SURE-FOOTED : Arreola Strides Confidently in Middle Distances and Her Personal Life

It was a gift from her grandparents when Darcy Arreola was a junior in high school.

And the “Born to Run” necklace that the Cal State Northridge junior wears describes her now--she is one of the nation’s finest young middle-distance runners--as accurately as it did in 1986 when she won the state high school title in the 1,600 meters and was ranked second in that event in Track and Field News’ national high school rankings.

While running is still Arreola’s top priority, her reasons for competing have changed since high school.

Running served as an escape for Arreola then. Enjoyment and satisfaction keep her going now.

“I liked going out there and running every day by myself, because at my house there were four kids,” said Arreola, who will run in the semifinals of the 1,500 meters in The Athletics Congress track and field championships tonight at the University of Houston. “I shared a room with two sisters and I never had any time to myself. I think I liked running so much because it allowed me some time to be with myself.”

These days, Arreola, 20, spends much of her time with her boyfriend, Dan Lange, who won the hammer throw for Northridge in the 1987 and ’88 California Collegiate Athletic Assn. championships.

“Before, running was all I had,” said Arreola, who placed third in the 1,500 in the NCAA Division I championships two weeks ago. “But now, I have a serious boyfriend and that’s helped me to relax. There’s more to my life than just running. . . . I still want to win as badly as before, but I have something else, which makes it more fun.”

Her athletic success also has helped transform Arreola from a painfully shy girl into a fairly gregarious woman.

Arreola wouldn’t talk to her teachers in elementary and junior high school, and she was “terrified” when reporters interviewed her in high school. Now she smiles and laughs when interviewed.

“They used to tell me in high school that I was the worst interview,” said Arreola, who has earned eight NCAA Division II All-American certificates in track and cross-country. “I was so afraid of talking to reporters back then. It was scary. Now, it’s a lot easier because I’m used to talking to people.

“That’s what got me over my fear. I was forced to talk to people. I couldn’t just walk away.”

Lange, 24, has noticed a big change in Darcy’s personality since he was introduced to her in 1987.

“She was just a very shy, little girl when I met her,” Lange said. “It took me about a year to get to know her before I asked her out. . . . She just has a lot more confidence now in herself and her ability to express her feelings. She’s better at communicating with people and it’s helped her confidence.”

Arreola attributes some of her childhood shyness to a family tragedy. Her mother was killed when she was 3 years old, after which she, her two sisters and brother were raised by her grandfather, Fernando Arreola, and his second wife, Diane.

“She was known as the little girl who didn’t speak to anyone,” Diane Arreola said. “She was the little shy one of the family. Her brother and sisters were much more outgoing than she was.”

Said Darcy: “Although I don’t remember anything, it had to have affected me. Perhaps me worse than my brother and sisters. If I saw a 3-year-old kid suddenly put in a new home--a completely different environment--I would expect it to have an effect on that kid.”

Arreola’s older brother Paul introduced her to running when she was in elementary school. After she graduated from junior high in 1982, he agreed to buy her running shoes and clothing if she continued in high school. He also promised to continue a tradition of buying her doughnuts after she won races.

“I did pretty well when I was a little kid,” Arreola said. “Although I never trained. I just ran the races and whenever I won, I got my doughnuts, and thought, ‘cool.’ ”

After being ineligible her freshman year at La Mesa Grossmont High because she lived in the district of another high school, Arreola became serious about running in her sophomore season after winning the 800 meters in 2 minutes, 13 seconds at the Grossmont League finals, and, a few weeks later, the San Diego Section 800 title in 2:16.

“It was a big surprise,” she said. “But it made me think, ‘Hey, I could be good if I started training more.’ ”

After training diligently in the summer of 1984, Arreola reaped the benefits in her junior season, winning section titles in cross-country and in the 1,600. She placed second in the 800 and third in the 1,600 at the state championships and ran bests of 2:09.06 in the 800, 4:38.6 in the 1,500 and 4:56.43 in the 1,600.

As a senior, she successfully defended her section cross-country and 1,600 titles, ran 4:23.9 in the 1,500 and 4:42.77 to win the 1,600 in the state championships.

She intended to run for San Diego State that fall but was informed on a recruiting trip to Arizona that she had failed to meet Proposition 48 requirements in core curriculum classes, having completed only 1 1/2 years of science classes when two were required.

“I had never heard of Proposition 48 until then,” Arreola said. “My counselors didn’t know what it was and neither did my coaches.”

Having been mistakenly told that she couldn’t make up the required units in summer school, Arreola considered going to Grossmont College before Division II schools Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Northridge entered the picture. She initially favored San Luis Obispo over CSUN, but when Northridge Coach Don Strametz expressed more interest in her than Mustang Coach Lance Harter, she became a Matador.

