Miles and Miles to Go
May 20, 2010 02:35 AM | General
May 20, 2010
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Do you remember back in the day the first time your gym teacher asked you to run the mile?
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| Jessica O'Connell, Keri Bland, Kaylyn Christopher and Karly Hamric will be competing in the 1,500 at NCAA Regionals in Greensboro, N.C., next week.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
Or those hot summer afternoons in August when running the mile was the only way your nutty football coach would let the day end? Or the basketball coach who wouldn't start practice until everyone finished their fourth lap around the track in less than six minutes? Or the soccer coach who … well, you get the picture.
Practically everyone has run a mile sometime in their lives - even the fat, bald guy with leather lungs sitting at the end of the bar sucking down cigarettes and sipping beer between coughs and wheezes. If you have a pulse and even casually follow sports you know about Roger Bannister becoming the first human to ever run a sub-four-minute mile in 1954.
The mile has always been one of track's most glamorous events, its appeal coming from a combination of endurance, speed, patience and tactics unmatched in the sport. The length of the race (roughly five minutes) is also perfect for our attention span - just long enough to cover the subject but short enough to still keep it interesting.
"You have to be strong. You have to be fast. And you have to be strong and fast at the same time," is how West Virginia's Keri Bland explains racing the mile. "Even the 5 and 10Ks, most of them come down to the good milers."
Bland is one of four terrific milers coach Sean Cleary has performing for the Mountaineers this spring. Bland (ranked seventh in the country in the 1,500 - for whatever reason the race is 109 meters shorter during outdoor season), Karly Hamric (ninth) and Jessica O'Connell (25th), along with sophomore Kaylyn Christopher, will each be competing at next week's NCAA East Regionals in Greensboro, N.C.
That Cleary has been able to transform West Virginia University into one of the premier distance programs in the U.S. is not as surprising as where he's getting the majority of his best runners from. That's right, Almost Heaven.
The state's last five 800-meter champions - Allison Spiker, Hamric, Bland and Christopher all wound up at WVU. Bland, Hamric and Christopher are one, three and five on the school's all-time list of top milers.
Senior Clara Grandt, who finished fourth in the 10K at last year's NCAA outdoor championships, hails from Doddridge County. Multi-event indoor All-American Chelsea Carrier (redshirting the outdoor season) is from Buckhannon. In fact, 34 of the 55 runners listed on this year's track roster are from West Virginia.
And that doesn't even account for local runners Ari Kasprowicz (Syracuse), Amber Riley (Auburn) and Claire Berryman (Penn State) that chose to go elsewhere.
If you don't think that's a big deal then just ask Bill Stewart or Bob Huggins how much easier their lives would be if they could get more than half their roster from right here in West Virginia.
"I'm really proud that the majority of our team is from West Virginia," said Hamric, a Preston County native. "It's not just that we're filling spots on the roster, but we're actually major contributors."
You have to go all the way back to the 1950s when West Virginia was churning out college basketball players like sausages to find something similar to what is happening right now with girls track in the state. Cleary admits the prep coaching, particularly in the immediate area, is exceptional and that's a big reason for the big surge in college-caliber runners.
"Morgantown is a running town," he says.
But there is more to it than just that. Long-time WVU track coach Marty Pushkin, back helping Cleary with the Mountaineer sprinters and hurdlers on a volunteer basis, has another explanation.
"These West Virginia kids are tough," he said. "Nothing ever bothers them."
Take Bland for instance. She has been running on a bum foot for more than a year now.
"I am kind of used to dealing with it now," she shrugged. "When I stop running it hurts a lot or when I wake up in the morning and I haven't used it. I kind of stretch it out and ice it, but there's not really much I can do about it until this summer."
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| Karly Hamric won the Big East outdoor 1,500 two weeks ago.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
And Hamric showed how tough she is a few weeks ago by winning her first Big East 1,500-meter title in stunning, come-from-behind fashion. Cleary said watching Hamric do a Lightning McQueen and pass the entire field in the last 400 meters was one of the highlights of his 18-year coaching career.
Hamric's old high school rival Bland was equally impressed.
"I was watching it from the fence because I had to run the 800 right after her," Bland said. "Karly sat almost the entire race. She was in the back and I thought, oh no, she's trapped inside. They were running slower than a five-minute pace and she popped out with 400 meters to go on the outside and she just went. It was crazy how big the gap was from first to where Karly was, and she caught her. It was amazing."
