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Miami runner in NCAA race

Senior Rachel Patterson to compete in D-I championship.

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By Jay Morrison, Staff Writer 12:28 AM Friday, November 19, 2010

OXFORD — Miami University senior cross country runner Rachel Patterson said she isn’t sure what will happen during the Division I NCAA championship race Monday.

But she knows exactly what to expect afterward: A smile.

“Even if I run the worst race of my life, I’ll still be happy knowing I finally made it to a national championship,” said Patterson, an exercise science major. “This has always been a goal of mine since I’ve been running collegiately.”

Patterson qualified for her first NCAA national meet with a record-breaking, fifth-place showing at the Great Lakes Regional, which took place in her hometown of Rochester, Mich.

Patterson’s time of 20 minutes, 40.39 seconds broke the school record of 20:46.7 set by Andrea Kremer in 2003.

“It’s something I take pride in, but it’s not something I was aiming for,” she said. “I don’t ever look at the school record and say I’m going to beat this today. But yeah, it’s fun to say you have a school record.”

Patterson is just the eighth Miami female to qualify for the national meet, but her excitement about making it was tempered by the fact that Miami failed to advance as a team. Only the top two squads at the regional earned the right to run Monday, and the RedHawks finished seventh.

“There were definitely mixed emotions,” Patterson said. “I was happy I made it, but I knew they worked really hard for this, too.

“It’s going to be tough running without them,” Patterson continued. “I always feel like the thing that gets me motivated to run well is I don’t want to let my teammates down.”

But while they won’t be running alongside in her in uniform, they will be running along the 6K course offering words of encouragement, as will her Patterson’s parents.

As far as her goals for the race, Patterson said she’s superstitious about disclosing them. But she did offer up one. “Everybody’s dream is to be an All-American,” she said, referring to the honor bestowed on the top 40 finishers. “We’ll see what happens. It’s hard to know how the race is going to go.”