St. Michael’s Ali Upshaw runs for tradition, readies for season,
Champ Upshaw conquers mountains, powers St. Michael
Respect and tribal tradition are the two things that Aliandrea “Ali” Upshaw runs for.
The senior at St. Michael Indian School looks like a consummate underdog rather than the defending individual girl cross-country state champion, who led her school to its fourth girls team state title last season. The title was the first for the program since 2003.
Upshaw has a stout 5-foot-3 frame, French-braided hair, permanent smile and meek demeanor. She watches the “Rocky” film series and Native American Olympic gold medalist Billy Mills biopic film “Running Brave” for inspiration before races.
It works because Upshaw has tireless stamina and constant speed that helped her finish with the state’s second-best time (18:18:33) behind only the 2019 azcentral sports Cross Country Runner of the Year Abi Archer in last season’s state championship 5K race. Archer competed in Division I, reserved for the largest schools in the state.
Since she was in seventh grade, Upshaw and her parents have used her town’s rural setting and limited resources as a positive. That includes the lack of a Tartan running track on the St. Michael campus.
Upshaw’s mother, Kelly Bia, coaches the St. Michael’s cross-country team.
“It’s a unique area, unique people where we come from and that has been her foundation since she was small, like a lot of reservation kids that live here. But we use it to our advantage.” Bia said. “We never dwell on what we don’t have. We use it as motivation to get where we want to go.”
To compensate, Bia drives Upshaw approximately 15 miles up a rough dirt road to the thin air of an 8,000-foot mountain summit in St. Michael to run once per weekend. It’s the same location where her family takes their herds of sheep for the summer.
“Running in the mountains has always been a regular thing for me ever since I was young,” Upshaw said. “It’s kind of surprising to me that when I started getting serious with running that a lot of the runners in Phoenix, they just run on pavement every single day. I know that the terrain here and the environment that I’m in, it’s going to take me to the same level that the valley runners are in.”
It’s also a Navajo ritual to go tell it on the mountain and spiritually connect with their ancestors and gods.
During meets, Upshaw’s family members yell the Navajo phrase “Yeego ndiilyeed” which means “run hard.”
“At a very young age, my grandparents taught me that down here on the reservation, running is a very sacred thing to our people,” Upshaw said. “In the morning, you run to greet the gods. You get up every morning and you pray and you run. That’s just our way of how we look at running as a part of Navajo culture for many years. We had to run everywhere. We were taught that our ancestors were very strong and it influenced us to be as strong as them.”
As a result of the vigorous regimen, Upshaw became the first St. Michael runner to win a cross-country state title since Craig Curly in 2006.
During her junior season, Upshaw’s fastest time was 18 minutes 6 seconds.
“This year I’ve prepared a lot better than I did last year, so I can bring that time down a lot,” Upshaw said. “We’re really trying to get into the Valley and get some good competition and stick with that top group. I’ve been doing a lot more summer workouts than I did last year. I’m in better shape than I was going into my junior season.”
Rounding out the top three runners on the St. Michael girls team’s juniors Chiara Holgate and Auri Quintana who finished fifth and 21st in the state championship last season, respectively. Together, the three girls blitzed past competition. Runner-up Hopi trailed St. Michael by 39 points in the Division IV state championship team standings. For 2019 they have added two freshman to their nucleus of runners.
“Me and my teammates talk about going one-two,” Upshaw said. “There’s a possible chance at that. Maybe a couple girls from the reservation. There’s a girl from (Valley) Sanders who can run with my No. 2 runner named Nizhoni James.”
The first meet on St. Michael’s schedule is the Peaks Invitational in Flagstaff on September 7. It’s the first chance for Upshaw to re-establish herself among the state’s elite runners, including Gilbert Highland’s Caroline McCloskey, Phoenix Xavier Prep senior Mia Olsen, Phoenix Desert Vista’s sisters Grace and Lauren Ping, Flagstaff’s Hana Hall and Scottsdale Chaparral’s Tiaree Towler.
“I’d like to see what she does down in (Desert) Twilight against girls like Caroline McCloskey and the Ping girls,” Bia said. “I’m not saying I’m not worried about anyone in Division IV. I just need her to believe that she’s that good. She’s trained hard and can run at that level to run with that type of competition. To get out of her comfort zone and not just focus on Division IV, look at girls in the bigger schools who are considered faster to see what she can be at that level ...”
“You can be both, this small little Navajo town girl but can still compete and get out and run with everybody.”