Santa Rosa Press Democrat // News for California's North Bay and Redwood Empire

Low-tech edition (About)
By Bob Padecky

Seven words, that's all Sarah Sumpter needed to say. Just seven
words to tell the other 197 runners their day was done. Seven words, that
in their simplicity of expression, painted their inescapable helplessness:
the race was over with 85 percent still left of it to be run.

"After 800 meters," said the Healdsburg senior, "I couldn't hear footsteps."

After 800 meters it was Sumpter running against Sumpter, Sarah's only
companion her growing myth, her only possible opponent boredom, her only
real fear, stepping on that wayward banana peel. If Sarah Sumpter doesn't
hear footsteps, she ain't gonna hear footsteps. It's not like Sarah The
Clone jumps out from the crowd like Rosie Ruiz and gives her a race, you
know what I mean. In the end, the field could only hope her mind would
wander. Now, that's grabbing at straws.

"When Sarah was 2," said Shawn, her mom, "I would teach her a new word by
repeating it over and over. She'd ask me to get right in front of her face
and say it and say it and keep saying it and she wouldn't say it herself
until she first could say it perfectly. That's how focused Sarah is."

So when Sumpter crossed the finish line at Woodward Park, 44 seconds ahead
of anyone else, the Division IV state cross country champion, she had the
same unwavering, penetrating mask of ice-cold stare as when she started the
race. She set a Division IV record with a time of 17:26, leaving behind all
those runners and a few questions. Like how much faster could she have gone
if someone had pushed her? How much faster if she hadn't almost run off
course Saturday?

"I came to a fork in the course and didn't know which road to take,"
Sumpter said. "I stuttered (in stride) and then a woman yelled, "˜No, 
you're going the right way. Keep going.' "

In truth, Sumpter's biggest obstacles Saturday, in chronological order,
were a pesky calf, a very dedicated official and that fork in the road. Two
hours before the race Sumpter said her right calf was bothering her. It had
begun only the day before. She was tweaky about it, no question. She had
enjoyed a relatively injury-free running career.

"I don't know (its affect on the race)," Sumpter said before the race, 
over and over gently flexing her right leg.

And two seconds before the starter's gun fired, a race official held up his
hands, ran over to Sumpter and told her she couldn't wear those trademark
sunglasses she had worn all year. No frame along the bottom. If Sumpter
fell, the unprotected edge of those plastic lenses could slice her face.

"Here, take mine," came a voice from behind the ropes. Santa Rosa's Wayne
Clark, a cross country coach himself, thrust them forward, with a sigh of
relief later. "Sarah could have been disqualified during the race if an
official had spotted them," he said.

Did the achy calf bother her?

"I couldn't feel it at all during the race," she said. "I think the
adrenalin and the speed took away all that."

Did the swapping of the sunglasses make a difference?

"It's not worth making a fuss about it," she said. "I just thought (to 
the officials), "˜Let's do it'."

Meaning, let's race. Enough waiting already. Sumpter is not the picture of
contentment before a race. She said her calf was aching but it was her face
that expressed the most pain. This kid was born to run, not to discuss the
relative merits of sunglass safety while running 3.1 miles. She is born to
strategize, analyze and compartmentalize. Like just before and just after
the start of Saturday's race.

Ten minutes before the start 196 runners had taken off their sweats and
were doing short sprints. Sumpter was on the ground in a gray T-shirt and
blue sweat pants. Just a few feet away the Yreka girls were jumping up and
down while chanting, "You wish you were Superman! You wish you had super
powers!" Sumpter was still on the ground. Among the runners at the starting
line, Sumpter could have laid claim for being the most inconspicuous. You
would have never known she was the odds-on race favorite. Humble only
begins to describe her persona.

"I don't want to be a jerk," Sumpter said. She wears those sunglasses not
to be the Jack Nicholson of cross country but, rather, because she can see
a course better, especially in broad daylight, like Saturday.

When the race began 40 to 50 girls sprinted past her like they were trying
to catch a bus. It was a sudden burst of energy that belonged in a sprint,
not in a cross country race. With all those expectations on her, Sumpter
still resisted.

"They (sprinters) just die off," she said. "I let them go."

And when she finally settled for good into the lead at 800 meters, Sumpter
never looked back.

"It's a waste of time and a waste of energy," she said. "And I could 
lose a second or two doing that."

Sumpter is the studied economy of stride and intent. Not a wasted movement
or thought. She must be the metronome, each and every action the same,
plied with each and every thought, from stride to stride, from mile to
mile.

"She's a little machine," said Healdsburg coach Carlos Quiroga. "She has
perfect form. She has perfect stride. She looks exactly the same at the end
of the race as she did when she began it."

The only thing that changes are her times and her reaction to them. Last
year at state Sumpter was 11th and left Woodward Park in tears; she thought
she had finished 10th. Last year she ran an 18:48 here; Saturday she was
1:22 faster and Sumpter looked like she was blushing about it, such is her
nature.

She did what she expected, she did what people expected and one day soon
she will decide on college: UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara and Stanford are on
her radar. Where she goes and how much faster can she get, these are all
things for another day. For now it makes no sense to complicate things. She
is Sarah Sumpter, state champion, and she rests, not on her laurels, but on
the comfort running has and always will give her.

"It's like oxygen," said the champ. "I eat, sleep and breathe it."

And if asked, she'll wear it, that first place gold medallion around her
neck, the one that shows how well she eats, sleeps and breathes it.

You can reach staff columnist Bob Padecky at 521-5490 or at
bob.padecky@pressdemocrat.com
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