Neale Seized Opportunity At NCAAs But More Await
November 24, 2017 | Cross Country
SEATTLE - Senior season cross country finales often do not have quite the same emotions to them as a final football, baseball, or volleyball game might, as for most distance runners the season rolls quickly into track. That is how senior Amy-Eloise Neale planned to approach her final cross country race at the NCAA Championships – as an opening, not just to the track season but to the myriad of opportunities that will surface in both running and her career.
"I think it can be very incapacitating sometimes if you focus on 'last nationals' and how it's the last of something so I tried to look at it as a gateway to future opportunities," says Neale, the native of Snohomish with dual British citizenship.
After running her previous two NCAA Championships – 121st as a freshman in 2013 and up to eighth in 2016 – at the LaVern Gibson Course in Terre Haute, Indiana, Neale was also ready for a look at a course she'd never seen before. A course to which she did not have any "emotional attachments."
Prior to nationals, Neale said, "Terre Haute can be very challenging once you've had some memories. Freshman year I didn't have a great run there and last year we had a rough day as a team, so that was hard, but so I'm hoping this year to walk onto the Kentucky course and have it feel like a totally different championship."
When she reached the starting line on November 18, Neale says "I had this very weird sense of calm and I was really relaxed, and I think that helped because on the start line I just took a deep breath and was like 'Okay, let's go.'"
It went about as well as she could have hoped.
Rather than running in 30th or 40th for most of the race like a year ago, where Neale said she ran well but lost contact with the leaders, Neale on Saturday was 20th at the 2,000-meter split and 19th at 4,000-meters, not quite as high as she had wanted but within better striking distance for her now patented final push.
She also had the experience to stay calm when things weren't going exactly as planned.
"Sometimes you get caught up focusing on where you are versus how you can get to where you should be," she said. "I didn't freak out when I wasn't quite where I wanted to be in the first 3k."
Over the past two seasons, Neale had proved herself to be one of the best closers in the collegiate ranks, making big surges late to win the 2016 Pac-12 title and to pick up more than twenty spots at NCAAs a year ago. However, at the past two races this season, she had come up just short of defending two titles, albeit against some of the best runners in the country.
At Pac-12s, Neale was third in a three-woman battle as Colorado's Dani Jones and Oregon's Katie Rainsberger edged her by one second. Then at West Regionals, San Francisco's Charlotte Taylor and Boise State's Allie Ostrander broke away early, and while Neale closed the gap, she settled for third once again.
But with the new course, and without any pressure of defending a title, Neale was ready for another big finish.
"When we were running through the course I kind of decided that I really liked the last 2k," she said. "The goal was with a mile to go I'd be in the top-10, and I was a little off of that, so I just really tried to get moving over the last 2k of the course and just pick off as many people as I could. I knew I was prepared in terms of the kick so I just really tried to kick a little sooner than I thought I could."
The runners went back into a wooded area of the course with few spectators and Neale made a dramatic move. Over that last mile and a quarter, Neale went past all four runners who had finished ahead of her at Pac-12s and Regionals, passing USF's Taylor to go into second-place on the final straightaway with about two hundred meters left. The only runner who had slipped away was the winner, Ednah Kurgat of New Mexico, who finished an undefeated season and crossed seven seconds ahead of the Husky.
"It's definitely the best cross country race I've ever run," said Neale after the awards presentation. "Honestly in terms of engaging and really doing the absolute most that I could in the situation, it was a really strong race. I was a little farther back than I wanted to be halfway through, but I'm really happy that I managed to make up for that."
Neale now goes down as one of the two or three best cross country runners in Washington history. She's the first Husky ever with back-to-back top-10 finishes at the NCAA meet, and her second-place finish matched Kendra Schaaf in 2009 and Regina Joyce in 1982 as best in school history. Not bad for someone who thought the 6k distance wasn't really her cup of tea just fifteen months ago.
"I definitely realized that I can be good over the 6k, which is something I didn't really think I ever would be," she says. "I definitely love cross a lot more than I used to, and I love the team aspect of cross."
Neale and USF's Taylor were the only two runners to finish in the Top-10 at NCAAs for the second year in a row. That and the fact that no other Husky in a storied history has had consecutive top-10 NCAA finishes proves just how difficult it is to remain consistently elite from one year to the next in the sport. Neale herself is evidence, as she missed the 2014 and 2015 fall seasons with injuries. But since returning to action during the 2016 track season, Neale has been dogged in the pursuit of consistency, almost to a fault, she confesses.
"I'm a very risk averse person and I tend to err on the side of caution and there's times where that's great, but there's also times where you know you have to have those really hard workouts, and as the year progresses I'll get more into those," Neale says.
"The main goal for me has been consistency over time, that's how you get better. Having a really good progression season to season, putting months together, that has been really good for me building confidence and just trusting myself a little bit more."
As she logs miles, workouts, tempos, and long runs, a move into grad school has added another new challenge for the Pac-12 All-Academic Team member. Neale finished up her Bacherlor's majoring in Public Health and this quarter she enrolled in UW's Evans School to pursue a Master's in Public Administration, a two year program that could take her a number of directions, one current consideration being health care policy and management. Year two of the program is where Neale would narrow her focus. Meanwhile, she also finds even more time to intern in the UW athletic department business office.
Keeping her academics moving forward at the same pace as her running career has been a balancing act Neale has long excelled at. "For me I think it's been good because I feel like I'm moving forward with my career and it is important to feel like you're not too caught up in the running world all the time."
Washington's roster was flush with freshmen this season, including Allie Schadler and Kiera Marshall who both made UW's NCAA lineup and helped the team place 21st overall. Naturally, the newcomers will look at a Pac-12 Champion and want to see how she approaches each day. That's a role Neale has willingly stepped into.
"Obviously I don't want to impose my advice on someone, but when people have needed help I've tried to be as open as possible about my own experiences because I've obviously had some really great experiences here at U-Dub and had a lot of success, but I've also had those years where I've struggled with injury and struggled to get out of that rut," she says. "So I try to be open about that with everyone, and they can take from that what they want."
This final season, Neale says, seemed to fly right by, a much different feeling than her first fall on Montlake. "My freshman year the cross country season felt really long, just because there's a lot of changes and it's really difficult, but this year it's gone by in a second. I was like, 'Wait, it's already Nationals?
"It definitely did push me to enjoy every minute of it."
Looking back at the day, a few things already stand out.
"I think when I saw (volunteer assistant Jonathan Coopersmith) afterwards, and he just ran over to me and lifted me up. Seeing him so excited and seeing everyone else's face kind of light up, that was cool." Neale also was surprised by an old friend who traveled down to the meet from New York. "It was awesome getting to see her right after the race," says Neale, "She was so excited."
With a successful senior cross country finale in her rearview mirror, Neale and the rest of the Huskies will now make the Dempsey their home for the 2018 indoor track season. Neale was already looking forward to track season before Louisville, but the NCAA result has her "SUPER fired up" with one goal in particular.
"I'm really excited for the DMR," she says. "I've been here for five years, and if there's one thing I want to do it's run a DMR at Nationals. That hasn't come together the past couple years so hopefully it will this coming season."
Once again for Neale, more opportunities await and she will keep moving forward.
Players Mentioned
Raising the Bar | Hana & Amanda Moll
Monday, August 04
Women's 1500m final - 2025 NCAA outdoor track and field championship
Sunday, June 15
Nathan Green | 2025 NCAA 1500m Champion
Saturday, June 14
Track & Field NCAA Championships | Huskies Highlights
Friday, June 13
