Minnesota Duluth runners Breanna Colbenson, Emi Trost and Danielle Kohlwey feel they're ready for anything this week at the NCAA Division II Outdoor Track and Field Championships at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla.
In the past two weeks they've run in 36-degree temperatures, freezing rain and been kicked off their home track, so whatever happens in Florida should be no sweat, even if it was 85 degrees, windy and humid when they arrived Tuesday.
"It feels like we're running in a sauna," Colbenson said.
The Bulldogs acclimated themselves in a hurry, checking out the track and getting in a round of mini-golf.
"We're used to wind, snow and rain one day, to sunny and 70 the next," Colbenson said. "I try to take the negatives and turn them into a positive. We're tough. We're from Duluth and everyone is in the same boat, facing the same conditions we have to face here."
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Based on that attitude, it's easy to see how Colbenson was voted by her peers as UMD's outstanding female athlete for 2016-17. The senior from Spring Valley (Wis.) High School also was named the school's top female scholar-athlete, graduating with a 3.7 grade-point average. The track at Malosky Stadium is being replaced, so UMD used the track at defunct Central High School. Rather than complain, Colbenson said she was grateful to the school district.
"I don't do the stuff I do for awards," she said. "I do it because I feel that is what God is leading me to do."
Colbenson will compete this week in the 3,000-meter steeplechase and 5,000, where she is ranked second and third, respectively.
Trost, a sophomore from Cannon Falls (Minn.) High School, is ranked second in the 1,500, while Kohlwey, a sophomore from Onalaska, Wis., is seventh in the 100 hurdles. UMD coach Joanna Warmington called her a "spitfire" who has school records in 100, 200 and 100 hurdles.
"You worry when you go from such extremes in weather, but they should do fine," Warmington said. "They're really smart. They're keeping hydrated and doing what they need to do. The distance events might come down to strategy more than going all out. It just depends on the weather."
Trost, the NSIC outdoor athlete of the year, missed the outdoor season last year due to injury. Last month she became the first university athlete - according to Warmington - to win both the 800 and 1,500 in the 108-year history of the Drake Relays, running against a field stocked with Division I talent.
After a busy indoor season where Trost competed in the mile, 3,000 and distance medley relay at the national meet, she is focusing on the 1,500, where she has a blistering school record of 4 minutes, 13.51 seconds. Cedarville (Ohio) University's Carsyn Koch is ranked ahead of her but is running the 800 this week.
"Emi doesn't want to go there and run two mediocre kind of times," Warmington said. "She wants to go after something really special."
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Colbenson has a little different approach. She has school records in the steeplechase (10:05.02) and 5,000 (16:10.36), but the steeplechase is her priority and is run first.
"I'll give whatever I have left for the 5,000," she said.
The steeplechase, which derives from horse racing, features 28 barriers and seven water jumps. Colbenson said she always has been intrigued by the event and first tried it her sophomore year.
"I've always been a person where, the harder the course, the more I enjoy it and excel at it," she said. "I think I have an edge because of my strength. I think all runners are slightly crazy, but steeplechase runners might be a little bit more."
Colbenson married her middle school sweetheart in UMD engineering student Conner Sieracki last July. Trost was maid of honor.
"We're going to miss Breanna," Warmington said. "She is one of the hardest workers I've ever had. Just when you think she reached her potential, she comes back with something even more amazing. I'll never underestimate her."
Colbenson will student-teach physical education next fall at Hermantown Elementary and Proctor High School. She has volunteered as a mentor and led Bible study groups. The couple loves Duluth but would eventually like to return to Spring Valley and raise a family.
"It'll be different next year; it's bittersweet," Colbenson said. "It really hasn't hit me, and I don't think it really will until cross country in the fall, when everyone toes the line except me."
