Falcons Going for a Grand Finale

SEATTLE – Sounds hard to believe. But Jessica Pixler says it's true:

There was a time when she didn't love running.

Didn't eat it, breathe it or sleep it.

Then, she got hurt. And then she knew.

Jessica Pixler loves running.

“I was watching the Olympic trials when I was still injured. And I was realizing that I wanted more than anything in the world to be out there running,” said Pixler, a Seattle Pacific senior who hails from the suburb of Sammamish, just east of Seattle. “I was watching it with my mom, and so she turned it on the swimming trials. And I couldn't even watch swimming.

“I wanted so desperately to be competing.”

That was in the summer of 2008 when Pixler was sidelined by stress fractures in her back. But once she did return to running – and once SPU's cross country season started that fall – it was Pixler who was putting the hurt on the competition. And on the record book.

On Saturday morning, Pixler will pen the final chapter of her Falcon cross country career. Of course, there's still plenty of track to be run before she graduates next June. But on the trails of autumn -- the trails she has dominated since 2006 – the final 6 kilometers are waiting for her at the University of Southern Indiana Cross Country Course in Evansville.

Pixler and the Falcon women, who are in pursuit of their third consecutive NCAA Division II team trophy, take off from the starting line at 10 a.m. PST.

“I didn't think about (it being her last cross country race) until after regionals. And then I started crying when I thought about it,” the 21-year-old Pixler acknowledged. “There's nothing like college cross country. And there'll be nothing like that again. You only get it for four years of your life.”

To say that Pixler hasn't wasted a second of those four years is understating the point. Particularly during the past two seasons – after she recovered from those stress fractures – almost every run has been one for the books.

Last year, she shattered the course record at the West Regionals in La Jolla, Calif. – one she had broken just three weeks prior in the pre-regional meet – then set another course record at nationals in Slippery Rock, Pa.

This fall, she duplicated her double record-setting feat at pre-regionals and regionals in San Francisco. And while she's not the kind to go around predicting a similar performance for Saturday's NCAAs, she's certainly not brushing off the possibility, either.

“Right now, I don't see any reason why I can't go out there and have a really good race,” Pixler said. “I felt really good at regionals. I'm fully aware of the fact that it's not going to be an easy race.

“At the same time, I feel really confident. My training is right where it needs to be.”

GETTING HER KICKS ANOTHER WAY
Time was when fall meant soccer for Pixler. She grew up playing the game, and played it for Eastlake High School up through her junior year. She switched to cross country as a senior and placed second in the Class 4A (large school) state high school meet.

But it was still a secondary sport for her. She came to SPU to play soccer, and do some cross country on the side when meets didn't conflict with soccer games.

Even with that arrangement of part-time running, Pixler quickly established herself as a force. As a freshman in 2006, she won what would become the first of an unprecedented four straight Great Northwest Athletic Conference championships, and followed that up two weeks later with the first of four consecutive West Regional crowns.

Then came a 10th-place finish at NCAAs.

And then came decision time:

Soccer? Or cross country?

“I just kept on realizing more and more how much (running) means to me,” Pixler said. “It was such a gradual process.

“I realized I could live without soccer, but I couldn't live without running.”

In the four years since, not only has she ruled the D-2 ranks, she has beaten all but a small handful of top-caliber Division I competitors in various invitationals.

At the past two Sundodger Invites in West Seattle, only a pair of runners from the defending D-1 champion Washington Huskies have been faster than Pixler. At the Stanford Invitational in September, Pixler was second overall, and was the first collegiate runner across the line in a field that included national power Stanford.

And yet, while Pixler says she certainly has asked herself how things might have been different had she gone to a bigger school, she has no regrets whatsoever about choosing Seattle Pacific.

“We had our banquet (this past Sunday night), and I was watching the slide show they had of me and the teammates I've been with for four years,” Pixler said. “And I was thinking about the relationship I have with the school. I know I could not have found the friendships – the friendships I have here are profound. And that's with my teammates, students, professors and coaches. Where else would I be coached by Doris Heritage?”

Falcons head coach Erika Daligcon isn't at all surprised that those are the kinds of things Pixler values most.

“If you're going to come to SPU and be successful, it has to be more than just about the athletics program,” Daligcon said. “With Jessica, there's a lot more to it. Faith is really important to her, and so is the classroom environment (she has a 3.92 grade-point average in English), and the professors who have nurtured her.

“They've helped make this a whole total experience for her in a positive way.”

NEXT STEP
Where to from here?

To the track, for starters. The indoor season begins in January. Pixler is the three-time defending NCAA indoor mile champion, and last winter added a 5,000-meter title. She also has a pair of 1,500-meter outdoor titles.

“I want to take it as far as it can go,” Pixler said. “I don't really know what that means right now. But I'm not ready to stop.”

She's not ready to stop studying either. With practically as many honors academically as she has athletically (the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association has named Pixler its Division II Cross Country Scholar Athlete of the Year the past two years), English major Pixler is starting to explore grad school possibilities.

“I'm passionate about my subject,” she said. “I'm just trying to keep my options open.”

Those options seem almost endless -- whether hitting the books, trails or track.

“The exciting is she'll go on to do some real phenomenal things in the world of running,” Daligcon said. “For her to come through this (college) experience healthy and excited and positive, that would be my whole goal as a coach.”

Pixler's immediate goal after nationals is a few days way from the sport. That's all, though -- just a few.

“I'll take a short break before track. But I kind of go cabin-crazy on my week off,” she said.

That's to be expected for someone who loves running. And while it wasn't always true, there's no mistaking it now:

Jessica Pixler loves running.