Frerichs sets her sights on Olympics
Record-setting Lobo will try to earn a spot on the U.S. team next month
Steeplechase runner Courtney Frerichs soon will return to the track in the Oregon city situated between the Cascades and the great Pacific. Perhaps there will come an echo, small remnants from the crowd that stood and roared as she ran her most recent race. Perhaps not.
Anyway, it will be a different day. Last week Frerichs was a member of a team — the UNM Lobos. Next month she will be trying to join one — the U.S. Olympic team.
It will be another step, another hurdle, something else to splash through.
“I feel I am in a good place,” she said. “I’m excited to experience the Olympic trials. But regardless of what happens, I have so much to be grateful for this year.”
Venturing out
When Courtney Frerichs arrived at UNM last year, she was anxious. She had decided to transfer from UMKC, where she had earned a degree in chemistry and had finished second in the steeplechase in the 2015 NCAA Track and Field Championships.
“I was really nervous when I got here,”
the senior said. “I had never been part of a high-caliber team. But everyone was so welcoming. It helped that everyone welcomed me with open arms. I knew right away it was the right place.”
Another form of comfort came in UNM assistant coach James Butler, an Eldorado grad, who happened to return to Albuquerque last summer after four years as distance and cross-country coach at UMKC. It was Butler who first saw something in the raw Frerichs when she showed up to run for the Kangaroos.
“I owe everything to coach Butler,” Frerichs said. “I met him the first day of practice and I don’t think he knew what he was getting from me. He caught on quickly that I had potential. He really believed in me early on and was willing to be patient.”
Butler, who was new to UMKC and did not recruit her, saw her athleticism. She was only a freshman, but he became convinced she could win an NCAA steeplechase title before she was done.
“I thought being an All-American (top-eight finisher at the NCAAs) would be pretty cool,” Frerichs said. “But I thought, ‘I’m going to trust you.’ And he’s never given me a reason not to believe in what he said.”
Frerichs, who grew up in Nixa, Mo., near Springfield, fell in love with running while training for youth soccer. Gymnastics was also an important part of her childhood. Both serve her in the steeplechase.
“She has incredible body awareness and strength from her time as a gymnast,” UNM coach Joe Franklin said.
“I think I’m pretty athletic for a runner,” Frerichs said. “Soccer, and specifically the gymnastics I did over the years, really helped. I was able to pick up on hurdling quickly. In gymnastics, there’s an emphasis on technique. It was something my brain was able to work in, understanding the importance of technique. And in the steeplechase, barriers don’t fall. You have to be OK running at stationary objects, which I had done in gymnastics. You have to have that awareness of what leg you are going to hurdle with from a distance.”
The race
Frerichs showed up in Eugene, Ore., last week looking to erase the disappointment of finishing second in last year’s NCAA steeplechase.
Her commitment to improve impressed Franklin.
“Obviously ability is important,” he said. “But she also has drive, determination.”
Frerichs went to the NCAA Championships with nine other Lobos.
“Last year I had one teammate,” she said. “To have nine was so much fun.”
After cruising in her semifinal heat last week, Frerichs cheered fellow Lobo Alice Wright in the 10,000-meter finals. Wright led for the first 8,000 meters, settled into fourth, then rallied strong to finish second.
“She inspired me so much,” Frerichs said. “What she did took a lot of guts. I thought, ‘OK, Courtney, you can do the same thing.’ ”
Frerichs had experienced Eugene, the mecca of U.S. track, before, but she was about to discover it in a whole new way.
To win, she had to negotiate 28 barriers and seven water jumps.
Franklin watched quietly. Then with two laps left, he began to yell.
With a lap to go, she had easily distanced herself from the competition.
With about 800 meters left, the Hayward Field crowd rose, clapping, cheering.
“I felt they knew something I didn’t know,” Frerichs said.
They did. They could see the clock and knew the Lobo had a chance to break the NCAA record.
“Hayward Field propelled her to the record,” Franklin said.
Her winning time was 9 minutes, 24.41 seconds, more than a second better than Jenny Simpson’s 7-year-old mark, and made her the first UNM woman to earn an NCAA title on the track.
“At other times and other races I had seen the Eugene crowd engaged,” Frerichs said. “But I had never been in a race that got that intense. I feel I got a whole other gear going. Hayward is a magical place. … Everyone runs faster in Eugene.”
The next race
Frerichs loves coffee. She and teammates Ruth Haynes and Rhona Auckland have made the rounds at Albuquerque haunts such as Humble Coffee Co., The Brew and, lately, Winning Coffee. It’s a way of getting to know the city. She usually goes for a latte.
She also loves to have her nails done. She loves to visit the Sandia foothills and Jemez Mountains. She wants to go to Tent Rocks.
“It’s been incredible,” she said of her time in New Mexico. “It’s really neat to be somewhere where the town is so passionate about the university and the university is so passionate about sports. The amount of support I have received has been outstanding. It’s neat to see how much the Lobos mean.”
But the next time she runs, she will be a former Lobo. On the Fourth of July, she will compete in the U.S. Olympic trials in Eugene.
Frerichs holds the thirdfastest time in the U.S. this year, behind Emma Coburn and the aforementioned Simpson. Stephanie Garcia, who ran a 9:23.48 steeplechase last year, also looms. The top three finishers at the trials make the Olympic team.
“It’s a very realistic goal,” Franklin said. “If she can make a few steps forward — not much.”
And yet, her victory in the NCAAs pales when compared to being on UNM’s winning NCAA Cross-Country Championship team last autumn. The Lobos dominated the race as almost no other team has ever done.
“That I consider the highlight of my collegiate career,” Frerichs said. “I have never had such a bond with a group. Every time we set foot on the course, we were fighting for each other, fighting for our school. To win that title the way we did was the most amazing feeling ever.”
Frerichs plans on attending medical school one day and go into orthopedics. But she still has some running to do.
Perhaps Brazil beckons.