Fans give Koch Olympic sendoff
Washburn athlete is specialized middle distance runner
Many elite athletes see a berth in the U.S. Olympic Trials as one signature step of a lifelong pursuit based in specialization and perseverance.
Carsyn Koch specialized in versatility while starring in cross-country, soccer, basketball and track at Washburn District High School, but a collegiate focus on a single event has landed her in the same spotlight.
The 20-year-old Koch, who just completed her sophomore year at Cedarville (Ohio) University, left a campus send-off gathering of hundreds of supporters last Tuesday afternoon bound for Eugene, Oregon, site of the 2016 U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials, where she competed in the first round of the women’s 800-meter run Friday evening.
“If you had told me two years ago that this is where I would be leading into this week, I probably would have told you you were crazy,” she said prior to her fifth-place finish in the third of five heats. In the race, she had a time of 2:05.57 and fell short of qualifying for the semifinals held the following afternoon.
It’s not that Koch lacked the credentials to rank among the top 32 half-milers in the nation.
She achieved the Trials qualifying standard with a 2:02.39 effort on May 1 in the Payton Jordan Invitational at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, and she also is the 2016 NCAA Division II champion at 800 meters both indoors and outdoors.
But it’s only since arriving at Cedarville that her athletic focus has trended toward true specialization, and with that her development into a nationally ranked runner has accelerated.
“Part of it was that the 800 is the event she really enjoys, and the other part is that’s where she seemed to have the talent that would really allow her to achieve at the highest level,” said Cedarville head track coach Jeff Bolender. “We’re still kind of early in this process, but she’s a really athletically talented kid.”
Championship pedigree
Neither the small Aroostook County hamlet of Wade — population 283 as of the 2010 U.S. Census — where Koch lives nor neighboring Washburn projects itself as a spawning ground for elite middle-distance runners, with the nearest track-and-field complex some 15 miles away in Caribou.
But as the daughter of Peter and Liane Koch enrolled at Washburn District High School, running was merely one facet of what would become a broad athletic experience.
By the time she finished her first winter of high school, Koch already was a Class C cross-country individual state champion and part of a Class D state title team in basketball. The winning never stopped.
She went on to capture four straight individual cross-country state titles and helped the Beavers win the 2012 Class C team crown — they lost to Orono the next year by a single point.
She also played soccer for three autumns and as a senior helped Washburn win the 2013 Class D state championship.
That dual-sport allegiance routinely required Koch to juggle two after-school obligations each day.
“For Carsyn to split her physical energy between two sports in the fall was pretty taxing,” said Michael Waugh, Koch’s cross-country coach at Washburn now serving as the head cross-country and track and field coach at Presque Isle High School. “But she never approached anything like she was saving herself for a race or a soccer game. She always did whatever she was doing at the time at 100 percent. She would do it full bore with a full heart and leave it all out on the field or on the course.”
Koch also thrived on the basketball court, helping Washburn to four consecutive Class D state championships between 2011 and 2014.
But it was during the outdoor track season where Koch’s athletic versatility may have been most pronounced. She captured seven individual state championships in five different events at distances ranging from 100 meters to 1,600 meters and also including a Class C state record of 5-5½ in the high jump as a senior.
She didn’t know yet how good she could be at any single event or any single sport, but that wasn’t a priority at the time.
“I had so many great experiences from high school,” said Koch, whose state track titles included two in the 800 as a freshman and as a sophomore. “I can think of basketball games in particular where you just had to grit your teeth and do what you needed to do to win or to meet the objective.
“You definitely learned different competitive lessons and a big part of running is the mental game. In that way I think have a little advantage over some people now, and I also feel a lot of my potential is just starting to come out because I wasn’t pushed as hard running in high school.”
Finding the right fit
Koch took her wide-ranging resume to Cedarville University — an independent Christian college of 3,700 students in southwestern Ohio not far from Dayton — in pursuit of a nursing degree.
That resume piqued Bolender’s interest.
“I could tell when she’s a state champion in cross-country and a state champion in the high jump and a state champion in soccer and a state champion in basketball that she clearly was talented,” he recalled. “It’s just been figuring out how that was all going to shake out.”
