It's hard to believe with the recent winter weather, but the spring outdoor track season began this week at Hidden Valley and other high schools across the state.
One Titan, Carolyn Bethel, has one last indoor meet left on her schedule, though.
This week, on a cool March afternoon, Carolyn Bethel pushes her legs and lungs, fueled by something inside.
"I think my biggest strength is that I'm competitive. I hate losing," Hidden Valley senior Carolyn Bethel said.
"You can make or develop a distance runner. You can't coach the fire," head coach Dan King said.
The senior will be in New York City this weekend, at the historic Armory track, competing for her third time at the indoor national championships.
"It's pretty intense. There is a lot of people so it's really crowded,” Bethel said.
"The place is just packed. It's electrifying, it's pretty awesome," King said.
Bethel will run the mile and 5K against the top runners from across the country. Not bad for a girl who couldn't cut it at softball.
"Eventually got to the point where I couldn't hit the ball anymore. But I could run the bases,” Bethel said.And she has just kept on running. Bethel has five state championships to her name, two in cross country and three in indoor track. After following, quite literally, in the footsteps of Annie LeHardy and Haley Cutright at Hidden Valley, Bethel now has more state titles and more school records than any other Titan.
"Carolyn learned from those two. I mean they were huge role models for her. And she just took it to the next level," King said.
That level meant she was heavily recruited, eventually choosing a journey west to Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.
"Got out there, first day, I fell in love with it. I mainly picked it because of the altitude training. It's at 7,000 feet, so that will be really fun to train at. Really hard, but really fun," Bethel said.
And that's a perfect way to describe the weekend ahead for Bethel. Nationals will be really hard, but really fun for this top Titan.
