Outdoor Track and Field on Flotrack 2013May 20, 2013 by Mitch Kastoff
Seven Stress Fractures, One Appearance, and Two SEC Titles for Chelsea Oswald
Seven Stress Fractures, One Appearance, and Two SEC Titles for Chelsea Oswald
It’s mid-May, which is basically a fork in the road for all you high schoolers and collegiate athletes. Your season is either gearing up for that last big hurrah at nationals or you’re either already driving to the beach, thinking about absolutely nothing, or have just started to meticulously plan your summer XC training schedule.
Flotrack would like to take this opportunity to congratulate and wish good luck to the graduating senior class. Somehow, some way, you did it.
It’s okay; we all cried during the season finale of The Office.
Just out of curiosity, can all of the seniors who have run multiple conference championships take a step forward?
Whoa, not so fast Chelsea Oswald.
You may know the Kentucky senior as being one half of the fearsome duo from the Bluegrass State, so it only makes sense that it’s her partner in crime, Cally Macumber, to bring this story to our attention.
Just so we’re not reading this wrong, let’s just break this down by the numbers. Seven stress fractures. A few more than the average person, right? Two SEC outdoor titles. She’s the first Wildcat to ever win both the 5k and 10k. First conference meet. Okay, now we call shenanigans.
Between laughing in disbelief and combing over results databases, we called Kentucky assistant coach Hakon DeVries, who confirmed that while she’s a fourth year senior, this was Oswald’s first outdoor conference championships.
"I'd say it went pretty well,” Oswald said in a short phone interview last week. “I was very excited."
It’s an accomplishment in itself just to make it to SECs after a long, injury-riddled journey, but it’s another to show up and put on a historic clinic.
On the first night at SECs, Oswald pulled a Chelsea Reilly and went on to win her debut 10,000m in 33:38.35. Her winning time was an SEC 10k record, a stadium record, and put her number three on the all-time Kentucky 10k list. Beginner’s luck looks to be a real theme for the 10k this season.
"I think I found my new love, she added. “I felt comfortable the whole way and with a little less than four laps to go, my coach said, 'You can go now' and I took off.’”
It was DeVries who gave Oswald the green light. “I told her to go with 1000m to go. She ran by me on the fence and I yelled, 'Okay' and she just went and that was it. She ran 4:57 for her last mile, but she only went from 1000m out.”
But Oswald wasn’t gone just yet. The first time SEC’er came back two days later and in the penultimate event of the evening, Oswald pulled away to win the 5000m by a good eight seconds in 16:01.50. Even if she didn’t become the first Kentucky athlete to complete the double, she would have been the first Wildcat to win the 5k since Valarie McGovern in 1990 (or when Oswald was seven months old).
So why, after three years from the sidelines, was this season so different? Well, it may be the new coaching staff.
Back in July, former Stanford head coach Edrick Floreal accepted the Kentucky position and brought three of his assistant coaches with him to Lexington. The goal was to revitalize the once prominent program and in the same year he took over the reins, UK was already on its way.
While Oswald doesn’t have any cross country eligibility left, Kentucky does return three girls who were all-region in the fall (including three-time all-American Macumber) and could be a big factor in the Southeast.
But for now, what’s on Oswald’s mind? Another 10k.
“I felt great and I'm excited to race another one… no one's probably ever said that.”
Not a lot of people have accomplished what she’s accomplished, either.
Edit: Maybe her injuries left her some time to study because Oswald mainted a 4.0 GPA throughout college and just graduated with a degree in Biology. Now you're just making the rest of us look bad.
Flotrack would like to take this opportunity to congratulate and wish good luck to the graduating senior class. Somehow, some way, you did it.
It’s okay; we all cried during the season finale of The Office.
Just out of curiosity, can all of the seniors who have run multiple conference championships take a step forward?
Whoa, not so fast Chelsea Oswald.
You may know the Kentucky senior as being one half of the fearsome duo from the Bluegrass State, so it only makes sense that it’s her partner in crime, Cally Macumber, to bring this story to our attention.
I think @flotrack should give @chelsoswald a s/o for overcoming 7stress fractures to win 2 SEC titles in her 1st conference meet#4YearsLater
— cally macumber (@callymacumber) May 16, 2013
Just so we’re not reading this wrong, let’s just break this down by the numbers. Seven stress fractures. A few more than the average person, right? Two SEC outdoor titles. She’s the first Wildcat to ever win both the 5k and 10k. First conference meet. Okay, now we call shenanigans.
Between laughing in disbelief and combing over results databases, we called Kentucky assistant coach Hakon DeVries, who confirmed that while she’s a fourth year senior, this was Oswald’s first outdoor conference championships.
"I'd say it went pretty well,” Oswald said in a short phone interview last week. “I was very excited."
It’s an accomplishment in itself just to make it to SECs after a long, injury-riddled journey, but it’s another to show up and put on a historic clinic.
On the first night at SECs, Oswald pulled a Chelsea Reilly and went on to win her debut 10,000m in 33:38.35. Her winning time was an SEC 10k record, a stadium record, and put her number three on the all-time Kentucky 10k list. Beginner’s luck looks to be a real theme for the 10k this season.
"I think I found my new love, she added. “I felt comfortable the whole way and with a little less than four laps to go, my coach said, 'You can go now' and I took off.’”
It was DeVries who gave Oswald the green light. “I told her to go with 1000m to go. She ran by me on the fence and I yelled, 'Okay' and she just went and that was it. She ran 4:57 for her last mile, but she only went from 1000m out.”
But Oswald wasn’t gone just yet. The first time SEC’er came back two days later and in the penultimate event of the evening, Oswald pulled away to win the 5000m by a good eight seconds in 16:01.50. Even if she didn’t become the first Kentucky athlete to complete the double, she would have been the first Wildcat to win the 5k since Valarie McGovern in 1990 (or when Oswald was seven months old).
So why, after three years from the sidelines, was this season so different? Well, it may be the new coaching staff.
Back in July, former Stanford head coach Edrick Floreal accepted the Kentucky position and brought three of his assistant coaches with him to Lexington. The goal was to revitalize the once prominent program and in the same year he took over the reins, UK was already on its way.
While Oswald doesn’t have any cross country eligibility left, Kentucky does return three girls who were all-region in the fall (including three-time all-American Macumber) and could be a big factor in the Southeast.
But for now, what’s on Oswald’s mind? Another 10k.
“I felt great and I'm excited to race another one… no one's probably ever said that.”
Not a lot of people have accomplished what she’s accomplished, either.
Edit: Maybe her injuries left her some time to study because Oswald mainted a 4.0 GPA throughout college and just graduated with a degree in Biology. Now you're just making the rest of us look bad.
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