Koch’s collegiate sporting focus shook out rather quickly once Bolender saw her set a school record of 1:15.36 at the unique distance of 500 meters as a freshman.
“She did that, and she didn’t really look like she had started running yet,” he said. “That was one of the early indicators. She had a pretty good freshman cross-country season as well.”
Koch found the transitions from cross-country to indoor track — for the first time in her career — and then to outdoor track in the spring both complementary and productive.
“You can really see all of that buildup come to fruition and all the hard work you put in during cross-country to build your base and indoor track when you do a little quicker stuff leading to the spring when you really hit it hard and you see your times drop because of how the whole training program develops you,” she said.
Koch became Cedarville’s first female NCAA All-American in 2015 after finishing second in the 800 at the Division II outdoor championships in 2:05.21. She also set six school records — the 500 and distance medley relay indoors and the 400, 800, 1,500 and 4×800 relay outdoors.
All the while she kept inching closer to devoting her energies to a specific distance.
“She’d run 2:21 in high school in the 800 so I was thinking that this girl could run at least 2:10, which is way off from where she is now,” said Bolender. “But then when she ran a 2:05 at the end of her freshman year and she ran a 54-second 400 and a 4:24 1,500, at that point I knew she was pretty good and at least had the potential to do what she’s done now.”
On the elite track
Koch’s growth in the 800 has merely escalated during the last 12 months.
She won the NCAA Division II championship indoors last winter with a meet record and new personal record of 2:05.12, then moved outdoors and saw her 800 times continue to drop.
In mid-April, she trekked to California for the Mt. SAC Relays at Mount San Antonio College and finished in 2:03.58. Two weeks later she returned to the West Coast for the Payton Jordan Invitational and became the fastest women’s 800 runner in NCAA Division II history while also besting the 2:03.00 U.S. Olympic Trials qualifying standard.
“It had been a really stressful time for me. It was the week before finals and I had been pulled out of school a lot during spring semester, so it was a difficult decision for me to even go there in the first place because I didn’t want to impact my academics,” said Koch, her class valedictorian at Washburn and a dean’s list student at Cedarville.
“But I decided that a couple of B’s are fine if you hit an Olympic Trials standard. It’s fine if I don’t get all A’s this semester. It’s OK, so I went and it was a really good decision because when I crossed that finish line it felt so good to see so much hard work pay off.”
Koch’s highlight-reel spring wasn’t done — she won the 800 title at the NCAA Division II outdoor championships in 2:03.48.
“She’s a great kid, too,” said Bolender. “It’s especially nice when you’re working with kids who are so humble and so thankful. Not every kid is like that, but with all the success Carsyn’s had she’s really strong in her faith as well and she’s been great to work with. She’s just a super humble, nice kid.”
The next challenge
Koch’s Olympic Trials qualifying time is tied for 28th best among runners who intend to compete in the women’s 800 — with the top six times all under two minutes.
“I want Carsyn to understand that this accomplishment in and of itself is pretty amazing, but also to go there and just focus on doing her best,” Bolender said prior to Friday’s competition. “I want her to just enjoy the opportunity she has and the fact she’s already accomplished this and then control what you can control, run your best and see what happens.”
Koch sees her rapid improvement and the sudden nature of her qualification for the Trials as potentially working to her benefit.
“For a lot of people going into these trials this has been a goal for years or since they were a little kid, they’ve trained and trained to get here and now here comes the pinnacle moment,” she said. “For me, I didn’t even think this was a possibility two years ago and I think I have a lot more to give. It’s just finding those new ways to bring it out.”
The event was a learning experience for Koch with an eye toward possible future national and international competitions.
“It’s tough to set goals when you’re in my position because I really don’t know what I have left to give right now,” she said. “I don’t want to shortchange myself, but at the same time this is more competition than I’ve ever run against so I understand that every single person who has made it to this level has either some sort of potential left or already has reached it and is super fast.
“I try to remind myself that there are other people who are faster than me, but I’m faster than other people, too.”
