Family Ties Rate as Personal Best : Track: Diane Topp is not the typical Canyon High distance runner. She also is the mother of a 16-month-old son.

Excuse Diane Topp if she runs for fun, not for records.

She knows all about dedication and responsibility, and she does her best for good old Canyon High, but the track team runs a distant second in her life.

Micheal, Topp’s 16-month-old son, comes first.

There he is toddling along the track holding a bottle of formula while Diane, a senior who turned 18 two weeks ago, readies for the two-mile run at the Birmingham Invitational in Van Nuys. Diane’s mother, Kathy, and several eager volunteers among Topp’s teammates look after Micheal for the 13 minutes 29 seconds it takes Diane to complete the race.

The effort is a personal best for Topp, but she has little time for celebration. After catching her breath, she scoops up Micheal, deftly patting his diaper to make sure it’s dry. She lets out an easy laugh and taps Micheal on the nose.

Later, when her teammates are doing homework or getting together at a nearby frozen yogurt shop, Topp is holding her son, reciting the alphabet in a singsong.

During her freshman and sophomore years, fatigue would occasionally cause Topp to quit in the middle of a race. What the heck, she would think, it’s not life or death. With Micheal, she knows she must go the distance. A life, indeed, depends on her commitment.

“I will always be there for him,” Topp said.

Pregnancy interrupted what had been an otherwise typical high school experience late in Topp’s sophomore year. Micheal’s father, who was 19, skipped town days after Diane told him that she was expecting. She hasn’t heard from him since.

“I don’t know where he is and I don’t want to know,” Topp said. “We were totally different people with different values.”

Shortly after becoming pregnant, Topp began dating Paul Summeril, a 1989 Canyon graduate. He was with her the night of her delivery and has been by her side ever since.

“For a kid that age, Paul has been so great. To stand behind Diane like that. . . ,” Kathy Topp said.

Summeril, 19, works the graveyard shift at a supermarket but attends as many of Topp’s track meets as he can. He admires the way she kept her running career on track.

“She sticks with her goals no matter what,” he said. “She’s a mother and all but that doesn’t mean she has to give up her dreams. After she had Micheal, she was hesitant to run again. She felt that being a mother, she was not with the high school crowd anymore.

“I tell her to go for it.”

Summeril’s mother, Cindy, was a teenage mother and has been especially helpful to Topp. Also providing support have been Dave DeLong, the Canyon track coach, and his wife, Lisa.

Teen-age pregnancy often leads to unpleasant consequences. Topp, however, seems stronger for the experience. “Diane has matured tremendously through this,” Dave DeLong said. “I see a determination in her that she didn’t have in the past.”

Topp sets personal bests in the mile and two-mile nearly every time she runs. Her two-mile time Saturday at Birmingham was 44 seconds faster than her previous best, and in the same meet she had a personal best in the mile (6:06).

Topp’s consistent improvement is uncommon for a senior.

“Most girl runners get worse as they get older in terms of competitive spirit,” DeLong said. “Almost every record at high schools is held by freshmen and sophomores. Often, girls gain weight or don’t care as much about running later on.

“Diane hasn’t done that. She is better now than ever, which is remarkable considering . . . “

Considering that she was unable to attend school most of her junior year because of pregnancy and infant care.

Considering that Kathy, Diane and Micheal lived in a one-room, 8-by-32 travel trailer until two months ago.

Considering that Kathy and Diane’s sister, Terianne, 26, were victims in separate automobile accidents involving drunk drivers only weeks after Micheal was born. Kathy has been unable to work since her accident and Terianne nearly lost her left foot.

Sometimes it seemed to Topp that she was stuck on a treadmill.

Micheal represented a ray of hope, however. Rather than being an added burden, his presence helped the family through the series of hardships.

“That little rug rat saved the sanity of a few people,” Kathy Topp said. “When Terianne was in the hospital, he laid on her chest for hours. It’s the only thing she remembers in the days following her accident. And he kept me from going crazy after my accident.”

Fortunes seem to be turning for the Topps. A settlement in Kathy’s accident enabled them to move to a cozy condominium that is only a block away from a quiet park where Micheal can play.

Diane will graduate in June after keeping pace with her classmates through the Learning Post, a program in the Hart Union High School District geared for students who cannot attend regular classes.

“Mom is very proud of this little girl,” Kathy Topp said.

Topp is back in class this year and serves as a teacher’s assistant in DeLong’s math classes. “I’m a slave,” she said with a giggle. “I mean a slave. I do all the little things that he doesn’t want to do.”

DeLong describes her in other ways, using words such as loyalty and determination.

“If I were starting a business, she would be the first person I would hire,” he said. “She’s not like, ‘The world owes me something.’ Her head is held high.

“She isn’t shy or embarrassed about having a child. And when she was pregnant, she went about her daily life.”

Topp revealed her pregnancy to the DeLongs in July, 1988, while in Sweden on a trip with other high school distance runners. She was five months along, but was only beginning to show.

“Rumors had started going around and we all had the feeling she was pregnant,” recalled Lisa DeLong, who was pregnant herself at the time. “Another girl came to me and said that Diane needed to talk. I went to her hotel room and she just hugged me and said she was scared.

“I encouraged her to tell her mom and agreed with her that she should keep the baby.”

The DeLongs continue to aid Topp. Lisa gives Diane clothes that her own son has outgrown and Dave keeps pushing her to improve in the classroom and on the track.

Topp wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I’d rather be running than out partying,” she said. “I’m doing something positive to my body. I tell friends, ‘I ran four miles today,’ and they look at me like, ‘So what?’ but I know I’m doing the right thing.”

Including going the extra mile for Micheal.