Amid a big season of sub-four-minute miles by high school boys, perhaps some people missed what the nation’s best girls have been achieving on a middle-distance tear. Few, however, will overlook Christina Aragon or Kate Murphy at the which begin on Friday, in Eugene, Oregon, which begin on Friday, in Eugene, Oregon.
CA Notice at Collection 1500 meters at Hayward Field, have been running so well that they could make it the whole way to the final round on July 10. In recent weeks they achieved the qualifying standard—4:09.27 for Aragon and 4:07.21 for Murphy—and opted to give it a go at the Trials.
Samantha Watson and Aaliyah Miller, also prep stars, nabbed the qualifying time in the 800 meters. Miller has decided to bypass the meet and focus on the July 14-19 world junior championships in Bydgoszcs, Poland. Watson initially indicated she would also opt out of the Trials, but she is now set to compete in the event’s opening round set for Friday evening.
Aragon, a 19-year-old recent graduate of Billings (Montana) Senior High School, comes from a family of elite runners. Her parents, Chuck and Kathy, were collegiate standouts at the University of Notre Dame and the University of New Mexico, respectively, and also appeared at the Olympic Trials. Christina’s older sisters, Alexa and Danielle, dominated the Montana prep scene before running competitively at Notre Dame. Christina Aragon will begin at Stanford University in the fall.
Coming into the 2016 outdoor season, Aragon ranked No. 5 on the high school girls all-time 1500-meter list, with a 4:16.36 last spring at Stanford’s Payton Jordan Invitational. She sparked speculation of a possible Olympic Trials appearance this May 1, when she trimmed more than five seconds off that mark by running 4:11.24, again at Payton Jordan. The mark prompted Aragon to set the bar a little higher for this summer.
“I got to see my sister [Dani] go to worlds four years ago, so that was the main goal going into this season,” she said. “But getting into the Olympic Trials didn’t seem like a possibility until I was able to run faster at some of those meets later in the season.”
She needed to run 4:09.50 to get an automatic Trials qualifier, and on June 12 she eclipsed that mark by running her 4:09.27 to win her heat at the Portland Track Festival.
Last Sunday Aragon battled professional Alexa Efraimson over 1500 meters at the U.S. junior championships in Clovis, California. The field dawdled through a 75-second opening 400-meter lap that ensured relatively slow finish times, but Efraimson zipped through the final 800 meters in 2:07.4 to hit the tape in 4:16.75. Aragon kept it close, however, taking runner-up honors in 4:18.07.
And so it’s on the Olympic Trials and World Juniors within the span of just a few weeks.
“I look at these meets mostly as rewards for all the hard work put in throughout the season,” she said. “You can’t let yourself stress too much. This next week [prior to the Trials] I’m just going to mentally lay low and not worry about things too much.”
Murphy, Pan Am Junior 1500-meter titlist in 4:21.36 last summer, impressed with a 4:41.84 prep mile record at the Millrose Games in February and was focused on qualifying for world junior championships during the spring. But she also felt an Olympic Trials qualifying time was within reach, if she got into the right race.
“I knew after indoors that my fitness was there,” she said, “so the biggest thing for me outdoors has been getting in races with competition at my level.”
Murphy, 16, lowered her 1500-meter personal best to 4:14.26, then the No. 6 time in prep history, when she ran down professional Marielle Hall with a 66-second final 400-meter lap to win the May 16 meet at Swarthmore (PA) College. And on June 17 the Lake Braddock (Virginia) High School junior dominated an all-star prep field at the Adidas Dream 1500 meters, closing with a 62.05 final 400 meters to finish in 4:07.21 and dip well under the Trials qualifying standard of 4:09.50.
Murphy was entered in the 3,000 meters and 1500 meters at the junior national meet last weekend, and on Friday won the 3,000-meter title in a meet record 9:10.51, after a spirited late-race battle with Katie Rainsberger, who finished second in 9:11.60. Murphy’s ticket to the world junior championships secured, she decided to scratch out of the 1500-meter final and begin preparing for the Olympic Trials.
“We’ll be getting back on my routine of strength training,” she said on Monday, “just trying to keep my strength up. I think I have all the speed I need, so it’s more just staying sharp.”
The duo will line up next to the country's toughest middle-distance competitors—Shannon Rowbury, Jenny Simpson, The pair of teens, who will compete in the Brenda Martinez, to name a few. And while the chances of making the Olympic team pale in comparison to Murphy's odds of winning a medal at junior world championships, she is heading to Eugene ready to take the rounds as they come.
“I’m going to take it one race at a time, just because I can’t save anything,” she said. “If I make the finals I’m just going to race really fierce and not care about my age. And if it’s tactical, which I think it probably will be, I think I have the ability to cover the moves and stuff. It just depends on how everyone else runs.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that Samantha Watson has entered the Trials.
