Tara Chaplin, BYU take women's titles

By Parker Morse

Distance running spectators have come to expect only two things of front-runners. Either they succeed in stealing the race, breaking away to solo victory like Joan Benoit in the 1984 Olympic Marathon, or they are devoured by the pack and finish well back in the field, done in by their own eagerness. The former are vastly outnumbered by the latter.

Tara Chaplin has contributed to both counts many times in her career. As a high school star at U-32 in Montpelier, Vermont, the tiny Chaplin ran staggering mileage totals and developed a strategy of going out hard, hoping to burn out her rivals. Pretty often, that worked, and it kept working at Arizona, as Chaplin and her coach tried to balance his program (lots of speedwork) with her program (lots of mileage). In October, Chaplin won the Murray Keatinge Invitational at the University of Maine in the first mile, cruised home at essentially the same pace, then headed out on a cooldown that lasted long past the end of the men's race, over an hour later.

The question remained whether going out fast would be wise on the undulating Furman University golf course. Arkansas men's coach John McDonnell sat in a press conference on Sunday and stated that his team went out too fast for the course in 1997, and consequently lost the title to Stanford. Shalane Flanagan, the co-course record holder from UNC and one of the favorites, said that anybody who wanted to run the first mile in 5:20 or faster could do it without her.

But if you've got a strategy you're comfortable with, you may as well stick to it. And off went Chaplin, tearing off a 5:10 opening mile, building a ten-second gap on the field, and looking for all the world like a scared rabbit in front of a pack of dogs.

Behind her, a shifting cast of predators waited for her to come back. Three Arkansas women (Penny Splichal, Christin Wurth, and Andriena Byrd) were in the top five a minute and a half into the race; McDonnell's hard-earned lesson of 1997 hadn't made it to the women's team. They gave way to a pack including Flanagan, South regional champion Renee Metivier of Georgia Tech, outdoor 5,000m champion Lauren Fleshman of Stanford, Northeast regional champion Maggie Guiney of Boston College, Kristin Price of NC State, Molly Austin of Colorado, and Michaela Manova of BYU, among many others.

Tara held out longer than most early burners. Past two miles, twelve minutes into the race, the pursuit had dwindled to Flanagan, Guiney, Price, Metivier and Fleshman, and Flanagan was actively surging to break up even that group. Chaplin's lead had dwindled to a few scant seconds. Finally Flanagan blew by, and the toughest part of Chaplin's race began: hanging on. Passing is as much mental as physical; you not only move in front of the other athlete, but you offer them what appears to be concrete evidence that you're better than them. It takes tremendous concentration to remember that the race is won at the finish line. Fleshman, shaken off by Flanagan's rapid gear changes, was dragging Metivier up to pass as well. Tara had to limit the damage, and soon.

Flanagan had problems of her own, by then. After an undefeated season and a fast race on this very course, she was as close as any woman to being the favorite to win this race. Before this season, however, she had been building a reputation as the best runner not to win a big race. Twice in high school she crashed out of qualifying for the Foot Locker nationals, depriving that race of a strong contender. In March of 2001 she led qualifying for the indoor mile, but lost at Nationals while trying to also deliver a DMR win for her team. In June she fell twice in a slow, physical outdoor Nationals 1,500m final which she was also among the favorites. Today she came to the line anxious, tense, and consequently tired. Now, in the lead, this all came to a head, and she couldn't keep going. She slowed to a walk on the hills where she'd hoped to break the field, and Chaplin, who had been holding out for a strong downhill, shot past.

Back in the lead, Chaplin appeared re-energized. This was the race she wanted: in front and in control late in the race. Suddenly it was as though she had never been passed. She tore in to the finish line two seconds under the course record that had been co-held by Flanagan and Sabrina Monro. Metivier, after sticking to the head of the pack for miles, came in seven seconds later, surprising some but finishing right where she thought she could be. Then came Fleshman and Price, the remains of the chase pack, and a staggering top-three finish for BYU: Manova in fifth, Jessie Kindschi in seventh, and Tara Northcutt in ninth.

BYU was expected to win last year, but last year's team froze on the Iowa tundra and couldn't place their pack high enough to outscore Colorado. This year, coach Patrick Shane tried a different tack. He allowed Czech sophomore Manova to go out and run her own race, then sent the rest of the team off to hang on to Manova.

Shane didn't expect to be ready to re-take the NCAA title on the same course he'd won on in 1997. After graduating a large part of last year's team, he figured he'd be rebuilding. But "somehow the little suckers keep coming up and running fast," he said on Sunday. The gifts of Manova (transferred from the University of New Orleans) and Kindschi (transferred from Division II South Dakota State) were crucial, bolstered by former outdoor 10,000m champion Northcutt and Nationals vets Lindsey Thomsen and Nan Evans. On Monday BYU brought in seven women before any other school could finish four, and like a proud father, Shane declared that all seven had run PRs.

Certainly training at altitude helps the BYU team, but they also radiate a family feeling no other team can match. It comes from more than just their real families (three runners are married, and Thomsen has a year-old son; Shane observes that those numbers are "down from last year.") Shane may have perfected a hands-off I-just-drive-the-van schtick, but he has learned to train his athletes' attitudes as carefully as their conditioning. The intense Stanford team wrote their teammates' names on their hands for a 2.5 mile "gut check;" the BYU women sported big smiley faces on their hands. BYU's Sunday-before-Nationals ritual includes multiple hours in church and an evening "team devotional." "It reminds us each that I still have parents and teammates, about what I am doing, have been doing, and am going to do," said Northcutt. But the team feels less like a church choir than a cabin from summer camp. With Shane as the counselor who everyone teases because they trust him so much. When Shane diverted a question about team strategy to Northcutt - the only senior of the seven - she chirped with a straight face, "Rule number one: stay on your feet. But," she continued as she glared mockingly down the table, "Somebody broke that one."

The pressure of being the favorites rolled off their backs just as easily during the race. As the race sorted out following the melee of the start, they found Manova, moved up, hung on. Their top five were separated by only thirty seconds at the finish; all seven, by fifty-two. No other team came under a minute for their top five. Second-place NC State's scoring five spread out over a full minute and a half.

In 1997, Shane promised his team he would shave his mustache if they won. This year, the now-clean-shaven coach said, "I learned my lesson. No promises this time."

"I don't know," cautioned Northcutt. "We've got some blue hair dye in the van."