Running After a Pinnacle in a Ponytail

It wasn’t so much that she made us look like slugs. Polly Plumer, everyone knew, was tremendously talented. We, the majority of runners who ran against her, were not. That much we could handle.

Same with her looks. She was gorgeous--the homecoming queen of University High. Newspapers waxed poetic over her beauty. Boys, wide-eyed and tongue-tied, followed her everywhere, fighting over the chance just to carry her spikes. Even our own teammates.

Did it bother us? A little. But the problem was her personality.

She was nice. Really nice. Not the least bit cocky or conceited. Just sweet and genuine and as friendly as could be.

Naturally, we hated her.

It was a good-natured hate, of course. The kind most women feel toward swimsuit models. Truth was, way down inside, we were Polly Plumer fans, too.

Not that we were going to admit it. We wanted to beat her. And if it meant convincing ourselves that Plumer was a conceited little brat in a cheap, blond wig, so be it. Had to find inspiration somehow.

It would be nice to say Polly was a great rival of mine. Fact is, like most high school female distance runners in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, I hardly challenged her. Her talent was such that if you attempted to stay with her in a race, you were either pulled to a personal best or passed out in the process.

Not to say her opponents were wimps. The quality and depth of competition among high school girls at that time was very good, perhaps unmatched in this county until just recently.

But Plumer--who still holds the national girls’ high school mile record at 4 minutes 35.24 seconds--was special. From the very beginning.

As a sixth-grader at Lincoln Intermediate in Newport Beach, Plumer was an impressive sprinter, faster than many of the older girls. I, on the other hand, was an eighth-grader in plaid canvas deck shoes who could hardly finish the 1,000-yard run.

It wasn’t until four years later--in the fall of 1979--that we met in competition. She had moved to Irvine, and was a sophomore at University. I was a senior at Corona del Mar. Our coaches gave us the scouting report. It wasn’t good.

In only her first season of cross-country, Plumer was proving to be phenomenal. Worse, she rarely trained. If she did, it was on her own in the mornings. Her afternoons, we were told, were dedicated to cheerleading.

Our team, the defending Sea View League champion, groaned in unison. Were we going to let this pom-pom princess outrun us?

As it turned out, we had little choice. Plumer beat all of us in every race but one--the league cross-country finals, when she finished far back in the pack, sick with the flu.

My parents saved every scrap of every race result, so unfortunately, I’m left with the truth. In every major invitational that season, Plumer finished three to five places ahead of me. I never even got the pleasure of seeing her sweat. That is, if she ever did.

Track season was another story. Plumer was no longer cheerleading. Her one season of cross-country, combined with a sprinter’s speed, gave her her first real dose of speed and strength. She was unbeatable in the mile, and, on the few occasions she ran it, tough in the two-mile, too.

On the morning of the league finals, I woke up to the sounds of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” blaring through my stereo speakers--courtesy of my dad, who doubled as my morning disc jockey--and found my good luck note under my door.

Go Little Tiger! Run like the wind! You can beat Plumer today!

Yeah, right. In the two mile, I was close--for the first 10 yards, if that. Plumer, wearing training flats, zoomed ahead of the pack, her blond ponytail swishing gracefully behind. She crossed the finish line in 11:11.3, with a smile. I finished five seconds later--and nearly passed out.

Three weeks later, my season long since ended, I recorded the day’s significant moments in my training diary:

“May 31, 1980--Bought punk sunglasses at swap meet . . . Porked out at Bob’s Big Boy . . . Polly Plumer wins the 1,600 at the State Meet in 4:46.”

Suddenly, there was a new field in track and field-- Pollyology . Everyone wanted to know what she was like. Fans who never met her cheered her on. Newspapers detailed her every move. And she was only 15.

Plumer went on to even greater success, capping her high school career with her national mile record--set in 1982 at the Pepsi Invitational--and then on to UCLA where, though plagued by injury and illness, she became a four-time All-American.

After several years of battling burnout--she has lost count on how many times she has retired--Plumer, 27, is back in shape and ready to race. She’s living and training in San Diego, and has met the 3,000-meter qualifying standard for next month’s U.S. Olympic trials.

She knows her chances of making the Olympic team are slim--her older sister, 1988 Olympian PattiSue Plumer, is the 3,000 trials favorite--but Polly says she has to try.

“Sometimes I wonder what people are saying,” she says. “You know like, ‘Why doesn’t she just give it up? Isn’t it time for a career?’ But I think I still have a lot left.”

Not to mention a few former foes cheering her on.