Dyestatcal Female Athlete of Week September 9/9 - 9/13/02
Ciara Viehweg (St. Ignatius HS, San Francisco)

Last year Ciara Viehweg of St. Ignatius HS in San Francisco had a great first year of prep running during the fall harrier campaign that culminated with a fourteenth place in State in her Division. During the spring track season she steadily improved and moved up through the pack ahead of her to record the fastest frosh prep 3200 in the entire nation (for her grade) of 10:44.88! Nicole Blood of Saratoga, New York) had a 9:38.04 for 3000 Meters (worth probably in low 10:20's for 3200m, with Erin Gray of South Eugene, Oregon 9:58.46 for the same distance, probably worth in the mid 10:40's for the half lap longer 3200m). Anyway, Ciara was among the very top handful of ninth grade runners in the entire nation by the end of last year!

This year she has started off at that same high-quality, with a big winning effort over a fine field in the North Monterey County Condor Early Bird Invitational! She will face some good competition this coming weekend at the Ed Sias Meet. She took the time out of her busy “start of the school year” schedule to answer some questions for us below. It appears she is a very motivated young athlete who is part of a well-planned, balanced, and consistently executed training plan from a coach she admires, with a key ingredient of enjoyment of training venues and her teammates that keeps it fun! She offers some common sense advice to new runners to our sport.

Best of luck and congratulations Ciara - we will look for more good results down the road

Dyestatcal—!

1) Briefly describe your fall cross-country season so far?

The season is still very early - we’ve only had the one meet at North Monterey- but I felt good in that race. It’’s a long season though. The WCAL and CCS have many really strong runners, so I just hope to stay healthy and keep trying to improve each meet.

2) Last Fall you had a fine Cross-Country season, but moved to real national prominence with your
efforts over 3200 meters in track (14th in State Division CC - top frosh 3200m runner in state in track). Why the improvement?

My coach, Liz Gustorf, slowly built my mileage last winter, then increased speed work in the spring. She’’s very careful about injuries, so we backed off if anything was hurting. I felt like I
peaked at the end of track season and was really glad to stay injury free.

3) What do you enjoy most about running?

Definitely my teammates. They are such a blast. We have great fun and I really enjoy seeing them each day after school.

4) What kind of training for the races do you enjoy the most?

Recovery runs! (just kidding) It’’s really the mix of different runs that I like. We have some longer runs around Land’’s End and through Golden Gate Park that are really scenic. Other days we do hill work or intervals. We never do the same thing two days in a row, so things
never get boring.

5) What other sports did you do while you were growing up?

I played volleyball and some basketball in grammar school, but enjoyed competitive Irish dancing the most. I was fortunate enough to win two Western Region championships and get 3rd in the Nationals. I still do a little dancing for fun, but running has really taken over now.

6) What are some of your goals for your running this year?

Our team is working very hard to be competitive in WCAL and CCS. Our number one goal is to qualify the team for State.

7) What are your thoughts on this weekend's race coming up?

I’ve never run the Ed Sias before, so I’’m not sure what to expect. I think the course is shorter than last week, so the pace will probably be quicker. I just hope to keep up with the faster runners and see how I feel at the end.

8) Where and what do you see yourself doing in ten years?

I am not sure.

9) What advice would you have to beginning runners?

Get involved with your team, because the best part is all the friends you make. Make sure you eat right to stay strong, and try to build your running gradually to avoid injury.

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