Judy P will have her game face on this weekend in San Diego one last time (Photo Run image credit)
Regional Finish: 2nd Place- 17:18
It has been such a great season for the instant Land of Lincoln all-timer that it provokes the thought of where Judy Pendergast actually ranks in annals. It would be difficult to say that Judy Pendergast is the best Illinois cross country runner of all time after one great year. One reason is that Illinois girls have only been running three miles as a primary event since 2002. That sample is very small when you consider that girls were sanctioned in 1979. In that time span there have been a number of Illini ladies who performed admirably in the National Finals. Melissa Straza (Bloomington- 2nd,1983), Victoria Jackson (Lake Forest- 2nd,1999), Cassidy Wall (Mt. Assisi- 5th,1995), Erika Odlaug (Deerfield- 2nd, 2001) are the standards of excellence from this state.
So how well will Pendergast do on Saturday? MileSplit has put her in the challengers role in their meet preview.
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Naperville North girls coach Dan Iverson is the architect behind Pendergast's success and he took a moment to remark on his star pupil:
Judy has cemented herself into all-time great status in one year. She has gone from 23rd as a freshman to fastest ever girl in three miles. Did you see this coming at any point in her development?
I saw Judy coming a little bit a year ago- 22nd at NXN last year was highly unexpected. Then, she re-wrote our track records last spring. But this summer, I really saw her improving tremendously. She began running hard workouts with some of the boys in ways that I had never seen our athletes do. So when we started this year, I really thought she could do some of the things she's done. Obviously, all of the course records were bonuses, but she has been running workouts so fast, that the times you've seen in races are definitely what we've seen correlated in her workouts.
It seemed after crushing every existing course record this year, Judy has slowed down a tad bit. She will undoubtedly do well in California on Saturday. Do you think she has reached her peak?
It's hard to say whether she's reached her peak. Her workouts don't say that. She ran a series of 50-second 300's yesterday with seeming ease. She ran 5x1000m extremely fast on Monday, and looked very, very good doing it. So she looks really good. But you are right. Her performance last weekend was not quite what she was hoping for, but I believe that's more a function of inexperience racing at this level.
She has only been this elite for the last few months, really. As a result, she has not had much competition at this level. That showed at FLMW when Taylor Werner passed her. Her racing instinct really wasn't honed well, and she sort of let her go. I'm not sure she'd have beaten Werner, as Taylor ran a historically good race, but she learned from that. Then, the opposite happened at NXN. She went out well, but then got a little antsy early and took the lead and pressed early. She's been doing that all year, but doing it with this level of competition less than 1000m into the race is not really a great idea, and she learned that when [Katie] Rainsberger went and she had trouble with the chase pack. We've talked a lot about it, and she is confident that she will be better for where she fell a bit short the last two weeks.
She is definitely looking forward to learning more this weekend. We have talked about how we think the race might unfold, and we have used her experiences the last two weeks as experiences from which she will grow. Certainly, no matter how she finishes this weekend, she will grow from that experience, too. I have told her that, as big as the stages have been the last few weeks, they remain learning experiences. If she grows from them, good things will happen. So the bottom line is that I really don't know where she will finish, but I know she will be better as a result. I am very proud of her attitude, and truly, her best effort will be good enough.
What is Judy's mindset going from NXN to FL Nationals?
I wish I had a great prediction for her place this weekend - I don't - but I am very excited because I do know that she will run well even if not perfectly, and she will emerge better. She's a great kid, and her attitude is tremendous. It will be a fantastic way to finish the season!
