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Dow's Jensen Setting Pace as Freshman
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
October 26, 2016
Anna Jensen opened her freshman cross country season at Midland Dow by taking second in the Pete Moss Invitational at Benzie Central, finishing in 18 minutes, 9.9 seconds.
In her second meet, she won the Lancer Invitational in Midland with a time of 18:37.7.
Before her third meet, she went to the doctor, because she didn’t feel right while running in the previous two.
There she received a diagnosis that wasn’t pleasant, but also could be what vaults her to the type of season she knows she’s capable of having.
“I was kind of disappointed with how I was doing at the very beginning of the season,” Jensen said. “But I just focused on running for my team and not getting down on myself. I was going to keep working and hoping my times would eventually come.
“Then I got my iron tested and found out my ferritin levels were low. It’s not a good thing, but finding out that I did have low ferritin was a relief, because it was an explanation for why I was running poorly.”
Poorly, of course, is a relative term. If the 18:09.9 from her first meet was still her season’s best, Jensen would rank as the 17th fastest runner in the state this year, all divisions.
But Jensen is used to going even faster.
Ferritin is a blood cell protein that contains iron, and a low ferritin level indicates there is an iron deficiency. Fatigue is a major symptom of an iron deficiency, and Jensen's mother noticed during those early races that her daughter didn't seem to have the same type of endurance she once did. Now that it's being treated, and her levels are coming back to a normal level, her times are more in line with what she expects from herself.
In each of her last three races, she has broken the 18-minute mark. At the Heritage Invitational on Oct. 8, she ran 17:40.7, which has her ranked seventh in the state.
“She handled it better than I would have expected,” Jensen’s mom, Lara, said. “She didn’t get upset. She was a good sport and she always ran hard and always tried to do whatever she could for her team. I was thrilled and I was pleased because she didn’t get down on herself.
“I could tell when she was running that she wasn’t right, because I could tell she was struggling to catch her breath. Now she looks much more like I’m used to.”
Jensen has been turning heads on tracks and 5K courses since well before she put on a Dow uniform.
As an 11-year-old, she won the women’s division and placed fourth overall out of nearly 1,500 competitors in the Dow Run/Walk. The next year, she ran 17:18 to repeat as women’s division champion, and took second overall.
Her personal bests in the 800 (2:12), 1,600 (4:50) and 3,200 meters (10:33) – set while she was in middle school – would make her an all-state runner most years, and an MHSAA Finals champion in some.
Following Dow’s 2015 Division 1 Regional meet, she ran in an open race on the course and recorded a time that would have won had she run with the high schoolers.
Midland Dow coach Jed Hopfensberger has had some fast runners come through his program over 16 years. But anyone like this?
“Not this fast,” he said. “I have a school record based on who runs the fastest time at the state meet, and that’s 18:09. We’ve had some pretty good kids, too.”
So what’s the secret? Besides a good amount of natural foot speed and the time she’s put in, it’s Jensen’s other sport, swimming, that may have contributed the most to her success.
“My guess is it’s because swimmers develop pretty good lung capacity, so part of it is that fitness level, having that lung capacity,” Lara Jensen said. “You’re working really hard and doing it for hours. Also, I think swimming is good overall conditioning for your whole body with very low impact.”
Lara Jensen swam for two years at Purdue University, and said the family had Anna in the pool at a young age swimming competitively. She’s good at that, too, but the decision to run cross country rather than swim this fall at Dow wasn’t as difficult as the Jensens thought it might be.
“It seemed like it would be a tougher decision before the track season had started,” Anna Jensen said. “I had a lot of success in the winter in indoor track and I just kind of knew that running was my passion. I love swimming, but running was the thing I love to do the most. It’s such a stress reliever. I love everything about running, and that’s what I knew I wanted to do in high school.
“I will actually be swimming for my boys high school team this winter, so that’s going to be really fun.”
Jensen will compete with a strong Dow team Saturday at the Division 1 Regional meet at Delta College. Dow enters as the favorite based on simulations by Athletic.net. According to those, teammates Maija Rettelle, Emily Wall and Anastasia Tucker join Jensen to give Dow four of the top five runners at the meet.
The MHSAA Lower Peninsula Finals will be held Nov. 5 at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn.
As she still has yet to qualify for that meet, looking too deep into the future may seem premature. But Jensen’s times already make her a Division I college prospect. While coaches can’t directly contact her yet, they’ve made it known to others that they’re interested.
“I would love to be in a position where I could get some scholarship money to run for a Division I college,” she said. “Depending on how fast I can get, I would love to run after college, maybe professionally.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Midland Dow's Anna Jensen runs through a fan-packed stretch during a cross country race this fall. (Middle) Jensen passes a flag during one of her races. (Photos by Craig Adams.)
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A Fantastic First-Time Finish
October 15, 2012
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Give Mariah Fuqua credit for trying something many others would not.
Throwers – who toss the shot and discus during the spring track and field season – are not the ones who usually cross over into cross country during the fall.
It’s not that it can’t happen. It just doesn’t. Mention to most the idea of running 3.1 miles for fun, on top of a few hundred miles during training, and the response will probably be a laugh – if not a strange look.
“I was going to do it freshman year, and I talked my mom out of it so I could do basketball conditioning instead,” Fuqua said. “I thought (cross country) would be the hardest thing I’d ever have to do in my life.”
But Fuqua, a junior at Dearborn Divine Child, had a plan when she came out as a sophomore. She thought of it as another way to get in shape for hoops – and was so pleased with her improvement in fitness that she came out for cross country again this fall, although she is no longer playing basketball and never made it more than a mile and a half last season without stopping to walk.
