Coming into the meet, Whitman was ranked just 22nd out of the 24 participating runners.
“I had nothing to lose,” Whitman said. “There was no pressure on me, so I could just run my race.”
She crossed the line with a personal record of 16:14.98, but when she looked up to the scoreboard, Whitman saw she had placed 13th, one spot out of national championship qualification — one second shy of 12th.
Her season was over.
“One second was really hard to come to terms with,” Whitman said about the difference between 12th and 13th place. “But, with where I was ranked before the race and where I ended up finishing, I really can’t complain.”
Whitman finished her season owning IU’s top women’s 3K and 5K times, the third-best 5K (16:14.98) time in IU history and the fifth-best 3K (9:36.23) time in school history.
She also earned a chance to race in the USA Track and Field Junior Championships in the 3K in Eugene, Oregon, the host site to the NCAA National Championships she had missed just weeks before.
“It was awesome just being there because I had never been in Eugene before,” Whitman said. “Running on the track was so ?surreal.”
Knowing to stick to her style of running, Whitman stayed back in the middle of the pack until she passed each runner, one-by-one, and kicked at the end to triumph in the final straightaway with a time of 9:36.62.
She had finally taken her place at the top of the podium in Eugene.
“Being able to win that race was just a great way to end the year,” Whitman said.
Winning is something which seems to come naturally to Whitman, as she claimed victory in five races this season as a freshman and finished within the top-five 10 times.
Whitman has made her mark on IU Track and Field quietly, though, as she has run in the shadows of national championship qualifier Amanda Behnke, a sophomore, and a successful men’s distance squad in her inaugural season.
“I wouldn’t be where I’m at now if it wasn’t for my coaches and my teammates,” Whitman said. “They push me every day in practice, and I trust in what the coaches tell me. All I’ve done is run.”
After running in a small track and field program at Cor Jesu Academy in St. Louis and winning the state final in the 3,200-meter run, Whitman was never challenged to the point Division I collegiate track offers.
“I was from a fairly low-key track and field program, so the training was completely different,” Whitman said. “I had to write down some goals before the season started, and they were all kind of simple, like scoring at Big Tens and qualifying for nationals. Now I need to set them higher next year after having my first season done.”
Whitman scored at the indoor and outdoor Big Ten ?Championships, as she placed seventh in the outdoor women’s 5K and fifth and sixth in the indoor women’s 3K and 5K, respectively.
Whitman does not look back though, as she is already looking to the future and what the program can be for the rest of her career.
“We are such a young team,” Whitman said. “We have so much room to grow as a team, and I have a lot of room to grow, especially in the 5K. We will all be together for another couple of years, so it’s exciting to think about where we can go from here.”
