Taking a run at state

Jo E. Mayer almost didn’t blossom.

In her first cross country race as a high school freshman, she went into oxygen debt, a scary but nonthreatening condition that occasionally affects runners, including a famous incident at the finish of the first women’s Olympic marathon.

“That really scared me,” the East Valley junior said. “In fact, it scared me that whole year. As a sophomore, it was still in the back of my mind. It wasn’t until this year that I was able to put it out of my mind.”

Mayer finished second to West Valley-Yakima’s Michelle Schubert at last weekend’s 3A Regional meet in Richland, becoming the first East Valley runner to qualify for the state meet since sophomore Melanie Frostad won the individual state championship in 1998, with her twin sister Melissa crossing in third place and the Knights placing second behind state champion Newport High School of Bellevue.

When Mayer trots out onto the Sun Willows Golf Course in Pasco, site of the state meet, it will be her first exposure to the championship course.

“I have not seen it, but Coach (Nick) Lazanis did give me a map of it,” Mayer said, unconcerned. “I’m just going to go out and run the best race I can and see what happens.”

Lazanis is pleased with his program’s progress. The past few years have been lean for the Knights.

“It’s been a while since we’ve had a runner get to Pasco,” Lazanis said. “Jo E. is the real deal. The Frostad twins came in and ran so well so quickly, but Jo E. is different. She’s gotten better every year. And she’ll keep getting better. We haven’t seen the best from her yet.”

Mayer ran the Richland course in 18 minutes, 46 seconds, nine seconds behind Schubert.

“I don’t know what her race plan was, but I did beat her at the Richland Invite earlier this year,” Mayer said. “You never know what a runner’s game plan is coming into an invite like that. She could have been saving herself for a big league meet or something.”

Mayer’s time was just four seconds off the top Greater Spokane League Class 4A performance. Rogers’ standout Becca Noble turned in an 18:42. That means Mayer would have placed second in the 4A race as well.

“That’s about where my times have been all season long,” said. “I’ve been running behind her about four seconds.

“I had really hoped that we would have qualified for state as a team. When we dropped down to Class 3A, we were told that we would be getting an extra team berth in state from the regional and that the 4A would lose one because they had lost two schools. That didn’t happen.”

Becoming a threat to win a state championship is the product of a lot of hard work. Mayer put in more than 300 training miles over the summer, running with members of the boys cross country team or with a coach.

“For a lot of those miles, I was running really hard,” she explained. “I wasn’t just out jogging. We were working hard to build me up for this year.”

And she has her workouts planned for next summer as well.

“I want to really work on running hills,” she said. “I still think I can run hills better, especially running down hill.”

A hill defines the East Valley home course. As the three-mile course winds around the East Valley campus, it takes a major hike over the hill that backs the football stadium, dubbed the “Widow-Maker” by the cross country teams.

“I keep telling the rest of the team not to look at the hill, any hill,” Mayer explained. “If you look at it, that’s all you can see and it gets inside your head. If you don’t look at it, all of a sudden you’re on it and you can focus just on running right ahead of you.”

Downhill, however, is a different story.

“That’s the hard part – especially in the Widow-Maker,” she said. “This year someone dug a ditch across the road coming down. Coach Lazanis had to go out and put up a makeshift bridge out of plywood the day we raced on it. And there are rivulets that have been cut into the road. Coming down is not easy.

“You have to save yourself for the hill, but once you get back down, you can let loose and go as hard as you can.”

Which is what Mayer plans to do today in Pasco.

“There isn’t a major hill, so I don’t think I’ll need to hold anything back,” she said.

Lazanis has one phrase that he keeps returning to when he talks about his lead runner.

“She’s the real deal,” he says. “And what’s more, she’s a great kid, just a great person.”