Four Scarborough seniors – Allison Chamberlain, Hilary Curtis, Erica Jesseman and Kaitlynn Saldanha – recently competed in three meets in 24 hours.
On Saturday, Jan. 6, they ran their regular season meet at the Portland Expo, where the quartette helped Scarborough defeat Bonny Eagle, McAuley and South Portland. All four runners won their individual event.
That night they drove to the Dartmouth Relays in Hanover, N.H., and ran the high school 4 x 800-meter relay, finishing fourth. Their time of 9 minutes, 43.83 seconds was almost two seconds faster than their record-setting performance in last season’s Class A state meet.
Sunday, each of the girls ran individual events in the college division at Dartmouth with Saldanha taking first in the 800 and Jesseman setting a personal best in the mile.
Who are these girls and what makes them tick? KeepMEcurrent.com sat down and chatted with them before practice last Thursday.
Q: Whose idea was the three meets in 24 hours?
Kaitlynn: It wasn’t supposed to be like that. It just happened.
Allison: We were supposed to go down to Dartmouth for Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday, but we weren’t allowed to miss our meet here. We decided to stay here, run with our team (Saturday morning) then run at Dartmouth Saturday night and Sunday.
Q: Do people ever ask you why you run for fun? It’s what athletes in other sports have to do as punishment.
Hilary: Some people ask why we just run circles on the track.
Erica: And some people will say running isn’t a sport.
Allison: Then you tell those people to go out and run five miles and they stop talking.
Q: Do weird things ever happen to you when you go running?
Kaitlynn: Mr. Kelly, at running camp, drove us out 10 miles and we had to run back. When we were running back we found a butcher knife in the middle of the road.
Erica: I’ve passed out before. I was with my Dad; I passed out in a ditch on a hot day. The heat was getting to me.
Allison: She’s the only person I have ever seen pass out after a race. I’ve never seen anyone work that hard in my life.
Q: Are any of you really superstitious with your running?
Erica: I have eaten certain foods the night before, like spaghetti and stuff like that.
Kaitlynn: Come on, get deeper.
Erica: What?
Kaitlynn: Okay, for cross country, exactly two hours before (Erica) has her PowerBar and her Poland Spring water. It has to be the right type of PowerBar.
Erica: They know me better than I know myself. I do it so often.
Q: So Erica is crazy superstitious, but do any of you get crazy nervous before your races?
Kaitlynn: Yea.
Allison: Kaitlyn needs a huge pep talk before her races. Before races we do little huddles and we’ll all tell her positive things.
Q: Is it hard for you to not compete with each other in practice?
Hilary: It’s more like working together.
Allison: In workouts we just work off each other. In the beginning of the season it was hard because I am more of a sprinter or middle-distance runner. We’d be doing endurance workouts and I’d be way, way back, but it helps because it motivates you.
Kaitlynn: Then we get to the sprinter workouts and she’s the one kicking butt.
Erica: And I’m way behind all of them.
Q: To give people an idea of what you do, what’s the hardest workout Mr. Kelly gives you guys?
Allison: I didn’t really like those 10 200’s the other day with a two-minute rest (between each one).
Erica: What I did the other night when I passed out after. Not literally, but I was on the ground. I did three miles at six-minute mile pace and every two laps I would do a 34-second 200.
Q: How about fun workouts, do you ever get to do those?
Kaitlynn: Every workout is what you make it. It can all be fun. Any workout can be your hardest workout depending on what you put into it – and it can be fun.
Q: Do you have specific roles on the relay team?
Allison: Last year we had a specific order, but we switched it this year to work with our strength and weaknesses. I used to anchor but I used to really get nervous because I knew I was running against other teams best runners. This year we are having Erica anchor because we know if we give her a lead there’s no way she’ll lose it.
Hilary: Ally gets out well, so she starts for us.
Q: Do you have different mindsets for each of your parts?
Allison: I try and go for an explosive start…when it comes to New England’s, my goal would be to get an explosive start and lead the race as long as possible. I just go as hard as I can and then hold on.
Q: Is it hard doing the 4 x 800 because some of you are dropping from your natural distances and some of you are going up in distance?
Allison: It’s hard but I try and think of it as a longer distance, but not as fast as I usually do. I love it though because everyone else loves it.
Erica: I just love being part of a team. It gets hard harder because I like the distance events, but I like being a part of the team.
Hilary: That’s why the (distance medley relay) is perfect for us.
Allison: Each of us runs the race we are used to running.
Erica: Ally does the 400, Heather does the 800, Kayla the 1200, and I do the 1600.
Although the distance medley isn’t an event at the Maine state championships, in December, the Scarborough foursome qualified for that event at the New Balance national high school indoor championships March 9-11 at New York.
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