"I guess we just like to win," Hamric says.
A crooked smile forms on Keri's face when she recalls her old high school battles with Karly.
"We were both 800-meter runners in high school and my sophomore year we raced each other and she won and I got second," Bland said. "The next year - my junior year and her senior year - I won and she got second. Both times it was a fight until the end."
Bland is one of those diamond-in-the-roughs that can make coaches look like geniuses. She went from training on a cinder track in high school to becoming a seven-time All-American and a U.S. Olympic trials participant.
"The track that I raced most of my races on was square," laughed Bland. "It was like four corners."
Because Bland was far and away the best runner at North Marion High School, she was usually asked to pull her oars much harder than the rest of the team in order to win meets.
"I ran four races every track meet and we ran two track meets a week," Bland said. "My four races added up to like four miles. I ran four miles worth of races twice a week for an entire track season."
Christopher was asked to do similar things at Preston High School. Kaylyn is probably the most acclaimed female track and field performer the state has ever produced. She is the first high school girl in state history to run a sub-five-minute mile while winning state titles in three different individual events (800, 1,600 and 3,200) during her prep career (WVU assistant coach Jenn Davis was the first West Virginian to break the five-minute mile barrier in 2002). Kaylyn also owns the state records in those three events.
"I was recruited by many, many Division I schools," Christopher said. "For me coming out of high school, I had all of the confidence in the world."
But when she came to West Virginia she quickly realized that the other college girls have fast kicks, too.
"There have been results that I didn't quite expect or wasn't thrilled with, but that's how you learn and grow as a runner," Christopher said.
Canadian Jessica O'Connell, West Virginia's other national-class miler, came to WVU with her eyes wide open after spending a year at the University of Calgary.
"I've never really had training partners like I've had this year," she said. "It's neat to be able to work together in practice and then in the races we know we're all similar. It's fun to have that support."
It can also be stressful. Because the training is so intense and competitive, having a subpar workout can be an embarrassing experience.
"They are training partners that are your friends, but they push you in workouts to get the most out of you athletically," Christopher noted.
O'Connell and Christopher really emerged during the indoor season. The duo teamed up on the distance medley relay that placed eighth at nationals while also qualifying in individual events - Christopher in the mile and O'Connell in the 3,000.
"Coming off the indoor season was probably a really big season for me," Christopher said. "That was kind of an eye opener and made me realize that I do belong at this level and I can compete with the best."
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| Keri Bland is ranked seventh in the nation in the 1,500 with a time of 4:14.52.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
While O'Connell and Christopher are the future of the program, Bland and Hamric are its present. Karly graduated last weekend with a degree in civil engineering, her eligibility expiring after the outdoor season. Bland has one more year remaining.
"If I don't make it past next weekend then it's pretty much it for college running," said Hamric. "I don't want it to end any sooner than I have to."
Hamric and Bland are both within five seconds of the nation's No. 1 ranked runner, Kate Follett of Washington (4:10.66). Bland got her top time (4:14.52) just recently after spending the majority of the outdoor season running the 800. Hamric is also running her fastest times of late. With Bland and Hamric, West Virginia is the only program in the country with two top-10 performers in the 1,500.
Forty eight runners will participate in the event in Greensboro with 12 eventually moving on to the NCAA finals in Eugene, Ore., June 9-12. Bland doesn't care how she gets to Oregon - she just wants to be there. And that means she will likely dictate the tempo of the race if she has to.
"I'm a frontrunner," she admitted.
Bland knows the big races are typically slower and more tactical so that means she will have to fight for position at the beginning and make the right choices at the end.
"I can sit but I won't enjoy it," Bland said. "I'd rather just go. I just want to go and not mess around."
As for Karly, she will likely sit back and react to the field.
"You have to think about how you are going to make your move and when you are going to make it," Hamric said.
The 400-meter mark is usually when Hamric takes off. Bland says 200 meters remaining is when she likes to hit the gas pedal.
"If I am beside someone in the last 200 meters and I am feeling good then they are going to have to hurt themselves to try and pass me," she says with a devilish grin. "I'm pretty confident with my last 200 meters."
Tough girls these West Virginians, aren't they?
