A great competitor
You’ll understand if Anna Layman doesn’t break out in a few stanzas of Joyce Kilmer poetry any time soon.
It’s not that the Central Valley junior distance runner has found “a poem lovely as a tree.” It’s just that she’s had enough of Finch Arboretum to last a lifetime.
A standout as a freshman, Layman missed most of her sophomore season to shin splints – coming back at the end of the year to qualify for state and ultimately to finish 18th at the state meet.
“She was able to run, eventually, but not consistently throughout the season,” CV coach Dennis McGuire said. “She was running on pretty much guts alone. We haven’t ever gotten her fully trained up. Even last year at state track we had to back off her training, and she still ended up third at state. She just competes really well. She’s a great competitor – that’s what she is.
“Just one year I want her healthy so I can train her. It’s just one of those things. I guess she’s just snakebit.”
The good news this year was that Layman conquered her shin splint woes, putting in a solid summer’s worth of training, looking to make up for lost time as a junior.
The bad news is that she developed plantar fasciitis, an inflammation of the inelastic, fibrous tissue that connects the heel bone to the ball of the foot.
Layman may very well be the best runner in the state not running for a spot in the State 4A meet.
“I ran at the first Greater Spokane League meet at the arboretum,” Layman said. “It was like something popped; it happened that fast. At first, they didn’t think it was plantar fasciitis because it came on too fast.
“They told me I could come back, so I tried to run at the arboretum again, but (it) got to be so painful during the race that I just had to gut it out.”
It may not be a coincidence that plantar fasciitis cropped up at Finch Arboretum.
“I have pretty flat feet,” Layman said. “And the course at the arboretum is pretty soft, so that might have been part of the problem.”
However it was aggravated, it has put Layman on the sidelines, cheering on her teammates and soaking up knowledge about the sport from a coach’s point of view.
“Oh, yeah – I’ve learned a lot about running by watching,” she said. “But it’s been so hard. It’s like you die a little inside watching a race, because you know you would be right there at the front. You know exactly where you’d make your move.”
Despite having to train around injuries, when she’s been able to train at all, McGuire is impressed by what makes Layman tick.
“She is one of the best competitors,” he said. “This is my 21st year, and she’s quite possibly the best athlete I have ever had. I came in the year after Annette Hand and that group was here, and I know they were great, but I’ve never had an athlete with the athletic ability Anna has.”
Layman will likely be sidelined through the rest of 2004 and won’t be able to seriously train until January.
“I love running,” she said. “I am really looking forward to track. I like cross country and all, but I think track is more my sport.”
It doesn’t hurt that they don’t hold track meets at Finch Arboretum.
“It helps knowing what I’m going to be running on every day,” she laughed. “The track is a very good surface to run on.”
“It has to be a mechanical thing,” McGuire said. “These young girls come in as freshmen who have run on natural ability in the middle schools. They come in here and compete in the best cross country league in the state and the mileage gets up there very quickly. Sometimes it gets to be too much, too soon. And if they have a mechanical malfunction, it gets blown out of proportion in a hurry.
“Usually you get them into the doctor and they get fitted for an orthotic and everything is fine.”
Layman is stumped.
“I was fine as a freshman – I didn’t have a problem at all my freshman year,” she said. “But I haven’t had a pain-free season since then.”
Layman wants to run in college and is considering ways to make up for some of the visibility she will have lost.
“I’ve heard of different meets that you can get into and I’m seriously considering something like that,” she said. “I just want to keep running. I really want to compete.”