Harter’s loss was Strametz’s gain. It enable him to work with a Division I-caliber athlete at a Division II school. But he has been wary of abusing the privilege.

“If anything, she is undertrained,” Strametz said. “Judging by what I have seen and what I have read, her best years are way down the line. She’s not going to run her best times until she’s in her late twenties. . . . My goal is to have her graduate from here with a healthy body so that she’s capable of doing that.”

Arreola had a superb freshman season, placing 11th in the Division II cross-country championships in Riverside, running 2:05.73 in the 800 and 4:15.35 in the 1,500, and finishing second in both events at the Division II meet in Cape Girardeau, Mo. She concluded her season with a 10th-place finish in the 1,500 at the TAC meet in San Jose.

Her progress has been painstakingly slow since then, however.

Although she won Division II titles in both the 1,500 and 3,000--in which she has a personal best of 9:13.2--in San Angelo, Tex., as a sophomore, Arreola failed for the first time to lower her 1,500 best (running 4:15.39) during the season.

“It was frustrating,” she said. “Because I had always improved a lot each season until then. . . . I was in shape to run a lot faster than I did last year.”

According to Strametz, Arreola had a legitimate shot at nabbing the third and final place on the 1988 U. S. Olympic team, but she ran poorly in the trials in Indianapolis--finishing 11th in a semifinal (4:18.48)--and failed to qualify for the final.

“She was in 4:05 or 4:06 shape,” Strametz said. “But she just didn’t run well. It was the end of a long year. It had been 10 1/2 months with no breaks since she started the cross-country season. And she was scared. She felt that she didn’t belong at that level.”

Arreola concurred with her coach, saying that she was confident of running well at the trials until she stepped to the starting line in her qualifying heat.

“I was just like, ‘No way, these girls are just way better than me,’ ” said Arreola, who won the 3,000 and placed second in the 1,500 (personal best of 4:14.15) in last month’s Division II meet in Hampton, Va. “I didn’t feel like I belonged there. . . . Looking back, it was stupid. I had as much right to be there as anyone.”

Strametz hopes that the experience of last year’s trials and this year’s Division I and II meets has taught Arreola a lesson.

“She is very conscious of splits and at times that’s caused some problems,” Strametz said. “She always wants to run fast. She needs to worry less about certain times and more about just competing. She competed at the Division II meet and she ran a (personal record), even though she probably didn’t expect to. She competed at the Division I meet and although she died in the last 300, she competed. “

Ah, yes, the last 300 meters of a race, the bane of Arreola’s racing career at Northridge.

Never the strong point of her race, her kick was particularly weak in the Division I meet, which was held in the rarefied air at Brigham Young University, 4,549 feet above sea level.

Running stride for stride with Wisconsin junior Suzy Favor at the 1,200-meter mark, Arreola watched helplessly as Favor (4:15.83) surged away in the final 300 meters, and as Rosalind Taylor (4:21.97) of Maryland swooped past her in the final 10 meters of the race.

“I was really into that race mentally, but I just slowed down so much in the last lap,” said Arreola (4:22.40), who ran a 58.4 final 300 after averaging 68 seconds per 400 for the first three laps. “With a lap to go, I was thinking, ‘relax, relax.’ I was feeling so good--and it felt so easy--that I was thinking, ‘I can win this.’ But when she took off, I just tensed up and started to slow down. When (Taylor) passed me, I just thought, ‘OK, come on, where are the rest?’ ”

Strametz attributed Arreola’s demise to the altitude. He said that many of the runners--such as Favor--had been in Provo for two weeks prior to the meet, which allowed them to become better acclimated to the elevation than Arreola, who flew into town a day before she ran in the semifinals.

“With a 300 to go, it looked like someone had erected a brick wall in lane 1 1/2 and she hit it and Favor went through on the inside,” he said.

Altitude notwithstanding, Arreola learned from that race that she must improve her upper body strength to become one of the nation’s top runners. “Stram told me that in the past,” Arreola said, “and I know he’s right now. I mean, you look at the other girls and I look a lot weaker than them.”

Strametz said that the 5-foot-6, 108-pound Arreola needs to increase her workout weight in the bench press from 90 pounds to 120.

Serious weightlifting will have to come later in the year, however, as Arreola could be racing in late August if things go well this weekend. If she places among the top two collegians at TAC, she will qualify for the World University Games in Duisburg, West Germany, Aug. 22-30.

“I just want her to compete this week,” Strametz said. “If she competes, I think we’re both going to come back with big smiles.”

Characteristically, Arreola is looking for a fast time.

“I think I’m in shape to run under 4:10, but I could live with a 4:11,” she said, laughing. “Four-fourteen is just not doing it.”