| April 23, 2006 ...
Article from the Schenectady Daily Gazette
Lane Finds a Cozy Niche
Elite distance runner returns to old friends on school team
BY MIKE MacADAM Gazette Sportswriter
DELMAR — As Bob Lane says, discomfort is relative.
Between the long, sometimes lonely training miles and the grueling
nature of the races, distance runners pretty much exist in a state of
discomfort. Sprinters do speed, jumpers do height or depth, throwers do
length, but it’s all in a succession of quick bursts of effort, with
frequent breaks. Distance runners do discomfort: How much can you
tolerate, and for how long? Break’s over when you get up in the morning.
On a miserably cold and wet day in front of empty bleachers (because
most everyone was huddled under them) at Bethlehem High School on
Saturday, one of the top girls ’ distance runners in the country
returned to interscholastic competition by jumping out to a big lead in
the 3,000 meters and grimly running away with a victory at the first
Lady Eagles Invitational. While lapped runners continued to work their
way around the track, Caitlin Lane doubled over with her hands on her
knees to gather herself as other finishers patted her on the back and
shook her hand.
It marked the first time the sophomore, recently
transferred from Saratoga Springs to Greenwich, had raced for a school
team in over 13months.
Until about two months ago, Lane had been out of training because of a
hamstring injury. Even before that, though, she had been a partner in
the much-publicized split of national star Nicole Blood from the
Saratoga program following the 2004-05 indoor season, capped by a
Section II-record 3,200 relay to which Lane and Blood each contributed a
leg at the state meet.
Lane made a name for herself as a seventh-grader when she and the cross
country team from tiny Argyle, coached by her father, Bob, improbably
rocketed to national prominence in 2002 and 2003, but the Lanes became
disenchanted with Argyle, whose top runners scattered to Saratoga and
Greenwich.
Caitlin Lane transferred to Class A powerhouse Saratoga, seeking a
competitive setting to match her ability, but that situation soured,
too, as she and Blood quit the program to run independently in open
meets under the banner of the Fast Lane Club coached by Bob Lane since
last spring.
Now Caitlin Lane believes she’s finally found her comfort zone back in a
small-school program, albeit a very good one, at Greenwich, where many
of her former Argyle teammates have settled in. It’s the third school
she’s attended in the last four years.
"It’s great, being back with a lot of the Argyle girls. I’ve missed
them," she said. "We still get along like we did when we were in sixth
grade."
Greenwich coach Steve Patrick said Lane isn’t subject to the Section II
transfer rule, which says that athletes switching schools have to sit
out four competitions before being eligible, because she did not run
outdoor track for a scholastic team last year as a freshman.
It’s been a bad asthma week for Lane, so she didn’t run nearly as fast
(10:17.74) as she wanted to.
"I felt real good the first lap, but I just kind of went downhill from
there,” she said with a little laugh. “I feel like I’m in pretty good
shape, but I tightened up a lot out there. I don’t want to blame it on
the weather, but . . ."
"She’s kind of working her way off this injury, so basically her
training is going to be from distance working back down to the shorter
stuff," Patrick said. "We have enough good distance runners that we
don’t have to put her in a certain situation that’s bad. We can be
pretty conservative with her."
Patrick found out that Lane was transferring to Greenwich about three
weeks ago. Through Internet message boards, gossip and debate over the
departure of Blood, then Lane, from the Saratoga program last year has
taken on a life of its own.
Blue Streaks coaches Art and Linda Kranick’s only public comment at the
time was to wish Blood the best. At the heart of the issue was
disagreement over race scheduling.
Through Fast Lane, the two runners barnstormed to a variety of road
races and open meets, frequently facing older elite runners and college
athletes. For instance, Lane ran a 4:27.84 1,500 in a Boston High
Performance Series meet last June to finish third behind Irish Olympian
Sinead Evans.
They also hit junior meets like the USATF nationals and ran into their
old Saratoga teammates at the Great American Cross Country Festival in
North Carolina last September; while the Blue Streaks dominated the high
school team race, Lane and Blood competed in the collegiate Race of
Champions. They raced against each other at the Foot Locker Northeast
Regional, where Lane finished third to qualify for the national
championship, but hurt her hamstring extending her leg over a railroad
tie on a steep downhill, she said.
"When we run against college and open women, they would go by us, and we
were like, oh, well, she’s in college," Lane said. "Then you have the
high schools around you, and you get that motivation that she’s my age,
and you want to just fight it more."
Lane was recovered enough from the hamstring to resume training this
spring, but when Blood and her family suddenly moved to California last
month (she has a full athletic scholarship waiting for her at the
University of Oregon) Lane no longer had a training partner.
"The two of them were training together and on an island, if you will, I
guess," Bob Lane said.
"Discomfort is relative. Because of our choice of Saratoga, that wasn’t
the most comfortable environment, so you look at which is less
uncomfortable, you know?
"I would say that it [leaving] didn’t have anything to do with that
[level of competition]. Just, when she wasn’t running on the [school]
team, it was less comfortable being there."
When asked if animosity between the Lanes and Kranicks was part of the
equation, Bob Lane said no. "I don’t think we saw them [the Kranicks]
much, it was just - I don’t want to say anything negative - but her peer
group were kids on the team, and then they were no longer her peer
group, so . . ."
Of course, the only reason the Blue Streaks were no longer Caitlin
Lane’s peer group was because she left the team, by the Lanes’ own
choice.
When they decided to transfer out of the school entirely, Greenwich was
the obvious choice. Lane, a former Cambridge track coach, and Patrick
have coached against each other, and the core of the Witches’ team is
made up of the former Argyle cross country powerhouse, where this all
started. Bob Lane says that all he ever wanted for his daughter was a
good, enjoyable experience, so is this, finally, the last stop?
"We have a lot of faith in these coaches. They’re nice guys, they’re
friends of ours," he said.
"Caitlin used to run road races that I ran in when she was a little kid.
And started beating me when she was about 10 years old," Patrick said
with a grin. "We’ve all gotten a little bit more grown up, but there are
times when it’s just like it used to be," Caitlin Lane said, shivering
in the warmth of the Greenwich tent.
Scotia-Glenville sophomore Jillian King ran first in the 1,500
(4:44.38), outdueling Greenwich ace Chelsea Borbolla (4:48.97).
|