Fry among state's elite half-milers

The gift was there waiting. It just didn’t look like she’d utilize it.

Katie Fry came into high school a basketball player with no idea of, or plans to showcase, her immense natural talent.

This was until she got talked into taking up cross country as a warm-up for the basketball season.

“I didn’t really think about track at all until I got here. I was really focused on basketball when I came into high school but then my mom (said) ‘You should go out for cross country to get in shape,’” Fry said.

From there, her life and the fortunes of the Exeter track and field team changed.

Nearly two years later, the sophomore 800-meter runner is the only Monarch or Orange Belt athlete going to the California State Track and Field Championships in Clovis.

And this all could’ve passed her by. 

The freshman cross country season wasn’t convincing enough. She still wanted to skip track.

“I wasn’t gonna go out because I had a rough basketball season and (thought) ‘I want a break, I don’t want to go out,’” she said. “But I got talked into coming out for track and I made it to state last year. So I was like ‘Hey, I think I like running.’”

This time, she didn’t look back. 

Fry ditched the game she thought she loved, began running every day and started training by herself for this track season two weeks after cross country ended.

“She’s very dedicated, she puts in long hours at practice and she practices herself on the weekends,” said Leslie Fry, Katie’s mom.

This adjustment came out of nowhere for a girl whose parents had no running background and had never been to a track meet.

Katie could see her newfound enthusiasm for running coming out at the end of basketball practices — conditioning time — the part of practice most players dread.

“In basketball, they’d make us do wind sprints and I’d be done and be like, ‘Wait, we’re not gonna run any more,’” she said.

Cross country and the track and field distance coach Isaac Gonzales noticed Fry’s prowess in her initial cross country season, but not at that sport’s usual distance (5,000 meters).

“We spotted Katie in cross country her first year. She did pretty well, but when we did 200s in practice I noticed she had a lot of speed and I said, ‘You know what, you’re an 800-meter runner,”’ Gonzales said.

Fry wasn’t ready for Gonzales’ winter program just yet; she still needed to get basketball out of her system. She played forward for the Monarchs’ freshman team, but the high school game wasn’t what she’d envisioned. 

It also set her back for her first go-around on the track.

“I was in bad shape,” she said.

But she recovered and within two months, she was the fastest girl in school history in an event that got the previous record-holder to state. 

Fry ran 2:18 twice, the second instance at the 2008 Valley Masters Meet — shattering Danni Berlin’s mark of 2:20.1 — and getting herself to state.

But once in Norwalk (the site of the 2008 meet), the young phenom’s career endured its first hiccup. 

In reality, her 800 prelim could have gone worse — she could’ve fallen and derailed other runners in “Cool Runnings” fashion — but it was not the race she and Gonzales hoped for.

After the first turn in an 800-meter race, the runners cut in from their individual lanes toward the inside of the track. Fry cut in a few steps too early, disqualifying her.

“Before that race my coach specifically said ‘OK, go around the turn, do NOT cut in before the cones,’” Fry said. “I cut in before the cones. But it was a good experience. I will never cut in too early again.”

Fry’s freshman success pushed her flirtation into a full-blown affair. 

“It’s really strange,” Fry said. “All of a sudden, running is what I have to do every day. If I don’t run every day, I don’t feel as great as I usually do. I get pleasure out of running. I know that sounds weird, but it’s my sport now.”

No longer incumbered with basketball in her second high school winter, Fry was a fixture on the track or on the road. 

Gonzales provided specific workouts to improve her speed and endurance and as track season neared, her target times and rest breaks decreased.

Fry said the program provided significant improvement in months where most track athletes are playing other sports or not running frequently.

After the full offseason, her ceiling was raised.

“I thought maybe I’d run a 2:16 if I’m lucky, but I got down to 2:12 and I (thought) ‘Oh my gosh, I really can run this race,’” Fry said. 

She had no fitness issues this spring, winning the 800 at the county championship in April, helping her team to the CSL title in May and taking six seconds off her personal best.

The fascination with the half-mile race didn’t lead to the weight room, as she doesn’t lift weights, but into the film room. Not one to watch professional meets before, Katie now picks up tips from the world’s elite.

“It’s exciting. You see all these really fast chicks running the 800 and it’s amazing how strong they are,” she said. “I want to be that strong. I want to be up there at that level with them.”

She got her first taste of competing against one of those runners earlier than expected. At the CIF Sequoia-Sierra Championships, she was a few feet away from Mission Prep superstar senior Jordan Hasay, who she’s seen on television.

“It was like I was standing next to a celebrity,” Fry said. “I didn’t want to talk to her then I did want to talk to her. I wanted to her autograph. It was so amazing to be that close to her in a race. Especially because we went by our first lap in a 63 and I never go by that fast. When I went by with Jordan, I was (thinking) ‘She’s pulling me to a good time!’ I was just gonna stay with her.”

Fry’s new career-best time of 2:12.56 was two seconds behind Hasay, good enough for second. 

The same scenario repeated itself two weeks later at the Valley Masters Championships when Hasay wowed the Clovis crowd in 2:09.64 with Fry securing her second state berth in 2:13.51.

Hasay dashed past Fry within the first 30 meters of the race, giving Katie a clear training objective before state.

“I know they’re gonna take out hard so I’ve gotta learn to do it myself,” she said.

Monday, Gonzales put Fry through her final hard workout of the season: two 400s with 100s in between. 

She crossed the finish line in 62 and 63 seconds, which makes him think she’s ready to make a serious finals push.

“The way she’s been working out, she’s very capable of running 2:08, 2:09,” Gonzales said. “I tried to convince her with what she’s doing that she should be able to do it. 

“It’s anybody’s race really. Especially with some of these other girls that run 2:09, 2:10. A lot of those girls are running in relays. They’re having to run Friday and Saturday and they could be left a little tired.”

Fry is seeded 10th (out of 25 entrants) in tonight’s 800-meter prelims with nine girls moving on to Saturday night’s finals. The top two runners ran 2:10s at their section meets (Hasay isn’t entered in the race), putting them well ahead of the rest of the field. 

But no other entrant has a seed time better than 2:12, which encourages Katie that a finals berth and possible medal (top six) isn’t merely wishful thinking.

“I want to make the finals and I would love to medal. That would be absolutely amazing,” she said. “It’d be better to have a first-place medal,” she added, laughing. “But let’s not our goals too high.”

She’s no longer one of the slowest in the field and now has a clear-cut image of what state is like, but Katie still feels a bit nervous when she sees nearly all of her competitors hailing from large schools with monstrous talent pools. 

Her way around it: isolate herself with rock music blaring on her ipod and remembering the names on the jerseys won’t help once the gun fires.

“Oh my gosh, it’s intimidating,” she said. “There’s schools like Long Beach Poly that (get) almost their whole track team to state. While I’m like, ‘Oh gosh, I’m the only one, my school is tiny and in the middle of nowhere.’ It’s scary, but you’ve just gotta be like ‘It’s not about where you came from, it’s about what you can run.’”

The 800 heats are slated for 7:34 p.m., tonight, at Buchanan High School.