Amani Terrell proved she’s one of the best high school distance runners in the country by setting a state meet record in the 3,200 meters.

She could have her pick of almost any university to hone her skills. But she realizes that running at the next level would take from her the one thing she really wants: a life.

So, at just 17, Terrell is hanging up her spikes. She has had enough of the grueling practices and competition that consume the lives of so many young runners and other female athletes, such as gymnasts and figure skaters.

Terrell says she never had any love for the Texas heat, the cramps that last for weeks and the butterflies of anticipating her next race.

“I want to have friends, a boyfriend. … I don’t want track to be my whole life, and that’s what it takes at the collegiate level,” she says.

Steve Telaneus, coach at Flower Mound Marcus High School, about 20 miles from Dallas, says track could be losing an Olympic-quality runner.

“She is the best I’ve ever coached and one of the best there has ever been,” he says. “Even Michael Jordan must dream about what it must be like to wake up and not be Michael Jordan for a day. We’ll all just have to dream about what could have been.”

Terrell won the 3,200 in 10 minutes, 29.72 seconds, shaving 0.28 seconds off the Class 5A state meet record, set in 1983. In her four-year career she has built an impressive trophy case, winning 20 individual titles and four state championships. She also won the state cross country meet last fall.

“I’ve always worked to be the best at whatever I’ve done,” she says.

For months, Terrell has done her best to dodge recruiters from schools like Vanderbilt, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Brown, Michigan and Texas. Many of those coaches were disappointed to learn she retired after the May 10 state meet.

Terrell will attend Texas next fall, but not on an athletic scholarship.

She became sure of her decision after visiting Vanderbilt and seeing how much time track would take away from her schoolwork and personal life. A straight-A student, Terrell is considering majoring in biology with the idea of going pre-med.

“I like to run, but I don’t love to run. It’s a hobby,” Terrell says. “Once recruiters saw that, many of them stopped calling.”

So what does Terrell want to do in college?

“Maybe join a sorority, maybe the honor society.”

Her record-breaking run was the culmination of a season-long struggle. In February, Telaneus had timed Terrell at almost 10:50, 20 seconds slower than the record.

For the next several months she pushed herself closer and closer to the record, all the while knowing she wouldn’t join a college team.

“You don’t just run 10:29 on a whim,” Vanderbilt coach Paul Arceneaux said. “She could have let up at any time and still won the race. That desire comes from deep within.”

Terrell’s father, Frances, said he left the decision up to his daughter. “Right now her decision is no,” he says.

But until Terrell actually takes her first class at Texas, Arceneaux said he and other recruiters will still see her as “the holy grail” of high school athletes.

Terrell rejects the idea that her career has been for naught, and she says she might even decide to join the college team as a walk-on one day.

“I’ll always have the memories,” she says. “I was never doing this for someone else.”