Allie Klimkiewicz
Year: Junior
School: Oakton High School
Location: Vienna, VA
1600m PR: 4:59.18
3,000m PR: 9:48.34
2-mile PR: 10:32.35
Allie Klimkiewicz, helping to uphold Virginia’s reputation for producing top-flight distance runners, raced to victory in her first two invitational meets of the season. And she is poised to contend for additional titles in the coming weeks against competition from several states. A 16-year-old junior at Oakton High, Klimkiewicz won last Saturday’s Knights Crossing Invitational in 18:10 for 5K, a week after she took the Great Meadows title in 18:17.
Race Repertoire: Klimkiewicz likes to fall in with the lead pack but let others set the pace, then strike at pivotal points. She won the hot and hilly Great Meadows event in The Plains with a late-race surge. She won the flat Knights Crossing race in Salem in beautiful weather with a burst of speed in the last 200m.
Favorite Courses: Klimkiewicz, 5-foot-6 and 105 pounds, enjoys letting her legs fly on fast courses like McAlpine Park in Charlotte, N.C., site of the Foot Locker South Regional. Last year, Klimkiewicz placed ninth in the regional, running 17:29 for 5K, to qualify for nationals in San Diego. Virginia sent two other girls to San Diego—regional winner Sophie Chase and eighth-placer Caroline Alcorta—and had seven girls in the top 25 in Charlotte. Another Klimkiewicz favorite is Burke Lake Park, the cross country mecca of northern Virginia.
National Know-how: Klimkiewicz said that Foot Locker was the experience of a lifetime, but as a sophomore in her first national event she felt intimidated by the elite field and did not perform at her best. She hopes to qualify again this season and improve upon her 33rd-place finish.
Upcoming Meets: Klimkiewicz will be back at McAlpine Park on Oct. 5 for the Wendy’s Invitational. This Saturday, she will run the multi-state Oatlands Invitational in Leesburg, Va. Klimkiewicz and her Oakton team will also compete in the huge Manhattan Invitational on Oct. 12 at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.
Lethal Kick: Klimkiewicz has developed her fast finish from recent workouts like a 3K tempo run plus 4 x 600 on cross country terrain. Over the summer she increased her mileage to 40 miles a week, along with cross-training like bicycling and swimming/aqua-running. Currently, she does weight training twice a week, working both her upper body and legs. “It’s definitely made me stronger,” she said. “I’m going up hills much faster than before.”
Two Sports: Like many youngsters, Klimkiewicz started out playing soccer and was on a club team through her freshman year at Oakton while running track and cross country. She felt the two sports at once were too much and gave up soccer. She had also decided that “I liked running a lot more.”
Mental Toughness: “The best thing about Allie,” said Oakton cross country and track coach Alisa Byers, “is that she doesn’t let ‘what ifs’ affect her. Once she believes in a plan, there is no changing it and no stopping her from making it a reality.”
No Breaks: What Klimkiewicz loves most about running is a long, hard, sustained effort. “It’s cool pushing yourself to see how hard you can go for how long,” she said. “I like no breaks, just you and the course.”
Running Buddies: Allie also enjoys the camaraderie of running and the friends you can make, even among the opposition. In addition to her teammates, she has become close with state rival Alcorta of West Springfield High, whom she got to know at Foot Locker. The two girls, who will be state 3A contenders in November, have met for training runs.
Summer Camp: In late July, Oakton attended a cross country camp at California University in Pennsylvania. Klimkiewicz’ work-outs were better than ever, said Byers, and at camp she ran Oakton’s annual mid-summer mile time trial in 5:20, a 10-second improvement from the previous summer.
Overnight Success: While she went out for cross country as a freshman just to get in shape for soccer, Klimkiewicz wasted no time making her mark in running. In fall 2011, she won the Concorde District title, placed fifth in state 3A and 16th at Foot Locker South, clocking 17:42 for 5K. In track, she went on to run several 1600s close to 5 minutes with a freshman-year best of 5:01.58.
Hot Streak: Last season, continuing her sophomore cross country success, Klimkiewicz improved on the track to 4:59.18 in the 1600m along with a 10:32.35 2-mile for eighth at the New Balance indoor nationals in New York. She also took seventh in the Penn Relays 3000m in Philadelphia in 9:48.34. “A little success can go a long way if you keep up the hard work,” she said.
Marc Bloom’s high school cross-country rankings have played an influential role in the sport for more than 20 years and led to the creation of many major events, including Nike Cross Nationals and the Great American Cross Country Festival. He published his cross-country journal, Harrier, for more than two decades.
