Fleshman Feeling a Bit Rundown

August, and its fry an egg on the sidewalk temperatures, is often the most important month of the year in the training of a cross-country runner.

Although the season doesn’t start until September and the championship races won’t begin until November, August is the month when a runner typically lays the groundwork for a successful fall by putting in the heavy mileage necessary to improve one’s endurance.

Lauren Fleshman of Stanford knows that, but a need to recharge her competitive batteries means she won’t start serious training until later this week.

Fleshman, a 1999 graduate of Canyon High, was arguably the best freshman distance runner in the nation last season. But she has run little since competing in a qualifying heat of the women’s 5,000 meters in the U.S. Olympic track and field trials at Cal State Sacramento on July 17.

Fleshman qualified for the trials when she set a U.S. junior (age 19 and under) record of 15:50.18 to finish eighth in the Mt. San Antonio College Relays in Walnut in April, but she finished a nonqualifying 15th in 16:35.90 in her heat in Sacramento.

“I felt honored to be able to run against some of the best women in the nation,” Fleshman said of the Olympic trials. “But you can’t just be happy to be there to run well. You have to want to run well.”

You must also be physically and mentally fresh. Fleshman was neither.

A racing schedule that began with the Brigham Young Invitational cross-country meet in mid-September and ended with the USA Track & Field junior championships late in June left her drained.

The death of friend Justin DeLong two days before her qualifying heat didn’t help.

DeLong, 15-year old son of Canyon cross-country coach Dave DeLong, had been undergoing chemotherapy for leukemia.

“We were buds,” Fleshman said. “I was so sad when I heard what happened, but I knew that Coach DeLong and J.D. would have wanted me to run.”

Although Fleshman ran poorly in the Olympic trials, she made two important discoveries at the meet.

The first was how focused an athlete has to be to make the Olympic team. The second was that there is a solid track and field fan base in the U.S.

“The meet showed me exactly what I need to do to make the Olympic team,” Fleshman said. “If I want to make the Olympics in 2004, it has to be a big goal right now.”

The large crowds--an average of 23,388--at the Olympic trials were uplifting to Fleshman because the NCAA championships at Duke had drawn less than a fourth of that.

“It was a turning point in how I felt about the support for our sport,” Fleshman said. “It just doesn’t get any love, especially at the collegiate level. Meets like the state championships in high school are run before big crowds, but you don’t see that at the collegiate level.”

The break since the Olympic trials has allowed Fleshman to visit her boyfriend in Oregon, spend time with her family and the DeLongs in Canyon Country, and given her time to reflect on her arduous freshman year.

Fleshman finished fifth in the NCAA cross-country championships in November and was 26th, the top U.S. finisher, in the World junior cross-country final in in Vilamoura, Portugal, in March.

She ran a 4:35.6 mile to anchor Stanford’s victorious distance-medley relay team in the NCAA indoor championships in March, set the U.S. junior record in the 5,000 meters in April, finished fifth in the 1,500 in the NCAA outdoor championships early in June and won that event in the national junior championships three weeks later.

“This year reminded me of my freshman year in high school,” Fleshman said. “Back then, I wanted to run my best [times] in every race. It’s like the cycle repeated itself.”

The 5-foot-8, 125-pound Fleshman looks a lot different than the 4-10, 78-pound mighty-mite who helped Canyon win the 1995 state Division I cross-country title by finishing 13th. But she still does well in school, has interests outside of running and puts the team’s goals in front of her own.

“She is a huge leader in that she is a team-first kind of person,” Stanford assistant Dena Evans said.

Fleshman couldn’t imagine running 4:17.76 in the 1,500, 9:20.62 in the 3,000 or 15:50.18 in the 5,000 this year, even though she placed second in the national cross-country championships and ran 10:18.81 to win the 3,200 in the state championships as a senior.

“I would have been happy to run those types of times at any time in my collegiate career,” Fleshman said. “I couldn’t have expected them this year.”

Those times and her performance in the 1999 NCAA cross-country championships make her one of the leading contenders for this year’s title.

“It’s just so hard to lay down a goal like, ‘I want to win the NCAA,’ ” Fleshman said. “It’s not like in high school where there aren’t that many good coaches. And if you have one of the really good coaches, you have a distinct advantage. Almost all of the college coaches are good. I just look at it like I want to put myself in contention.”