By Lee Davis
Although Frances Patrick already has helped Mountain Brook win four state cross-country championships, there is still one aspect of the sport she doesn’t enjoy – snakes.
“I hate snakes,” Patrick admitted when contacted last week. “I’ve seen a few of them while running, but I haven’t been bitten yet. Knock on wood.”
Patrick may not care for snakes, but it hasn’t affected her performances. As one of the few seniors on a Lady Spartan team seeking the program’s 13th consecutive blue trophy, she is off to an impressive start. Patrick took wins in the Warrior Two-Mile Invitational and the Chickasaw Trails Invitational in September, as Mountain Brook also earned team victories.
I feel really good about where I am personally and where the team is at this point,” Patrick said. “We’re always prepping for the state meet and right now our times are good. We’ve had good routes in the early meets and I’m excited about what this team can do.”
For Patrick, the biggest change in the new season is her role as an upperclassman. Not only must she perform, she also must lead.
“I’ve been in the program since the eighth grade so hopefully I’ve matured as a runner,” she said. “So now providing leadership is part of what I should be doing. I’m most comfortable being a leader by example who works hard at practice every day.”
In addition to being a team leader, Patrick has established herself as one of Alabama’s finest female distance runners. She won the 3,200-meter run in the state outdoor meet last spring and finished second in the 1,600-meter dash. Patrick also was runner-up in the 3,200-meter run in the state indoor meet last winter and turned in a strong fourth-place individual finish in the state cross-country meet in November.
Patrick said that competing in cross-country is very different from conventional track and field.
“A cross-country team has fewer members, so everyone knows each other better and understands that we’ll all be going through the same obstacles,” she explained. “In regular track, a distance runner doesn’t know exactly what someone who is running a shorter event is facing and vice versa. So there’s a lot of camaraderie in cross-country.”
Cross-country running also requires intense mental preparation. “It’s a long route (3.1 miles), so you have to be able to pace yourself,” Patrick said. “You’re always running up and downhill, and it’s hard to know what exactly you might be stepping onto next. My biggest concern – besides snakes – is twisting an ankle.”
Patrick began her athletic career in elementary school as a soccer player, but she entered junior high looking for a change. “I was kind of tired of soccer, but I wanted to stay involved in sports,” she recalled. “So I decided to give track and cross-country a try.”
Her first two years in the program produced respectable if not spectacular results. A turning point came in Patrick’s sophomore season, when then-Spartan track coach Greg Echols issued her a challenge.
“Coach Echols told me I could be a five-minute miler,” she said. “Before that, I was running just for the sake of running or for fun. But after he challenged me, I looked at it from a new perspective. I knew I had to work harder and push myself more than I ever had to produce the results I wanted. His challenge completely changed the path I was on.”
The work clearly paid off, as Patrick’s best time in the mile is a sizzling 5:06.82 and her best time in the slightly shorter 1,600-meter outdoor run is an equally swift 4:59.79. As Patrick and her teammates aim toward yet another cross-country crown, she doesn’t see Mountain Brook’s long record of cross-country success as a cross to bear.
“We don’t think of it as a burden,” she said. “It’s an honor to be part of a proud tradition that has been successful for so long. When you think of all the great runners that were at Mountain Brook before some of us were even born, it’s a privilege that we are the ones given the opportunity to continue winning.”
While Patrick’s undivided attention is aimed at her senior year, she would like nothing better than to continue competitive running at the collegiate level. “I’m planning on running somewhere,” she said. “It could be in the Southeastern Conference. There are a lot of possible options, but I haven’t made any decisions yet. Right now I want to concentrate on what’s in front of me.”
Frances Patrick and her teammates could well have another state championship in front of them. And hopefully there won’t be any snakes getting in the way.