Running 85 miles a week is normal for Katelyn Mitchem!
She does it because she has a passion for it, and because that's just how she trains for the Cowgirl cross country team.
The senior from Broomfield, Colo., will join her Cowgirl teammates and the Cowboy team tomorrow (Friday) in hosting the Mountain West Cross Country Championships at the Jacoby Golf Course. The women's 6K race begins at 10:15 a.m., followed by the men's 8K race at 11 a.m.
"It's huge to have the championship here," says the Cowgirls' top runner. "There's not a lot of teams who want to run at this altitude. We are at home where we are very comfortable with it plus we don't have to travel. That's big. We're all extremely excited to host it here."
Katelyn is from a family that loves to run. One older brother, Joe, ran for the University of Colorado, and her other older brother, Jake, was highly-successful at Colorado School of Mines, and just graduated last year.
"We all ran for exercise mainly although my mom (Randi) competed in some marathons," Katelyn says. "You have to have a passion for it to run as much as we do, and I never see myself topping. It's what I love to do."
Katelyn is a very gifted student-athlete but early-on had her ups and downs with confidence. "I struggled with the mental aspect," she says. "It took me awhile to overcome that, to relax myself and to trust myself. I remember one particular race when I finally broke through that. It came slowly with time, but I finally figured it out."
She sure has.
Thus far this season she has placed second at the Wyoming Invite in Cheyenne to begin the season. She then finished 13th at the prestigious Roy Griak Invitational, hosted by the University of Minnesota, a meet which led to the Cowgirls receiving votes in the national coaches' poll. Just recently she dropped her time from 21:13 to 20:47.1 to finish sixth at the Weis-Crockett Invitational, the final meet prior to this week's Championship.
"It's really cool to look back on where I was, and how I have progressed," she says.
Katelyn has had a great career at Wyoming, according to her coach Scott Dahlberg, "because she has an internal drive and toughness that doesn't allow her to let down. She has put in the work. She pushes herself to the limits in practice, and she has been able to transfer that to the races. More importantly she has worked through the confidence issue, and it's all happening for her."
While Katelyn grew up playing soccer and a little bit of basketball, but her love has always been track and running. "When I was a freshman in high school, I was going to play soccer and run track, at Broomfield High School. I loved the running part of soccer but my first love was track. So when they said I needed to concentrate on one sport, that wasn't a difficult decision for me, it was going to be track."
She was an outstanding high school competitor. As a senior in 2017, she was the Colorado 5A Region 4 individual champion in cross country. She finished in the top 10 of that race all four years. She also finished in the top-20 of the Colorado 5A state's Cross Country Championship three times.
It was after her sophomore year when Katelyn felt like she might be able to continue with track into college. "I really felt that the way to go for me, and that could take it to the collegiate level."
As her training progressed, so did she. "I have been able to increase my mileage each year. As a freshman, my max was about 50 miles a week. I can now run about 96 miles per week. It takes awhile to work up to that, but it's maturity and training, and what the body can handle. Early in the season I would go 90 miles a week. On race week I go about 70 miles. It's what we have to do, and we all love it."
Katelyn says she doesn't have any specific race routine prior to a meet. "I'm pretty flexible with my routine. I eat about four hours before a race, and certainly watch what I eat. It's very important when we eat."
A cross-country competitor is not finished once the season is completed. Most all of Wyoming's cross country runners also compete in distance events during the indoor and outdoor seasons. Katelyn is no exception.
"It's year-around," she says. "We go from cross country to indoor and then outdoor. In other words, we are training for most of the year."
Her favorites? "During the indoor season my favorite race is the mile (she has broke the school record in the mile, shattering the previous record by more than five seconds). During the outdoor season my favorite race is the 3,000M (she is currently fourth on Wyoming's all-time list in that race)."
Possibly because she has spent so much time "communing" with nature through her running, she is majoring in Environmental Systems Science, Ecology and Watershed Management. She wants to stay in the West and work in conservation when her competitive running days are over.
Before she begins her career in the world of conservation, though, she would like to carry track as far as she can. "I would love to run in a pro setting," she says. "If I can run faster times that's what I'd love to do. We'll see how it goes."
We certainly could use her help in conserving what we have left of our environment, but it would be fun to see just how far this talented young lady can take her passion for running.
