Greenbrier sophomore wins 5A-West cross-country title
GREENBRIER — When Greenbrier High School girls cross-country coach Larry Flake met student Rachel Barnhardt for the first time three years ago, he said he had no idea what kind of runner he was getting for his team.
“Little did I know how good a runner she was,” Flake said.
On Tuesday, the 10th-grader won the 5A-West individual conference cross-country championship in a meet in Berryville with a time of 19 minutes, 34.923 seconds.
Flake said Rachel is the school’s first conference individual champion “that I know of, in the five years I’ve been coaching” cross country. He’s been in the Greenbrier School District for 17 years.
“She’s got a lot of talent. She’s a very smooth runner; she has good form and technique,” Flake said. However, he wouldn’t necessarily have picked her to win.
The conference meet was the eighth meet this year, he said.
“Knowing that she had the ability did not surprise me, but lately, she hasn’t been running as well as she’s capable of. She ran better earlier in the year and then had leveled, plateaued out. She looked flat. Yesterday, I told her after the race, ‘It looked like you were enjoying yourself out there, especially the last half mile.’”
Rachel, who turned 15 in August, said she was prepared for the 5K.
“It was conference, and I knew going in it was going to be really tough; it was a really tough course with lots of hills,” she said. She added that her two strongest competitors, Little Rock Christian students, were there.
“I knew what I had to do, and I was lucky enough to win,” Rachel said.
Greenbrier Athletic Director Steve Wood said it’s “a really, really big deal to win any championship, and to do that as a sophomore is impressive. We’re excited about it,”
Flake said Rachel also performed well at the Chile Pepper Festival in Fayetteville on Oct. 3.
“She went to that on her own; she got a personal record in the 5K. I think that gave her some confidence, and now she’s back to her more aggressive-style running out on the course.”
Rachel said she “definitely” agreed with her coach about the race being a confidence-builder. She ran 19:28 in the Chile Pepper Festival with about 500 competitors.
“I found I can push myself, and I can run faster,” she said. She also said Flake is a “great coach” for the team.
Flake called her a “small, lean cross-country runner.” Rachel said she’s almost 5-2.
“The best runners are normally about my size — less weight to carry,” she said.
The coach said the sophomore does a lot of training on her own, too.
“She goes above and beyond. She does a lot of running on her own at home, which is what it takes,” he said. “What’s going to get you over the hump is what you do on your own,” Flake said he tells the runners. “Her parents take her to extra meets away from what we do. Before we started our season, she ran the Memphis Twilight Race.”
The daughter of Becky and Matt Barnhardt, Rachel said she runs a minimum of 30 miles a week and a maximum of 40.
“I do a lot of sprint work and speed work; I’ve got to get my miles in, so I do a wide range of things,” she said.
She said she played soccer before realizing that running was the sport for her.
“I always loved to do soccer, and then we had a sixth-grade track-and-field thing, and I did the 800 and I won the race, so I said, ‘I must be good at this.’”
Flake said that in addition to having athletic ability, Rachel is talented academically.
“Rachel makes real good grades,” he said. “She’s very well-liked by all her peers and her teachers.”
After high school, Rachel said, she wants to go into the medical field.
She’s got more running to do before then.
Her next goal is to compete Saturday in the Arkansas AAA Cross Country State Championships at Oaklawn in Hot Springs.
“Then I have a chance to make the All-Star team, and I may get to race in a bigger event with all the teams, 7A through 1A,” she said. The first- and second-place finishers will go to an All-Star event, Flake said.
“If she runs hard, I think she’s got a good chance to win it,” he said.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 3270370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.