Either way, Rakosnik can go the distance

Need a fast conversion from meters to miles?

Try Glenbard East senior Lindsey Rakosnik.

The state's reigning girls Class 3A 800-meter state champion is attacking cross country courses with an ease uncommon for many sprinters, which is how she broke into track and field.

Since last March the versatile Rakosnik has won the indoor 800 at the Illinois Prep Top Times, the outdoor 800 in Charleston and the young women's 1,500-meter race at the USATF National Junior Olympics Championships this summer in Wichita.

Last Saturday in Wauconda, Rakosnik ran what early in this cross country season is the fastest girls 5-kilometer time in the state at 17 minutes, 40.06 seconds to set a new course record. She comes off a junior season in which she placed 39th individually at the Class 3A finals in Peoria.

In 2010 Glenbard East girls cross country coach Emily Serb realized Rakosnik's special hybrid ability after only two workouts. To start the season the Rams coach takes the girls out herself for a couple training runs to gauge their fitness level. On the second 5-mile session Serb said Rakosnik made her “huff and puff.”

“I can keep up with our varsity pack,” Serb said, “but she was already faster than they were after doing a distance run twice. Then I knew she had some talent to work with.”

To think Rakosnik almost did not run at all in high school.

She began as a sixth-grade sprinter, but she also played volleyball and club soccer. The day before soccer tryouts the spring of her freshman year, Rakosnik reconsidered and joined the track team. A three-pronged attack — joining friends, lobbying by coaches and her perceptions of her parents' wishes — changed her mind.

“They didn't come out and say it,” Lindsey said of her parents, Ron and Leanne, “but they enjoyed watching me run.”

As did Rams track sprints coach Joe Cristina. Only a freshman in 2009, Rakosnik placed sixth in the Class 3A 400-meter run. She was the runner up in 2010.

Her junior year, when she became Glenbard East's first girls track state champion, she made the transition to longer distances, up to a mile, due to her appreciation of race strategy.

“A lot of times sprinters are reticent about going hard for a long period of time, and she made that transition beautifully,” Serb said. “She had no fear about running distances.”

Coming into last fall, her first cross country season, Rakosnik admitted she did little over the summer to get her ready. This summer she ran about 40 miles a week to prepare.

“I definitely think it got me ahead. I gained more endurance over the summer and probably more muscle in my legs,” she said.

“But I think just getting up the mileage is what helped me. It mentally got me more prepared to go out and run a race. Additionally, I noticed this year in my long runs my pace has been a lot faster and I'm more capable of going a lot harder in practices than I was last year.”

While Glenbard East will be competing Saturday at the Kaneland Invite, Rakosnik will be taking the first of her official college visits, to Iowa. The Hawkeyes, Missouri and Kansas all made home visits this summer, and Rakosnik said she is also contemplating Illinois, Wisconsin and Purdue.

Whoever lands her will get a speedster with stamina — or a distance runner with a great kick.

“I'm just enjoying it and I'll see what I can do,” Rakosnik said. “I'm just going to go with it.”

Marathon woman

Lindsey Rakosnik said once her college days are over she may try a marathon.

Perhaps she'll run into Nicole Farr.

The 2006 Wheaton Warrenville South graduate, now 23 and in her second year of graduate school in sport administration studies at Bowling Green State University, is training for her second Chicago Marathon on Oct. 9.

Last year she ran the 26.2 miles in 3 hours, 26 minutes, 9 seconds, missing her goal of 3:10 — and the 3:09.55 run in the past by her mother, Rhonda, a former college runner.

“I guess I kind of signed up for that first one impulsively,” Nicole said. “I did that last fall, and it didn't really go that well. I trained for it, but I didn't want it to be all structured training, every day. I didn't want to beat myself into the ground.”

Armed with an improved training plan devised by one of her college coaches, she's now more prepared, to the point that her goal is to complete the course in under three hours.

Farr's pursuit, her “cool journey,” is a testament to the joy of working with teammates and coaches toward a goal.

A four-time state track qualifier at WW South who also helped the Tigers to ninth- and 23rd-place cross country finishes in 2005 and 2003, respectively, Farr advanced to Calvin College. There, she ran on an All-American distance relay team and on a cross country squad that finished second in Division III. She gained bachelor's degrees in sport management and business communication. And that was that.

Except it wasn't.

“In the back of my mind,” she said, “I was like, ‘I still have an indoor season.'”

Due to early shin injuries at Calvin she had college eligibility remaining. After a couple weeks at Division I Bowling Green, she emailed the track coach, just for kicks. The next day she was on the team.

Benefiting from more intense training and weight room sessions, her collegiate career officially ended at the Mid-American Conference indoor meet. Farr anchored a fourth-place distance medley team, competed in the 3-kilometer race and placed eighth in the 1,600, becoming Bowling Green's only runner to break five minutes during the season.

Unofficially, though, during the 2011 outdoor season she competed unattached in steeplechase, which she had started running at Calvin. In fact her time of 10:33 at North Central College's Last Chance Meet is near the Olympic Trial “B” standard of 10:15.

So ...

“If I stay healthy and I still want to keep running competitively I will probably give that a little bit more thought,” said Farr, who credited the influence of coaches such as WW South's Rob Harvey. “But I don't want to get ahead of myself, and I also know that I can't just run forever. But as long as I have the passion for it and stay injury free, I might as well keep going.”

doberhelman@dailyherald.com