 3A 800 meters. In 2007, she won the Nike High School Nationals title in the 800, placed seventh at the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, and made her first appearance at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials. During her senior year in 2008, she set a National Federation record for the 800 in the state finals. She was named the Gatorade Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year, and the overall High School Athlete of the year.
But while Price made tearing up the track look easy on race day, she was putting in the work off-hours. On top of her practices with her teammates in Easton, she began training with a specialized coach in Philadelphia. “It was long days,” Price recalls. “I’d be doing my homework in the car, and those practices were no joke with that team in Philadelphia. It was not the typical high school life.” All the while, Price was expected to keep her grades up; academics were big in Harry and Yolanda’s household, too.
Expectations were high after Price bid farewell to Rover Nation and took her fast feet to the University of Tennessee. “The pressure of being a high school superstar definitely weighed on me while I was at college,” Price says. “I didn’t know how to carry that weight.” And while her NCAA career was one that many athletes would envy, Price heard the rumblings: some detractors felt she had failed to live up to the hype. That took a toll. After graduating from Tennessee in 2012, “a small part of me wanted to be done,” Price says. To turn pro, she needed an endorsement deal, but none of the major sneaker companies were showing any interest. Her parents offered to help support her while she continued to chase her dream. And this time, she wouldn’t have to worry about carrying the workload of a full slate of college classes while she trained. All she had to do was run.
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But that proved to be problematic, too. “I learned that I need something else besides running,” says Price. “I realized, if I’m going to do this successfully, I need to figure out who I am outside of Chanelle Price, the track star. Because my entire identity was wrapped around being a runner and it wasn’t healthy.” She sought the counsel of a spiritual mentor and began to pay more attention to her mental health. Little by little, Price rediscovered the joy she’d felt for running when she was sporting a Red Rovers uniform.
2014, Price says, was the year when everything changed for her. Her training hadn’t changed, but a burden had shifted; she was lighter, freer. “It just shows the power of the mind and the importance of taking our mental health seriously,” says Price. She became the first American woman to take home the gold in the 800 meters at the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Poland. “I just remember standing on the podium at that race crying, because I almost gave up,” she says. Soon after that, she inked a three-year endorsement deal with Nike.
In the years that followed there would be more highs and lows, the latter of which were peppered with health scares and injuries, including foot fractures and a pulmonary embolism. Each setback meant Price had to claw her way back to peak physical shape all over again, but she was determined to make it to the U.S. Olympic trials in 2020. COVID-19, though, had other plans. The trials were delayed until the following year. In the interim, Price broke a bone in her foot for the third time. Still, she battled back and made it to the 800-meter qualifier in Eugene, OR. Even though she ran her fastest race ever - 1:58.73 - she finished fifth overall and didn’t make the cut for the Olympic team. Later that same year, Price announced her retirement as a professional runner. Even with that new PR still fresh in her memory, she was confident it was the right decision: “The pressure you feel standing on the line before the gun goes off, I don’t really miss it at all. I know I left at the right time.”
Price now works in operations for a consulting firm and lives in Charlotte, NC, with her husband, Canadian sprinter Akeem Haynes, but she shows love to the Lehigh Valley whenever she can. She was featured at the 2024 Lehigh Valley Women’s Summit. For several years she’s been a community ambassador for St. Luke’s University Health Network, a role that allows her to promote fitness and wellness. She offers running clinics and motivational speeches. She even handed out medals and cheered on finishers at last year’s St. Luke’s D&L RaceFest, where she got to high-five her former EAHS cross country coach. All of these appearances and more are Price’s way of returning the favor to the community that always had her back. “The Lehigh Valley has shown me a lot of respect throughout my entire career,” she says. “I definitely felt that standing on the start line—I have the Lehigh Valley in my corner. And when I didn’t make it, the love was still there.”
Price hasn’t ruled out a permanent return to the Lehigh Valley down the road. Her parents still live in the area, and so does her brother, a detective with the Easton Police Department. “They’re all still in Easton, just waiting for me to come back,” Price laughs.
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Published as “Insight” in the September 2024 edition of Lehigh Valley Style magazine.
