15:37.83
That was the time that Marlee Starliper ran at the NCAA regional championship to earn a qualifying spot at the NCAA Outdoor Championship meet in Oregon. Starliper did not see her performance coming.
“If somebody would’ve told me that I think you can run a time in the 15:30’s, I’d be like, are you stupid?” Starliper jokingly said. “It’s like no, have you seen my season, I’m a mess. I didn’t think that was in me. It’s like, okay, we have one more race at nationals, so what’s left, what else can I do there?
“I surprised myself once, let’s do it again, what can happen?”
The sophomore from NC State surprised herself again. She ran a new personal best of 15:36.51 in the 5k at the national championship meet, giving her not only a top 10 finish, but second team All-American honors.
Starlipers strong faith, persistence along with the encouragement of others helped her reach her full potential during the track and field season.
Starliper was excited to get her season started, especially after suffering injuries and setbacks that prevented her from running in her NC State career. Unfortunately, things didn’t go exactly as she’d hoped it would.
Starliper was set to make her season debut at the Raleigh Relays, but she got sick with an undisclosed illness. While she battled through the illness and raced, she says the season started off on the lowest note that she would have imagined.
“I hardly ever get sick, but I got so sick that week,” she said. “I woke up that morning of the race and I was like, my body does not want to do this – I do not want to do this. So it really was night and day from how I anticipated it being.”
From there, Starliper said that the illness lingered and that it was tough to rebound from it. She missed training and it affected not only her ability to fully enjoy her races, but it also impacted her mental and emotional well-being.
“I was getting really discouraged,” she said. “Physically, mentally, emotionally with all the ups and downs of that for those few weeks, it was really draining. Honestly, I was having trouble really enjoying my races. And again, that is such a big thing to me of how much I love racing and how special that is. It was really challenging.”
Starliper admits that she came very close to shutting down her season, resetting and preparing for the fall season. But one day, she received a phone call that changed her mentality and helped her in the midst of her struggle.
“It was actually my dad – honestly, we both felt like God really spoke through him,” she said. “He just called me on the phone one day when I was about to throw in the towel on things and he just really put things in perspective.”
That perspective was one of reflection and thankfulness, as he reminded her that being able to run after so many setbacks and injuries early on in her collegiate career was a blessing on its own.
Starliper said that in addition to the conversation with her dad, a conversation with her head coach Laurie Henes helped turn things around for her as well, as they decided to go a different route to finish the season.
“I just felt that God totally turned my season around when my coach and I were like okay, the 1500m is really not working, and that’s okay, let’s just jump in the 5k for ACC’s,” she said. “Being able to run the 5k alongside a bunch of my teammates, that was just really awesome. Thankfully, I was able to get a mark for regionals in that, and then that just continued.”
Experiencing successful moments at the end of the season with her teammates meant the world to Starliper, especially since the team is a close knit bunch. It’s also what made the regional meet so special for Starliper.
“It was so fun that we all got to continue our seasons together,” she said. “Regionals was my first real taste of it, where I was like oh my goodness, this is so awesome to me because this is what I came to NC State to do – which is to run with my teammates like that and share in the celebration. And even knowing the different challenges and setbacks that my other teammates overcame, it just makes that so special for each one of us. It was just incredible.
“I’m just so happy that I got to finally experience that after not being able to for so long.”
Starliper says that her coaches believed in her, and kept encouraging her, even when it was hard to believe in herself while she was struggling. Her teammates helped her during the hard times as well by checking in on her and looking out for her constantly.
She also found inspiration from a piece of advice from Olympian and Boston Marathon winner Des Linden, and that is to just keep showing up.
“I think I really learned the power that if you just keep showing up, keep going, things are going to fall into place if you stay patient with it and keep believing,” she said. “Honestly, I think that was a very big learning curve of even when I don’t feel like doing things, I can do it.”
The journey wasn’t easy for Starliper, but through it all, she found hope and comfort in trusting God, the process and never giving up, even though she was moments from throwing in the towel.
“I think it’s really awesome that when you really stay faithful to trusting, God is going to use every piece of your journey for good,” she said. “Even if I didn’t make it to regionals and didn’t make it to Nationals – if my season ended at ACC’s, which is where I definitely thought it would end, I still would’ve been so thankful and so fulfilled with the season I had because I still finished it as long as I could have. I didn’t give up, because I came that close just a few weeks prior to ACC’s.”
“There were a lot of ups and downs. I never would’ve guessed the season would end how it did, but it was definitely an awesome journey that I felt God took me on.”
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lactic-acid-with-dominique-smith/id1591874732?i=1000568858614
Awesome story.Keep showing up.