Strickland tenth at regionals
Utah Statesman: With a time of 21:36.3 and a 10th-place finish, is this your best race ever?
Tiffany Strickland: Probably as far as place goes and the competition that we were in, yeah. But as far as time goes, there are faster courses, so it’s hard to compare times in cross country … But as far being the best race effort-wise, yeah definitely.
US: What are your goals for nationals?
TS: My goal is just to get there; I haven’t even thought about a goal for running there yet.
US: Does the opportunity to go to nationals mean more to you because this is your senior year?
TS: Yeah, I think so, and I’ve never gone to nationals in cross country. The fact that it’s my last year and it’s the last chance I had to do it – and I did it – it definitely means more.
US: What kind of mindset do you have going into nationals?
TS: As far as mental preparation, for me, it’s been a season-long process. More than anything, I just feel like I have to go out and basically, just once I start out in a pace, I need to hold it. Basically, just staying mentally strong is the key for me. As long as I can stay focused the whole race, then I’ll be OK and I’ll have a good race. But if I’m not mentally focused during the race, then it’s over.
US: During the race in regionals, what was going through your head and did you know you were doing as well as you did?
TS: When I started out, I knew that I had a goal in mind, but I didn’t know exactly where I needed to finish (to qualify for nationals), because you don’t find out until the end.
So sometimes during the race, I was telling myself, “OK, I can do it.” And other times during the race, I was telling myself I didn’t want to do it any more. You just go back and forth, sometimes when it’s really, really hard and you’re really struggling and you’re not as focused, you tell yourself you don’t care.
But then you know that you do care, so it just goes back and forth. But towards the end, more than anything, I told myself I’ve come this far and I can’t quit now. Actually, from the middle to the end, I did know where I was at; and I did know that if I got passed by more than two or three people, I wouldn’t go and I wouldn’t have a chance.
So, it was a little stressful towards the end because I knew I couldn’t get passed.
US: How much of cross-country running is mental and how much is physical?
TS: I think more than 50 percent is mental. As long as you’re in decent shape, if you’re mentally strong, you can run really well. But if you’re not mentally strong and in the best shape ever, you will never run well. It’s more mental than physical, I think. Some people would disagree, but that’s how it is for me.
US: Did you ever think you’d make it this far?
TS: Nope. Actually it never crossed my mind. Nationals had never crossed my mind.
US: What do you have to say to those people who say cross country is not a spectator-friendly sport?
TS: Maybe that they’re out of shape because they don’t want to run around with the race. No, I’m kidding. It’s actually kinda hard to watch, because, unlike track, you don’t sit down and you can’t see them the whole time because the courses wind.
It does take effort when you come to a race, the gun goes off and everybody runs to the next point where they can see people. It just depends on if you’re willing to run around and watch the race; but if you’re not, it’s not a spectator-friendly sport.
US: Last year you had a brother on the team [who is currently serving a LDS mission]. How was it running with your brother?
TS: It was really fun, he’s a lot of fun. He’s a really really good runner. We both actually ran the steeple chase in track last year. We didn’t train together, but we helped each other out with technique and stuff like that.
So that was a lot of fun. He was a huge support while he was here and now that he’s on his mission, he always wants to know about running.
He’s been a big support, it was really fun to run with him and watch him do well.
-cmoffitt@cc.usu.edu