SPORTS
The Oklahoma Daily | OUDaily.com
Thursday, October 14, 2010 • 9
CROSS COUNTRY
Runner strives to break records, win conference RJ YOUNG The Oklahoma Daily
Three years ago, Molly Ferguson gave up racing altogether. Now, in her third year at OU, she works out up to 20 hours a week as a member of the OU women’s cross country team.
LOVING THE RUN At 2:10 p.m. Oct. 7, Molly Ferguson was running late getting to the John Jacobs Track and Field Complex. She had just left a class where her professor was enamored with the sound of his own voice and lost track of time. Ferguson, a junior international business major and a French minor, can’t afford to tune out her professor or leave class early. She had to bite the bullet and get to practice just a little later than usual. On a usual day by 2:00 p.m., Ferguson and the OU women’s cross country team would be at work on the track running painful intervals that number into the teens. And she would love it. “I love to run,” Ferguson said. “I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t. I almost feel depressed if I don’t run. It’s like a natural high I get. If I’m having a rough day and I go out to run, whether it be a work out or just 35 minutes at an easy pace, I feel so much better afterwards. It allows me to clear my head. It’s my way to escape.” And Ferguson definitely runs — sometimes twice a day and usually almost 100 miles a week. Last week, Ferguson ran a workout that would leave a lesser human being begging for mercy: 16x400 meters at a 75-second pace with one minute’s rest in between quarter-mile intervals, one of her favorite workouts. Her other favorite is “hills,” running 1,000 meters uphill eight times with one minute’s rest in between sprints. “I love the workouts. I love the feeling of accomplishing something,” Ferguson said. “I love pushing by my teammates.”
BECOMING A LEADER As her teammates push her to improve, she pushes back. Ferguson, a walk-on, is in the midst of her second season on the OU women’s cross country team. Without a single senior to guide it, Ferguson has emerged as the team’s leader. On Sept. 4 at the Hurricane Cross Country Festival in Tulsa, Ferguson finished first among her teammates and fifth overall on the two-mile course with a time of 11:11. At the same meet last season, Ferguson finished 17th overall with a time of 11:47. Just two weeks later, Ferguson recorded a personal best of 22:22 on the four-mile course, finishing 14th overall at the Cowboy Jamboree in Stillwater, crossing the finish
line first among her teammates for the second straight meet of the season. Her previous best time in the four mile was 23:11 at the Midwest Regional in 2009. She hopes to break 22 minutes at the Chili Pepper Invitational Saturday in Fayetteville, Ark.
HIGH SCHOOL ACCOMPLISHMENT Winning among her teammates and finishing among the top competitors at races isn’t anything new for Ferguson. While at Bishop McGuinness High School in Oklahoma City, Ferguson was a member of four cross country state championship teams, won individual All-State honors in 2006, the 1,600-meter state championship in 2007, the 2008 3,200-meter state championship and was a senior on the 2008 Class 4A track and field state championship team. However, after receiving so many accolades in high school and making a habit of winning, Ferguson did not get a lot of interest from elite college track and field programs and didn’t receive even one Division-1A scholarship offer. “I had scholarship offers from UCO, and Newman University was interested in me, but I didn’t want to go to those schools,” Ferguson said. Admittedly, while in high school, Ferguson didn’t know the extent of her talent. “I didn’t think about the big picture,” she said. “I had a different mindset in terms of running. I didn’t think of it as anything I would continue to do after high school. It was just fun.”
RETURNING TO THE SPORT After graduating high school, Ferguson decided to quit running competitively altogether, but found she still enjoyed the act of running. During her freshman year, she joined a running club at OU and found out the truth about herself: She missed racing. “My sophomore year, I decided I missed running, I missed competing,” she said. “I decided to contact the [OU track and field] coaches and got on the team.” After she joined the team, it didn’t take long for her to hit her stride. “My whole first year running here, I [broke my personal record] a lot,” Ferguson said. “I improved my mile time by thirty seconds.” She doesn’t think the year she took off from competing hurt her; in fact, she thinks it helped reaffirm her love for the sport. “I like how it’s panned out,” Ferguson said. “It’s all worked out for the best. If I hadn’t had that year break from running, I don’t think I would have really realized how much I love running. I needed that
MERRILL JONES/THE DAILY
Junior Molly Ferguson poses at the John Jacobs Track and Field complex. Ferguson is a walk-on runner from Bishop McGuiness High School in Oklahoma City. She recorded a personal best time of 22:22 on a four-mile run in a competition at Stillwater, but hopes to break 22 minutes in Arkansas. reflection period.” Ferguson attributes the drop in her times and sudden improvement in her performance to the OU Track and Field environment. “It’s exciting to be a part of that. I like the competitive level that we’re at,” Ferguson said. “I like the camaraderie. I like seeing how I can challenge myself every day. I like seeing what I can do. I never challenged myself like this in high school.” Ferguson’s high school personal best in the mile was 5:24. Since joining the OU women’s track team, she has dropped that time to 4:55 and wants to lower that figure during the 2011 outdoor season. “I want to break 4:50,” Ferguson said. She credits her mother for getting her
this far in her running. “In high school, she made me go at 6:30 a.m. every summer to run with the team,” Ferguson said. “And she saw I had the potential to be good and encouraged me to stick with it.” Ferguson is slowly learning exactly what she is capable of and what her team is capable of winning in the future. The goal she and the OU women’s cross country team have set for themselves is to win the Big 12 Conference cross country meet. Last season, the Sooners finished dead last, and the best OU has ever finished at the meet is sixth. “ We ’ r e r e a l l y y o u n g r i g h t n o w ,” Ferguson said. “We’ve got the potential to be really good.”