It's a sweet, satisfying return trip for Gruber
Annina Gruber and Danielle Glick will wrap up their careers at the IHSAA Girls State Cross Country Meet, but Gruber will be the lone member of the Western Panthers competing in the meet at Indiana State University.
A year ago, Annina Gruber was finished with a cross country season she'd have sooner forgotten. So disappointed, in fact, she wasn't even sure she wanted to continue her running career.
She had struggled in the New Haven Semistate, finishing well behind 15th place where she would have been in the running for a state meet berth and listened as her team was announced in seventh place and out of the running as well.
Funny how much can change in the span of a year.
Saturday, the Western High School senior will compete in the IHSAA Girls State Cross Country Championship at Indiana State University. The trip will mark her second cross country state championship and third state meet overall after going as a sophomore in track.
"This feels a lot better than it did last year. That season was ridiculous. I was so inconsistent," the Panther distance runner said. "I had some good races, was MIC and sectional champion, but at the time the season ended, it wasn't what I wanted."
Maybe that trip to Bloomington for the 2003 state cross country meet spoiled her.
"Two years ago, I never really thought I would get into the top 15. After I did, I pretty much expected to make it to state the next two years," Gruber said.
"Last year, when I didn't, I was questioning myself, wondering if I wanted to keep running. Some runners peak early and I was wondering if that was me or if I was losing my interest in running altogether. This year, I've had such a good season and I won some important races. I think I just matured more this year. I race better and I'm smarter with my strategy."
What woke her up? A back injury that basically left her unable to compete in track at all last spring.
"During track I didn't get to compete much because of my back. Not running that month made me realize how much I liked running. That month was horrible -- it was depressing," said Gruber, who also plays basketball and is on track to graduate with 12 letters from Western. "It made me wake up and realize if my senior year wasn't better than my junior year, I wouldn't be able to run in college and so I needed to pick it up.
"Other than the regional, in most of my races I was consistent and ran strong and finished where I thought I should be finishing."
The Panthers came up just short in their chase for a team berth, but Gruber, one of the team's two seniors, said they had nothing to be disappointed about.
"It really hurt [not to advance as a team]. But, we couldn't have asked for a better performance. We all put our hearts into it and we couldn't be upset about it," she said. "Really, it's just the fact to we keep going and getting sixth is what kills you."
Gruber has a different approach to this weekend's race than she did in her earlier state meet experience.
"I'm excited. As a sophomore, I was happy to be there. This year I want to do well and see how I compare with the rest of the runners in the state," she explained.
Another thing that made the 2004 season so tough was that teammate Anna Hurlock reached the state meet and she wanted to be there with her.
"I came to be there and support Anna, but I wanted to be on the line with her. I've been in that situation of being by myself and I wished I could have performed better so I could have been there with her," she said.
Gruber knows there will be a familiar face out on the course with her -- Taylor senior Danielle Glick.
"When I found out the team wasn't going to be going to state, I was disappointed. But, then I remembered Dani was going," Gruber said. "To have her there will be great because we have been running together all season. Our times are the same.
"It will be good to have Dani there, someone I know and can run with. After her first race back, she's been closer and closer to me. The way she recovered from her injury and how she's been able to come back to make state is awesome."
Gruber has lived in Western school district longer than any where else she's lived -- and the list is extensive.
Her mother is a native of Finland, who played soccer and hockey and sprinted in school. She spent her junior year of high school as a foreign exchange student in Angola, Ind. Just 30 miles or so down the road, her father was growing up in Elkhart.
A Marine based at the American Embassy in Vienna, Austria, it was while serving there that he met her mother, who was working as an au pair for an American couple.
Of the Gruber's three children -- she has an older brother named Niko and a younger one named Markus -- Annina is the only one born in Finland, in the town of Espoo near Helsinki. Her father was going through training in California and her mother wanted to be with family at the time.
Since then, she's lived in Minneapolis and Bemidji, Minn., Erie, Pa., and Quantico, Va.
Annina's running career began in fifth grade at Western's track and field day when she won the 800-meter run.
"I got stuck running the 800 and won. Dad decided to take me to the Mike Cowan Race that summer and I got first in my age group," she said.
