Clare Mullin, one of the top runners at Sitka High, set new personal records and demonstrated again that she can compete with the best athletes around the country last week at an invitational meet at Mt. San Antonio College in California.
Mullin was the only Sitka High athlete on the track over the weekend as the rest of the Wolves track and field team had a bye.
The one-mile race was Mullin's first event at the Mt. SAC invitational, and the Sitka High School senior placed eighth, at 4:54, in a field of 39.
"That was just very, very chaotic for me. There was a ton of people in my heat, and definitely not something I'm super used to,” Mullin told the Sentinel Tuesday. “And it was just elbow to elbow, shoulder to shoulder the whole time, just constantly trying to fight through people to get to a good spot. So that was definitely challenging in a way that I'm not really used to. Normally, when races are challenging for me, it's really just trying to grit through it. But this was very mentally challenging as far as strategy and stuff. I felt like that was good, and I learned a lot from that race, so that I felt more confident going into the start of my 800.”
Mullin’s mile time was her fastest ever, about 3 seconds quicker than her previous PR set at the Nike Outdoor National track meet in Oregon last June. Charlotte Hopkins, from California’s Arcadia High School, won the mile in a blistering 4:49.
Mullin had another personal best in the 800 meter race, finishing fourth at 2:10.73.
“I feel like getting to the space that I needed to be right from the beginning really helped me in that race, and I felt much more confident the whole time because I knew I was in the right spot,” Mullin said.
She has the Alaska state record for the girls 800 in her sights this year; that record is presently 2:10.4.
The next meet for the Sitka Wolves will be in Juneau, Friday and Saturday.
The 800 at Mt. SAC “went exactly how I planned it, which was really nice,” Mullin said. “I think it was good to have people around me to race, and I knew that I was fit enough to run a 2:10 so just being able to execute that was good. And I feel like it set me up really well for this season. As far as my goal of breaking the state record; I'm just point three seconds off.”
Mullin noted that she chose the Mt. SAC meet in part because other options conflicted with different track events this spring, and Mt. SAC splits the 800 and mile onto different days. The meet ran from last Wednesday through Saturday. The college is in the town of Walnut, 25 miles east of Los Angeles.
Though Mullin was aiming for a time that would best the Alaska high school record for the 800, she said she’s looking forward to doing that in Alaska, when her teammates are present.
"I was so close. But also, when I do run that, I think it would be really good to run it in Alaska on an Alaskan track,” Mulllin said. “I feel like that would just make it more official, and I'd be able to celebrate it with my teammates and my coaches there.”
Her mother was her only hometown supporter at the Calfornia meet.
Because of how Mt. SAC runs their meet, Mullin added, she wasn’t sure which heat she’d be in until only days prior to the races. As it turns out, she ran with the fastest athletes.
“I didn't know I was going to be in the fastest heat of this until a couple days before, actually,” she said. “But really it's just times – they take the top 16 in the 800 and however many in the mile, and that's the invitational heat.”
Along with her goal of taking the state record in the 800, Mullin would like to notch another top performance at the Nike Outdoor National meet in Eugene, Oregon, in June to close out her high school running career.
“I would like to finish in the top 10 at nationals as All-American honors. That'd be awesome,” Mullin said. “That's kind of the big goal… and really focusing down on the eight, because I feel like that is my strongest event. So I've been doing a lot of speed work for that.”
Mullin has already signed to run with Gonzaga University in Spokane, an NCAA Division I school, starting in the fall.
