Jimenez Finds Way as Top-Notch Runner

Nicole Jimenez might not be the best person to take along on a hike. After all, Glendale College’s top distance runner has been known to struggle finding her way around cross-country courses.

In the Vaqueros’ first race of the season, Jimenez, 18, was leading the field in the Moorpark Invitational. With a 200-meter lead and a half-mile left, victory appeared hers.

Then she took a wrong turn.

After trimming about a quarter-mile off the course, Jimenez finished even farther ahead. But, of course, she was disqualified.

Jimenez wasn’t trying to gain an unfair advantage, she had simply gone astray.

Last year, as a senior at Burbank High, Jimenez got lost twice--once at Griffith Park, the Bulldogs’ home course.

Jimenez says that the course had been revised that day because a commercial was being filmed, but her teammates at Glendale remain skeptical about her navigational skills.

“It’s a big joke on our team,” Jimenez said. “When we jog a course before the race, even though it’s clearly marked, everybody still says, ‘Now here you’re supposed to turn right. Here you go straight. See those lines? Follow those lines.’ They think its pretty funny.”

Early in her racing career, Jimenez stuck to the straightaways. She was a track sprinter, following in the footsteps of her father Henry, who reached the finals in the 100 and 200-meter dashes in the 1954 Asian Games in Hong Kong, and her brother, Gabe, 19, Burbank’s school-record holder in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles and the Bulldogs’ career rushing leader in football.

“She’s a distance runner with a sprinter’s mentality,” said Ed Lopez, who has coached Jimenez at both Glendale and Burbank. “She likes when we do 200-meter intervals on the track but hates when we do anything longer. I think it runs in the family.”

Lopez persuaded Jimenez to give cross-country a try during her sophomore year in high school. But she gave in only grudgingly.

“He had me run seven miles in the hills at Griffith Park my first day of practice,” Jimenez recalled. “Those trails just seemed to go on forever. I was so sore after that day that I didn’t show up again for a week.”

In her first year, Jimenez showed up the competition, placing fifth in the Foothill League cross-country meet. In track, she was league champion in the 1,600 meters with a best of 5:15.

After Jimenez’s sophomore season, Lopez left for Glendale. Without her coach, Jimenez became disillusioned with running.

“He’s a great coach and is able to motivate people,” Jimenez said. “When he left, I kind of lost interest in training. There was nobody to run with. The guys were too fast and the girls were too slow. I didn’t really like to work out on my own.”

It showed. Although she was the league champion in cross-country last season, she was unable to improve the 1,600-meter time she ran as a sophomore.

Since she has been reunited with Lopez, Jimenez has regained motivation--and, perhaps more importantly, shed some weight. Jimenez, 5-foot-1, is a trim 100 pounds. In July, before starting to train with Lopez, she was up to 120.

“She just loves junk food,” Lopez said. “She eats it all--Doritos, Nachos, French fries, you name it. Nicole has a tendency to put on weight. I told her if she is going to drink Coke, at least make it a Diet Coke. Now that she has begun to lose that extra weight, it’s beginning to show up in her times. She’s running faster every week.”

Jimenez, who had never run more than 30 miles a week in high school, now runs 45 miles a week.

“She was real dedicated over the summer and kept her mileage up,” Lopez said. “I bring in running magazines for her to look at and show her runners who are putting in 80 to 90 miles a week. She’s been only running for three years and her potential is still untapped. There’s an enormous amount of room for improvement.”

Although cross-country season isn’t completed, Jimenez is already looking forward to track.

“She told me she wants to break the 5,000-meter record,” Lopez said. “I think she’s capable. She’s already run faster than that in cross-country.” At the Irvine Invitational, Jimenez placed second overall in 18:56 for 3.26 miles.

Lopez foresees no problem in Jimenez qualifying for the state meet Nov. 18 at Woodward Park in Fresno. Jimenez must place among the top 35 in the Southern California Championships Nov. 11 at Mt. San Antonio College to advance. She will take her first step toward the state meet in the Western State Conference finals Friday at Cuesta.

Jiminez’s most impressive finish so far was third in the small-college division in the Mt. SAC Invitational last month. Lopez believes that the competition at Mt. SAC was probably tougher than Jimenez will encounter in the state meet because of top out-of-state teams that competed in addition to those from California.

“She has a lot of speed and it helped on the downhills,” Lopez said, “but she doesn’t have much strength yet. She just got put away in the hills.”

Nevertheless, Jimenez was timed in 19:15 over the challenging three-mile course--almost 90 seconds faster than the year before. “I was kind of scared,” she said. “I’m not much of a hill runner, but I was still very happy with the time. I couldn’t believe how fast I ran. I thought I must have gone the wrong way.”