May 27, 2009

On a grade school parking lot is where Ashley Cattran realized she could run pretty fast. She recalls how her classmates would go bounding outside everyday to play popular recess games like tag. And then she remembers how she would smoke them all, including the boys that gave chase.

"Our games were kind of creative, but no one could ever, ever catch me," says Cattran. "That's when I thought I was fast, but at that point I had no idea what I was doing. I just thought it was fun that I could out-run people."

Just for kicks, she'd spend her childhood days at home clocking herself in a dead sprint around the cul-de-sac in front of her family's suburban Centerville home - just to see how fast she could go. Running might be a chore for some, but Cattran says she has always gravitated toward racing and training.

Nowadays, the University of Dayton junior-to-be still finds pleasure in bolting by her panting peers, but it's no longer just an amusement.

During the 2008-09 track season, the standout mid-distance runner had a season for the books. She repeatedly shattered school records in the 800-meter event and made Flyer history by qualifying for both the USA Indoor Track & Field Championships and NCAA Indoor Championships.

No UD runner has ever competed at either meet.

"It was an honor to be the first runner to go," says Cattran. "But it was kind of surreal because we thought, initially, that I wasn't going to qualify, so when I found out it was an awesome surprise."

Also astonishing was the fact that it was Cattran's first collegiate season running the 800-meter dash. Despite her relative inexperience - she hadn't run the 800 since being a part of several relay teams in high school - she has been a natural at making the conversion from the 400 to the 800.

For someone sizing Cattran up for the first time, however, it'd be near-impossible to peg her as a nationally competitive athlete. She comes across willowy and cute, a seemingly care-free blonde whose petite frame appears more likely to blow away in a strong wind than to blow many away on the track. Most people who know her, even her coach, will describe her as clumsy.

"When you see her walking into practice, she's someone that's going to trip on her own two feet," says Head Coach Adam Steinwachs, the draftsman responsible for developing Cattran's rigorous training regimen. "She doesn't look like she's real confident in herself all of the time, but when it comes time to get on the track and race or just workout, she's tough as nails."

Steinwachs and others surrounding Cattran may joke about her bungles, but they also make sure to praise her relentless work ethic.

"She has a drive for excellence, it's not competition," says Assistant Coach Vaughn Davis. "She has a certain level of expectation that she's got to meet all the time and it takes over everything else."

That drive has carried Cattran a long way in the past two years. But for someone with All-American aspirations now, two summers ago it didn't seem like Cattran would be doing anything at the Division-I track level - much less running in prestigious national competitions across the country.

When Cattran was an incoming freshman she nearly had a false start trying to figure out how she was going to juggle the rigors of studying pre-medicine and still finding time to work a job, or maybe even have a social life. The idea of being a college athlete on top of all that seemed daunting. And if that wasn't enough stress, the matter was clouded at the time by the team's coaching transition.

As Cattran was arriving on campus, former coach Kandice Erwin - who left the program for family reasons - was on her way out. Between the coaching change and her own personal insecurities about being able to handle college-level running, Cattran was nearly lost in the milieu.

"I wasn't committed at all," says Cattran, who remembers e-mailing distance coach Ann Alyanak at one point to tell her she was going to give up the sport to concentrate full-time on work and school. "Around mid-summer I was on the track e-mail list, but I was unsure when I met with Coach Erwin. And no one followed up except for the e-mails I was getting."

Erwin was eventually succeeded in the summer by Steinwachs, who at first did not know of Cattran. Once he found out about her, however, he staged a special meeting with both her and her father, Mark, in an effort to get her on the roster.

"She was definitely reluctant," says Steinwachs, who credits Mark for providing a lot of support. "She was that close to not doing it, which I think is part of what makes it a cool story. That she was ready to just walk away from it."

All of Cattran's current success seemed to be a given when she was in the midst of a superb high school career at local Archbishop Alter High School. In 2007, she won the Division II state title in the 400 and was also a part of two state champion relay teams.

Unfortunately, her junior season was derailed by an untimely torn ACL, which likely lost her any chance of being offered a substantial track scholarship. After that experience, she admits she was hardly recruited out of high school and didn't want to stray from home.

"I looked around at mostly Ohio schools, I didn't want to go too far away," says Cattran. "And I definitely decided that UD had the better feel."

Once Cattran came to campus and committed to run for the Flyers she made an immediate impact, bursting onto the scene in 2007 at the Findlay Oiler Open by breaking the 300-meter dash school record in her debut meet. After that first impression, her rookie season was littered with personal bests and solid performances, including a fourth-place finish in the 400 at the Atlantic 10 Indoor Championships.

Nevertheless, she wrapped up the year with a disappointing ninth-place result in the 400 at the Atlantic 10 Outdoor Championships. At that point, Steinwachs says he started to toy with the idea of asking her to run the 800-meter race as a full-time gig.

