What is a high school track and field coach to do when one of his best distance runners says she wants to be a sprinter and hurdler, and unlike most who excel in the longer races, actually has the skills to be competitive in those events? Longtime Winston Churchill Scott Silverstein solved the problem by presenting junior Julia Reicin with a compromise: the steeplechase.
The unique race is a distance event that also includes jumping over hurdles and water pits. The steeplechase is fairly strenuous, Reicin said. But it is the perfect way to balance her interest in both distance running and hurdles. The variety, she added, keeps her training from going stale.
Considered the Washington, D.C., area’s top steeplechaser by a rather comfortable margin, Reicin, who won the 2,000-meter event at Georgetown Prep’s Woodward Relays Saturday by nearly nine seconds, now has her sights set on qualifying for the USA Track and Field Junior National Championships scheduled for June 24-26 in California. The mark necessary to do so (7 minutes, 25 seconds) is not much lower than Reicin’s personal best (7:26.62).
“[Reicin has] been one of our better distance runners,” Silverstein said. “But her freshman year she said she wanted to try hurdling. She was goofing around with it and it was clear right away that she had this natural form. It didn’t take us long to teach her how to hurdle. Her form is really beautiful. We started toward the end of her freshman year, sometime early in her sophomore year talking about transitioning into the steeplechase. That seemed to be the best move.”
Reicin, who finished 10th at the 2015 cross country state championship last fall, broke a five-year meet record en route to her first-place performance at the 2015 T.C. Williams Invitational last May in her first-ever 2,000-meter steeplechase race. In August she finished second in the Women’s 17-18 age division at the USATF Junior Olympics. She is slated to make her next attempt at qualifying for USATF Junior Nationals at this year’s T.C. Williams Invitational, scheduled for May 7.
Opportunities to compete in the steeplechase in this area are few and far between, Silverstein said, because very few venues have the proper facilities. But Reicin, who won the 800-meter run at this winter’s Class 4A West Region indoor meet and finished seventh at the state competition, said she hopes that will change one day.
Most of the country’s top high school steeplechasers hail from New York, where the event is contested at the state meet, Silverstein said. But Reicin has already garnered attention from college recruiters.
“Steeplechase is an interesting event,” Silverstein said. “What you get is a lot of distance runners who don’t know how to hurdle. Every time they put their foot on the steeple, it takes an extra two seconds for something [Reicin] goes right over. …For a long time she was a swimmer and I think that gave her a lot of strength. She’s good at being able to figure things out, where things need to be.”
Swimming also likely helped lay the foundation for Reicin’s remarkable range. Most top track athletes tend to specialize in either distance running or sprinting. But Reicin, with the endurance of a long distance runner but the quick turnover many of them lack, can run and be competitive in just about every event.
“[Reicin’s] always had this great kick at the end of races,” Silverstein said. “Even her freshman year at the county cross country meet, she went from about 15th to [eighth]. Just running, she caught like eight girls, just sprinting past them. She’s always been this person who can do a little bit more, who has that speed to be able to do the shorter stuff.”
Richard Montgomery junior runner’s breakout season inspires
Kids can be cruel. Richard Montgomery High School junior runner Rohann Asfaw knows that as well as anyone. But the 2016 New Balance (NB) Indoor Track and Field Nationals champion in the Emerging Elite Boys 2-mile run is having the last laugh these days.
“I used to be chubby in middle school and I was teased a lot,” Asfaw said. “I decided I wanted to lose weight so I made it my New Year’s resolution for 2013 to start running every day. I had no idea what I was doing, no idea what it would feel like. I just told myself that I would 100 percent stick with it for at least a week.”
Asfaw did more than that. He fell in love with the sport—the tangibility of improvement was and still is a major motivator. By the start of his freshman year of high school nine months later, he looked the part of a distance runner and became one of Montgomery County’s brightest young prospects—he won the county meet’s ninth- and 10th-grade race.
After a successful sophomore year across all three seasons—cross country, indoor and outdoor track—Asfaw has completely broken out in 2015-16.
Last fall’s cross country county champion and state runner-up finished second in the 1,600- and 3,200-meter runs at this winter’s indoor state competition. His NB Nationals meet-record time of nine minutes, 11.08 seconds ranks in Montgomery County’s all-time top five performances.
And he is on pace for a remarkable season this spring—he’s already become Richard Montgomery’s first individual runner to qualify for the prestigious Penn Relays scheduled for April 28-30. Hosted by the University of Pennsylvania each April, the 131-year-old event is one of the oldest and largest track competitions in the country. Asfaw is entered in the 3,000-meter run.
The humble athlete’s rise, Richard Montgomery coach Davy Rogers said, has been an inspirational one not only to his teammates, but to the next generation.
“It really is an amazing story,” Rogers said. “There is a kid at Julius West [Middle School, where Asfaw went] who idolizes Rohann. He’s going through the same thing. And he comes over [to practice] every day and talks with Rohann and he’s inspired by his story. He’s one of these ‘sky is the limit’ types. He does everything right, training, eating, sleeping. I’m very excited to see what the future brings.”
For someone so clearly internally driven, Asfaw has a surprisingly relaxed mindset when it comes to setting goals for himself, believing it’s important for athletes to enjoy what they’re doing. “He’s very low stress,” Rogers said. “He’s the least stressed runner I’ve ever had, especially at that level. He’s completely different. He’s very mature and knows it’s a process.”
In addition to his physical talent, Asfaw has all the intangibles a coach could ask for in a runner, Rogers said. Asfaw’s work ethic, leadership qualities, sheer dedication to his teammates and true joy for their success have had an invaluable impact on the program, Rogers added.
But Asfaw said he isn’t in the sport to make a name for himself. He simply fell in love with running and happens to be quite good at it.
“It’s been an amazing year,” Asfaw said. “It’s come as a surprise; I didn’t expect it. But I’m not trying to be a big name. I don’t want to set high expectations; I just want to focus on the now.”
