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<strong>Colorado's Class of 2014 makes their decisions...</strong></p>
Elise Cranny made a regular practice of running away from people this fall. The next big step in her game will take her to Stanford Unversity. Photo by Alan Versaw.
Elise Cranny's best marks:
800 meters - 2:08.50
1500 meters - 4:15.97
1600 meters - 4:47.56 (at altitude)
Mile - 4:40.62
3200 meters - 10:38.99 (at altitude)
In one of the bigger pieces of news on the signing front, it came out today that Niwot's Elise Cranny has given Stanford University a verbal commitment. We asked Cranny to stop and talk with us for a moment:
You certainly had strong freshman and sophomore years of high school in cross country and track, but you did not burst onto the scene as many freshman phenoms do. Can you point to a moment where either the outlook or the training changed that made what happened your junior and senior years possible?
The winter of my junior year was the first winter that I was training consistently while participating in high school swimming. This consistency along with Jason Hartmann's unwavering confidence in me gave me a new mindset. These two things along with winning New Balance Indoor Nationals allowed me to believe that nothing is impossible.
You're much better known as a runner than as a swimmer, but that's different than saying your swimming has been unimportant. What has swimming contributed to your success as a runner?
Swimming has given me great cardiovascular endurance while keeping my mileage low and my legs fresh. Swimming also allows me to spend time with friends and not focus so heavily on running. Swimming has allowed me to have balance.
If you had to pick a favorite memory of your high school career so far, what would that be?
My favorite high school memory was winning the Colorado State 4A Track team title. It was the first time Niwot had ever won a state track title. It was great sharing this moment with the team.
Is there any one thing the stands out as something you'd still like to accomplish in high school?
I would love to get the Colorado State 800 meter record, and I would love to win another team title.
Rumor is spreading has it that you will be running at the USA Cross Country Championships in Boulder in a couple of weeks. Do you have a particular goal for that race?
It is still up in the air on whether or not I will race.
Has the coaching staff at Stanford given you any indication what events they think you'll be running there?
I believe the plan will be to focus on the 1500 initially and gradually progress to the 5k. I also hope to be able to run the DMR sometime because that sounds like a fun and exciting relay.
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For those wondering, the Colorado state record for 800 meters is 2:07.53 and dates back to 1996. We expect Cranny to have a few shots at taking it down, and we can hope that a generally strong girls 800 meter field in Colorado this spring will help her get there. Colorado state records do not include out-of-state performances, so, if Cranny takes the record down, it will have to come in front of a homegrown kind of crowd.
Should Cranny run the USA Cross Country Championships next month, the course for junior women is a 6K course. It's not as if Cranny is inexperienced at that kind of distance. This fall, she entered and won the Rocky Mountain Shootout, the University of Colorado's home cross country meet in a time of 20:39 for a distance of 5.8K. The Buffalo Ranch course would be decidedly more difficult than the course in use for the USA Cross Country Championships.