Fuqua has continued to make strides this season, but heading into the Sept. 22 Detroit Catholic Central Invitational hadn’t strode over the finish line.
“The toughest part is convincing yourself,” Fuqua said. “It takes a lot to bring yourself to even think you’ll be running 3.1 miles, running non-stop.”
The DCC course at hilly Cass Benton Park is one of the toughest in the state, so that wasn’t going to be the day. She figured she’d run through a mile and a half and be done.
But as she neared one of those hills, she saw a runner from Ann Arbor Huron cheering her on from the top.
'You can do it!'
Alexandria Cell has been a distance runner since she was 9. The Ann Arbor Huron junior was an individual qualifier at last season’s MHSAA Cross Country Finals at Michigan International Speedway, and she finished a solid 67th of 238 runners with a time of 19 minutes, 21 seconds.
If running comes naturally to her, so does being a good teammate. And that’s why it made perfect sense that Cell – who finished runner-up in the long-finished varsity race – was still on the course cheering on her junior varsity teammates during the open run that finished off the meet.
Cell considers herself “definitely a hyper person.” But that’s not why Fuqua recognized her coming down the hill near the halfway point.
Instead, it was the color of Cell’s hooded sweatshirt after seeing her also cheering everyone on at the starting line.
Now, Cell was yelling directly to Fuqua, “Good job! You can do it! Keep going!”
Building toward a fantastic finish
Divine Child girls cross country coach Tony Mifsud and his staff emphasize running as a lifestyle. All are welcome. He and his assistants talk to new runners one-on-one to find out their goals for being part of the team – be they competition, fitness or social-focused.
Fuqua’s goal last season was to run one mile at a time. “We started with five minutes, 10 minutes … and she had a great attitude,” Mifsud said. “But this year, we had a different mindset: to finish. Our goal with her, number one, was to forget about time. Fifteen minutes or 55, whatever (to finish), we’ll get you there.”
Assistant coach Jack Benitez set up a plan specific to Fuqua, who embraced it. She continued to improve. On the tough DCC course, Fuqua was looking good to make it two miles on the fly.
“I’m so happy she made it to a mile and a half, and it’s a loop course, so you do it twice,” Mifsud said. “I’m saying, ‘Mariah, Mariah, run like the wind. Sing like the wind. Sing a song if you’re tired, in your mind. Say a poem, something that will change the focus on pain (to) on the finish line.’
“I can see it developing in my mind that this is going to be great, and of all places at probably one of the toughest courses in the state to run,” Mifsud added. “And lo and behold, we see this young lady out of nowhere running with her. And I’m thinking, this is even better.”
That's just Allie
As Fuqua approached that hill at the 1½-mile mark, Cell ran down it and toward her.
At first, Cell ran around Fuqua a few times, willing her forward. Then she started running with her, and soon Fuqua mentioned she’d never finished a race.
Fuqua told Cell she wanted to stop at two miles. Cell convinced her she could keep going. So they did. They didn’t see a two-mile mark, but ran past two of Fuqua’s coaches, who told her she’d already run past it and might as well keep going.
That, in itself, was something Fuqua never thought she could do. Together, she and Cell moved through the final mile.
“When our team saw it, we thought, ‘That’s just Allie.’ With Allie, it doesn’t matter if you’re the slowest person or just started (running), she wants to cheer you on,” Huron coach Tim Williams said. “Her thought is everybody should be cheered on, no matter what.”
The boys open race had begun, and some of those runners had caught up with Fuqua and Cell. They too cheered on the pair as they passed them by.
“I told her thank you, and that I was going to give her a hug. Because when we were running up to the finish line, it was really emotional,” Fuqua said. “She said, ‘I’d really like a hug, but we can do it after.’”
“Here she comes up the hill at the finish line. And I don’t know what made people stay that late, but hundreds of them are at the finish line,” Mifsud said. “Maybe they sensed something. There was all this vibe, all this noise. And then it was Allie and Mariah, and it was just beautiful. They hugged each other and started crying, and we were crying. It was amazing.”
Be the example
Give Alexandria Cell credit. She thinks what she did was nothing to fuss over. Anyone else would’ve done the same, given that opportunity.
She’s used to running lots of miles. She was already on the course. She needed a cool-down anyway.
“It was easy on my part. It was just fun to be able to support her,” Cell said. “Oh my gosh, she was amazing! I’m glad she got the support from her team and friends. It’s enough to drive people to do things they’ve never done before.”
And give Mariah Fuqua credit for finishing something many wouldn’t start.
Before, she convinced herself to keep running because when she was done, she wouldn’t have to run again for a few days.
Now, she tells herself to keep going so she can see how much she’s improved.
Her time that day in Northville was 49:37. She’s finished four more races since that afternoon.
And she’s going to run cross country again next season. She’s always loved the practices. The team is like another family. And now, the meets are more fun too.
“It’s really weird. I never thought I’d be in this situation to where I’d have to talk about it when people ask me or congratulate me, or people cheer for me when I’m running because they’ve heard about this race,” Fuqua said. “I didn’t think too much about it at the time. I had just finished the race and I was proud of myself for that. I didn’t think I’d be such a big inspiration at the time.
“Then my parents and coaches told me I’m doing something a lot of people can’t do, and I actually finished it. So that shows a lot of people, who will look up to you for this, it proves that throwers or someone with the same build can do this sport.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Ann Arbor Huron junior Alexandria Cell and Divine Child junior Mariah Fuqua turn toward the finish at the Detroit Catholic Central Invitational. (Middle) Fuqua and Cell celebrate Fuqua's first completed race. (Photos courtesy of Dearborn Divine Child.)