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EliteRunning.com Athlete Features
Athlete features from EliteRunning.com.
- Interview with Christine Babcock
Heading into the 2008 track season, Christine Babcock was already an incredibly successful runner with two Division II California state cross country titles and two California state 1,600 meter titles under her belt. Because she had opted not to participate in post-season events such as the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships and Nike Outdoor Nationals, she was mostly known inside of California, and nationally among those who followed high school running relatively closely. Her performances in the 2008 season, however, have been virtually impossible to miss. On May 31st, Babcock made national headlines when she set a new national high school federation record of 4:33.82 in the 1,600 while winning her third-straight California state title. Among high school runners, only Polly Plummer's high school mile record of 4:35.24 from 1982 is considered to be superior, and only by a couple tenths of a second.
On June 15th, Babcock added the national high school federation record in the 1,500 to her resume, running 4:16.42 and breaking Kim Gallagher's 26-year-old record. The record was mostly an afterthought; Babcock was focusing on qualifying for the U.S. Olympic Trials, which she successfully did. She will line up against the U.S.'s best professional and collegiate runners in the quarterfinals of the 1,500 at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon on July 3rd.
Babcock, who turned 18 on May 19th, graduated from Woodbridge High School in Irvine, California on June 16th. She is coached by George Varvas, but will soon take her talents to the University of Washington.
Babcock is not the only fast runner in her family. Her mother, the former Kelly Spatz, finished 24th at the 1984 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in 2:38:45, and she still holds Michigan State's outdoor mile record of 4:49.56. Babcock's sister, Jessie, ran 5:02 and 10:41 for Woodbridge High School and now runs for Penn State. Babcock's father, Dan, is also a runner.
We caught up with Babcock by phone two days after her high school graduation.
- Interview with Tera Moody
Though she did not make the Olympic team, Tera Moody pulled off what was probably the biggest upset of the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials — Women's Marathon with her fifth-place finish on April 20th in Boston. Her time of 2:33:54 was a PR by 12 minutes and 46 seconds. Looking back on Moody's running resume and recent accomplishments, along with the circumstances of her previous marathon PR, her success at the Trials is less surprising. However, it's quite understandable that most people didn't pick the woman with the 152nd-fastest seed time going into the race to place fifth.
Moody was a top runner for St. Charles East High School (IL), where she finished sixth, fourth, second, and 12th, respectively, at the state cross country championships during her four years of high school. When she finished 12th as a senior (while battling anemia), the runners in front of her included now-professional runners Ann Gaffigan, Christin Wurth, Victoria Jackson, and Delilah DiCrescenzo. On the track, Moody was a two-time state champion in the mile, and ran a best of 4:52 for that distance.
Moody then went on to become a solid performer for the University of Colorado. She was a four-time top-five scorer for the CU team at the NCAA Cross Country Championships, including 2000, when she was the fifth runner for their national championship winning team. Moody won the Pac-10 10,000m title as a freshman, but running on a team with a handful of individual NCAA champions, she was overshadowed a bit.
Now 27, Moody still resides in Boulder and competes for the Boulder Running Company/adidas Women's Racing Team, and is coached by Art Siemers. Her 2:46:40 PR (in her third attempt at the distance) at the 2007 Chicago Marathon may have only put her under the Trials qualifying standard by 20 seconds, but the time should come with an asterisk, because she ran that time in a race where the temperature was approximately 90 degrees, and the course was eventually shut down due to the conditions. More indicative of her performance that day was her place in the women's field—ninth. In January, she followed her Chicago performance up with a seventh-place finish at the USA Half Marathon Championships in Houston, running a PR of 1:13:05. In March, Moody finished sixth in the USA 15k Championships in Jacksonville, Florida, in 52:35.
- Interview with Jen Toomey
Despite showing some talent in high school, Jen Toomey did not take up serious competitive running until the late 1990s, when she more or less found immediate success. She gradually improved until her breakthrough year in 2004, when she set an American Record in the indoor 1,000m (2:34.19) and won the USA Indoor 800 and 1,500m titles before going on to finish fourth in the 800 at the 2004 IAAF World Indoor Track & Field Championships. Unfortunately, a fall during the latter meet set off a series of injuries that have set her back in recent years. Despite struggling with those injuries, Toomey finished second in the 1,500 at the 2004 Olympic Trials (but didn't make the Olympic team because neither she nor the race winner, Carrie Tollefson, was able to meet the "A" standard of 4:05.80). She followed that up with a 1,500 win at the 2005 USA Indoor Track & Field Championships.
Toomey recently returned to working with the coach, Tom McDermott, who helped her find so much success in 2004. She has also returned to racing again and shortly after turning 36 in December, she ran 2:04.71 (800m) and 4:34.83 (mile). Toomey, whose maiden name is Lincoln, holds lifetime bests of 1:59.64 (indoor 800m) and 4:06.24 (1,500m). Toomey lives with her husband, Mike, in Salem, Massachusetts.
- Interview with Julie Culley
Julie Culley is a 2004 graduate of Rutgers University, where she was an All-American cross country runner, thanks to a 32nd place finish at the 2002 NCAA Cross Country Championships. More recently, she finished second at the 2007 USATF National Club Cross Country Championships, two seconds behind winner Delilah DiCrescenzo. Culley holds PRs of 2:10 (800m), 4:17.5 (1,500m), and 16:00.5 (5,000m). She is originally from North Hunterdon, New Jersey, and currently lives and trains in Virginia.
- Interview with Nicole Bush
Nicole Bush of Michigan State made a 95-place leap from 101st at the 2006 NCAA Cross Country Championships to fifth at the 2007 edition of the meet, held on November 19th in Terre Haute, Indiana. In the process, she led her team to fifth-place finish, Michigan State's highest since 1981. Bush's NCAA success was just the continuation of a great fall, during which she finished second to Iowa's Diane Nukuri at the Big Ten Cross Country Championships on October 28th, and second to Michigan's Nicole Edwards at the NCAA Great Lakes Regional on November 10th.
Though this was Bush's first All-America honor in cross country, she was already a two-time All-American on the track after finishing fifth in the steeplechase at the 2006 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships and sixth in 2007. The 9:56.68 steeple she ran last spring has already qualified her for the Olympic Trials, which will be held in Eugene, Oregon in late June and early July.
A native of Wyoming, Michigan, Bush was a 10-time state champion for Kelloggsville High School. In 2002, as a high school junior, she finished ninth at the Foot Locker Midwest Regional and missed qualifying for the prestigious national meet by two seconds. She won three Division 3 state cross country titles, beginning her freshman year, before finishing 237th—second from last—at the state meet as a senior, due to an undetected case of anemia. She set high school PRs of 4:53 (1,600) and 10:51 (3,200).
Now a senior at Michigan State, Bush, age 21, has one indoor, one outdoor, and one cross country season remaining in her NCAA eligibility. We caught up with her via e-mail.
- Michelle Gallagher qualifies for Olympic Trials in debut marathon
- Interview with Susan Kuijken
Florida State's Susan Kuijken surprised some with her early-season success, but based on the season she's had thus far, no one should be surprised if she runs well at the NCAA Cross Country Championships on Monday. A native of the Netherlands, Kuijken arrived at Florida State during the spring semester in 2006. Since then, she has earned All-America honors in cross country (with a 27th place finish at last year's NCAA Championships) and track. Her runner-up 4:11.34 finish in the 1,500 at the 2007 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships was a collegiate breakthrough for Kuijken, and she has carried that momentum into the 2007 cross country season.