SETTING PACE IN ALL FACETS
GIRLS RUNNER OF THE YEAR JULIA HEYMACH, LAMAR
Lamar’s Julia Heymach never slowed down. The highly driven senior placed in the top three in all four trips to the UIL cross country state championships, winning the last two titles, and Lamar coach Robert Collett said she’s better in track, where she owns three gold medals and the Class 6A record in the 1,600-meter run.
The Stanford signee’s relentless effort made her the clear choice for her fourth consecutive selection as the Chronicle All-Greater Houston Girls Cross Country Runner of the Year.
“She’s the total package,” Collett said. “She’s in the top five of her class, and I’m talking the top five students, not the top five percent, which is amazing. So she’s able to run track and take care of her academics.
“And musically, she’s one of the top clarinet players in the Houston area. She plays in the Houston Youth Symphony … so she handles all the other things in her life as well as she does track and field. There’s not one thing that’s most important.
“At Stanford, she’s going to be running with six or seven other kids just as good as her or better, and she’s going to have somebody pushing her on the hardest days, so her ceiling still is way up there.”
Q: How proud are you of finishing in the top three at state all four years in high school?
A: “I’m definitely really proud of being able to do so well at state the last four years, and it really shows that the dedication and all of the work that my coaches, my teammates and I put into cross country paid off. It was surreal crossing the line for the last time this year, knowing that I would never be back to run the course in Round Rock. It marked the end of one chapter of running that I’ve really enjoyed, which made it bittersweet. But I was also really happy in that moment because I knew all four years I put as much as I could into every race and did as well as I could.”
Q: How much work goes into consistently competing at such a high level?
A: “It’s a lot of work, and it’s really hard physically and mentally to always be running and training at such a high level, so I’ve definitely had my struggles and endured harder times. But there have always been people behind me who supported me and helped me stay dedicated. One of the things that really helped me is that I always tried to keep a positive mindset and stay excited to race and challenge myself.”
Q: You won your first state title in 18 minutes, 19.62 seconds, then repeated with a time a minute faster (17:12.78). Was that the course, the conditions or your improvement?
A: “The conditions at state this year was perfect, the weather was really nice and it hadn’t been raining for weeks in a row, so it wasn’t really muddy like it was last year. And then also tactically it was a completely different race from last year. You can’t just depend on your fitness to win a race. You have to run smart, too, and so I ran a little more controlled this year and didn’t push it really hard from the start, because it takes a lot of mental energy to lead a race in its entirety. So I stayed back a little bit and focused on being positioned well, which was different from last year, and then I saved a lot of energy for the end of the race, and I kicked it in. I remember all of the spectators screaming really loudly, and I was able to find another gear in the last stretch and cross the line first.”
Q: How did you settle on Stanford as the right place to continue your career in college?
A: “I’ve always been interested in Stanford. My sister (Claudia) goes there and my cousin does as well, and Stanford is known for having really good academics and also extremely good athletics. So I wanted to go to school where I felt confident that I could grow as much as possible as a runner and compete for national titles with a team, while also being able to challenge myself academically.”