"The thought was definitely there, but it was something we didn't want to push on her too early," says Steinwachs. "Any time it was even mentioned in front of her she would just panic. She was not open to it, it was pretty obvious."

At the conclusion of the outdoor conference meet, Cattran says she began to see that she wouldn't be as successful as she wanted to be in the shorter sprints. That summer was when the workouts started to get longer and she began to realize she could be competitive in the 800, but she'll be the first to admit it surprised her how quickly she thrived in the longer race.

She began her sophomore campaign by breaking the 800-meter school record six times in roughly three months, and then lowering her personal record by approximately 10 seconds throughout the spring.

Traditionally a 400-meter runner, Cattran says she hated running the 800 in high school. Nevertheless, hard work and endurance has allowed her to excel at the event.

"She's just so cute and dainty and she just bounces around," says friend and former teammate Andrea Cornell. "But then she's incredible to watch because, however far behind she is, you just know she's going to make it up that last 200 meters."

That kind of determination was on display on Feb. 21, when Cattran won her first 800-meter Atlantic 10 title by the slimmest of margins (2:11.78-2:11.81). She actually trailed Charlotte's Aja Jackson in the preliminary heat, but turned up the intensity in the finals to snatch the crown away from the five-time A-10 champion.

After that performance, Cattran traveled with Steinwachs to Boston on March 1, where she became the first Flyer to ever compete at the USA Indoor Track & Field Championships. At the meet, she toed the starting line with Olympic-quality competition and placed ninth-overall.

Though she was disappointed with her finish, Cattran says the highlight of the trip was getting to hang out with Steinwachs' famous friend, U.S. champion pole vaulter Jenn Stuczynski, who was a Silver-Medalist at the 2008 Beijing Games. Also in attendance was Hyleas Fountain, who lives in nearby Kettering and is the only American woman other than Jackie Joyner-Kersee to win an Olympic medal in the heptathlon.

Cattran says she was starry-eyed just watching the event, "They read off the list of all the Olympians that were at the meet and it was just huge." Although she didn't make the finals, it proved to be a valuable learning experience for the young runner.

"I think Boston really helped her because she got big-timed a little bit," says Steinwachs. "But then, at the end of the day, she realized that she could run with those girls."

After the U.S. national meet, Cattran ran her best time of the season (2:06.37) on March 7 at Notre Dame's Alex Wilson Invitational, but the suspense that surrounded Cattran's eventual NCAA qualification was still intense because she missed the automatic bid requirement time (2:05.0) by about one second. Her last ditch effort had placed her right on the cusp of a berth, but it also left her two spots outside of the nation's top-15 times. According to Steinwachs, the normal amount of accepted entries is usually 15 for each event.

Even after running against Olympians, Cattran had a crisis of confidence and all but convinced herself she was not going to qualify for nationals. The night the heat sheets were released she was sitting in her dorm room by herself. At that point she didn't even bother to check the NCAA website to see if she had made the field. Cattran remained unaware until Steinwachs called her with the news about 15 minutes after the results were posted.

They were hitting the road together again.

When Cattran and Steinwachs traveled to Texas A&M for the NCAA Championships, it was her fifth-straight weekend competing off-campus. She says those early spring weekends were an amazing time - Cattran loves traveling - but that she also got way behind in school. Even with all the missed classes and cross-country travel, somehow she still found a way to maintain her 4.0 GPA.

As she struggled to stay current with her studies, she was running her last indoor competition at the NCAA Championships. Most people would have been ecstatic with the result - she ran fourth in her heat with a time of 2:07.43, but missed out on the finals and wound up 12th overall. It was an impressive finish after she began the race ranked 16th, but she was not happy about it.

"Yeah it was great making it to NCAA's and yeah it was my first year," says Cattran. "But I didn't make it to the finals and I was mad."

Now that she's had a taste of what it's like to compete at the national level, she says she wants to run well enough to get to the finals next season and earn All-American honors. Steinwachs thinks that is a realistic goal.

"I think she's got a shot to be an All-American," says Steinwachs, who thinks Cattran's best times are still ahead of her. "After being at the national meet, I think it was a good experience for both of us. Just seeing how things are done, watching the athletes, seeing what it took to place in the top-eight, what it took to make the finals the day before. I think next year she has a chance to get in there and make it to the finals."

It's been a long time since her tag-playing days, though she still clocks herself running in a circle and can probably outrun most of the boys she meets.

At the same time, when she came to UD she was nearly the track star that never was. Now Cattran says she can't imagine herself anywhere else.

"I think that ending up here was the best thing that could have happened to me because I really like Coach Adam and the girls on the team are amazing," says Cattran, who will start the year-long journey back to nationals as she begins her training anew this summer. But she says she's not feeling any added pressure after this season's accomplishments.

"I know I'll always be trying my best, I'm too competitive to put any less into it," says Cattran. "It's hard, sometimes, just thinking about starting all over again. But you can't put pressure on yourself because there are just so many variables. I'm just going to keep training hard and hope that it all works out."