(Note: Granted, this has nothing to do with Virginia Peninsula Sports, except that I live there. Yet, sitting here, covering the VA Showcase track meet in Lynchburg, VA, I had the opportunity to interview Athing Mu, who may become the greatest American middle-distance runner in history. Yet, so did two others from our outlets of MileSplit and FloTrack, and they submitted theirs before I did. I hate to throw this one out, so meet Miss Mu!)
While
most athletes who break a national record will jump and cheer and hug everyone
in sight, the face and actions of Athing Mu were a source of wonderment for the
trained eye – at least for the first ten seconds after her race on Friday
evening.
There
was the show of exhaustion, of course, followed by a slow walk to the infield,
at which point she was greeted by people jumping and cheering and hugging her.
It was only there that she began to realize the gravity of what she had
accomplished over a 70-second period.
And
how could she have known? Mu wasn’t looking at the running clock next to the
finish line as she headed down the straightaway of her 500-meter race. When she
did glance up, from the spot where was bent over with hands on her knees, the
only thing she saw was 1:10.
“Oh
well,” thought the high school senior, who competes for the Trenton Track Club
in New Jersey. “I almost got it.”
Fortunately,
others knew. As it turned out, the tall, lanky Mu had nipped Chanelle Price’s
standard of 1:10.30 by .07 to set a new national high school record in the
Virginia Showcase’s premier event of Day 1.
Not
that records are new to her; in fact, last year at the Armory in New York City,
she broke both the world junior record and the American record of Alysia
Montano in the 600-meters with her time of 1:23.57. The time was just .13
seconds short of Olga Kotlyarova’s world record.
And
as her coach, Al Jennings, sees it, everything that his star runner does now is
in preparation for bigger and better things at the world level.
“She
spent last summer running in Europe,” said Jennings, acknowledging that the
trip took a lot out of her. “They wanted her to run, but it was tough.”
In
this case, Mu ran four meets in four days. Of the European athletes, she said,
“They’re really fast, it’s another level, like a notch above the pros. You have
high school, college, professional, but some of them have been competing for so
long.”
Mu’s
itinerary looks like that of a foreign service officer – Costa Rica, Argentina,
Peru, and Belarus are just some of the places she has competed in the past two
years. As she looks ahead to a collegiate career at Texas A&M, her and
Jennings, who has been her coach since the age of 6, believe that rest between
competitions will be as crucial as her races.
Getting
back to her after-Europe activity last fall, Jennings said, “she took the whole
month of September off. Last year, she didn’t have that luxury. And then from
October to about late December, we just worked on strength – not a lot of
exercise, but sit-ups, crunches, leg lifts –core work.”
She
did compete in one 800-meter race, a 2:10 effort just before Thanksgiving.
Although the work was beneficial, the time was nine seconds off her 2:01 best.
On
Friday night, the rest paid off. Aaliyah Pyatt of Massaponax pushed the early
pace, but was overtaken by Mu after 200 meters.
“I
expected it from Kayla (Davis)” said Mu, when asked about following an early
frontrunner. The duel between the two favorites never materialized as Mu grabbed
the lead and pulled away for a two-second victory. Davis was second in 1:12.28,
with Michaela Rose third in 1:12.64.
She
was thankful for the early help. “I prefer to have someone to chase.”
There
will be plenty of opportunities for her to chase runners in the near future. Next
weekend, Mu will be featured in a pro race at the Armory, and then run in a
couple more meets before the U.S. National Championships in mid-February, where
she will run the 800 or 400. The shorter-range plan is to train for the 800
meters through college and then possibly drop to the 400 later in her career.
This
year, she will compete “enough to get ready” for the Olympic Trials, which
begin on June 19, just 11 days after her 18th birthday. For Mu, who
has best times of 51.98 in the 400 meters and five minutes flat for the full
mile, the next 12 years of her life could see the young woman of Sudanese
origin becoming the greatest American middle-distance runner ever.
