The 22-year-old anatomy student admitted to feeling something of an imposter earlier this summer.
On the second weekend of the track and field season she ran an 11.68sec 100m, the second-fastest time in the country and a 0.39sec personal-best.
Since then, she has proven that was no fluke. She has now broken 12sec 12 times in the 100m, as well as breaking 24sec in the 200m four times.
The fastest of those 200m times was 23.59sec, which broke a 20-year-old Otago senior women’s record.
Those times propelled her into the New Zealand women’s 4x100m relay team. That team broke the national record, Elliott running the final leg at the Canberra as the team finished in 44.20sec to edge Australia.
On Sunday night, she finished fourth, behind three Australians, in the 200m at the Sir Graeme Douglas International in Auckland. However, she beat New Zealand champion Zoe Hobbs for the first time, another show of her class.
That is an impressive list, even more so considering she only returned to athletics 14 months ago after several years off.
She joined Brent Ward’s sprint squad in January last year and the results have been outstanding.
"My first proper season back, it’s been really good," she said.
"It’s definitely exceeded my own expectations of where I would be, sort of thinking I’d pick it up as a hobby.
"It doesn’t really feel like a hobby now."
She no longer felt out of place running against the country’s top sprinters.
Despite that, she had still been "shocked" to be calle dinto the national relay team.
She joined Hobbs, Georgia Hulls and Livvy Wilson and is enjoying running with that group.
However, she did feel a little pressure not to mess up the baton changes, being the new girl in the team.
"Luckily, they’ve put me in positions where I’m only doing one change, so that kind of minimises the risk factor.
"The first time I ran with them I was passing into Zoe Hobbs, which was quite scary because she’s pretty quick.
"If you don’t catch her, you’re really not going to catch her. There’s no coming back if you’re going into it slowly.
"I’ve been put in fourth now which I feel a lot more comfortable doing."
Despite all the success, Elliott knew she had big improvements to make. Bend running had been a issue, both in starting on the bend and running around it.
Knowing there was extra speed there was encouraging, particularly given the times she was already running.
The Capital Classic beckons this weekend, before the national championships in Christchurch — her home town — the week after.