The next spring she ran track and in seventh grade she began running cross country, well kind of.
"During cross country practices, my friends and I would walk in practice and run when the coach was around," she said with a laugh. "Then we went to our first race and out of nowhere I won."
Glick savors first state trip of her career
For Danielle Glick, Saturday's IHSAA Girls Cross Country State Championship will be the realization of a three-year dream.
The first Taylor girl to ever qualify for the meet, making a trip to state in cross country or track has been one of her top goals.
"My first year of cross country was my sophomore year. I got to the end of the season and finished second at the regional," she said. "That opened my eyes and made me think it was possible to go to state. I got 25th [at semistate] that year."
Her junior year, however, didn't quite work out as well. Although she qualified for semistate again, a stress fracture in her left leg put a damper on nearly her entire season.
"Last season was an upsetting one. After my sophomore year, I figured I would be in the running to go to state. The fact I had an injury just brought me down," the Titan senior said.
When track came around, she was healed from that injury and went on to finish sixth in the 3,200-meter run at the Bremen Regional.
"I fell short of going to state by one second. I wasn't disappointed with my race because I got my best time," Glick said. "But, I was sixth and would have been the next person called to fill in. Then, to go to state and see I would have run as fast as the girls there, that was a bummer."
What she didn't know at that time was that she'd developed a second stress fracture in the same leg, just higher than the first one.
"It didn't show for a while and it didn't hurt me when I was running," she said.
That injury led to some major changes in her running habits.
"I couldn't do my workouts the way I usually did. I eased into them and had time limits on how long I could run each day," she explained. "I always went out on the road to run. Now, I run in the grass all the time. It absorbs the shock better.
"I also work in a day of rest each week where I don't run. I still exercise or go to the weight room but I don't go out and run."
While she doesn't feel any pain now, she stretches frequently and ices her leg as preventative measures.
For longtime Howard County sports fans, if her last name sounds familiar, it should.
Danielle is the daughter of Jeff Glick, who won the 200-yard individual medley as a Western swimmer in 1985. Her grandfather, Ed, has coached swimming at several schools and all of her uncles swam as well.
But, Danielle doesn't swim competitively and rarely swims at all. Part of that may be due to the fact Taylor doesn't have a pool.
"The only time I've swam is when I was working out in the pool this summer. Dad coaches at Eastern and he took me there and I ran in the water and swam some," she said.
Another reason, she says, is the family name.
"I didn't know if I wanted all that pressure of being a Glick swimmer. I've tried to do my own thing in running," she said. "Dad coaches and was a state champion swimmer. My grandfather coaches and all Dad's brothers swam. It would be hard to match that.
"But, he's never really pushed it. He's been coaching at Eastern since I have been in high school. After this summer, he thought maybe I could swim this winter, but I think I'll let it go."
Her running career started out as a way to earn a varsity letter.
"I ran track as a freshman to get a varsity letter. I had Christopher [Sinnett] talk me into running long distance," she said. "He said it was cool. I was just going to do what the coach asked me to do, but Christopher said 'long distance' and it's worked out."
The Titan is happy that Western's Annina Gruber will be running at Indiana State Saturday as well.
"I really like that she's going to be there. She supports me and I support her. At least it won't be just me there or just her," Glick said.
Being just her is how she spent her first two years of cross country. This year, the Titans fielded an entire team in girls cross country.
"That was really cool. The years before, I was by myself. To have people to joke with and have fun together was great," Glick said. "They were really encouraging."
Two of those seven girls -- classmate Morgan McWhorter and sophomore Courtney Dunlap -- were her teammates on Taylor's 3,200 relay in track. Another senior, Jamie Dunlap, is also a member of the track team.
"Courtney and Morgan decided to run cross country. Leslie [Maple] and Brittany [Parsley], I guess you can say I recruited them," Glick said.
The seventh member of the team is also a senior, Anisha Gohil, and possibly the best female tennis player in Howard County. She's another one who Glick talked into running.
"Anisha is a good friend of mine and we are always talking. I'd say, 'Why don't you run cross country?'" Glick said. "Her mom thought it would be good for her too and she came out.
"I'm just upset she's so good at tennis," she joked. "Otherwise, she could run track with us." ©2005 The Kokomo Tribune