In This Issue - Michigan Runner

Marissa Treece: Michigan High
School Runner of the Year
By Jeff Hollobaugh
Nate and Trina Treece saw it
come, long before any of us.
Years ago, they ran a day
care in their home. As the children
arrived, their second-grade daughter
Marissa would be there at the end of
the driveway to greet them — and to
race them to the house.
“She was competitive,” says her
father. “She was the type of kid who
would play half a soccer game, come
in at halftime, throw up, and want to
go back out and play. She’s always
been competitive. She hates to lose.”
Marissa Treece had wanted to
compete in a lot of sports before she
finally settled on running. In fact, the
Michigan High School Runner of the
Year will readily admit, “I hated running
at first.” Her initial race came in
seventh grade. She didn’t mind volunteering
for the distances, and she ran
3200 meters in 14:05. Not bad, but it
wasn’t love at first sight.
She would rather have been a
basketball star. That’s what she
played the fall of her first year in high
school, instead of cross country. She
could have been a gymnast — a sport
both her parents were involved in. In
fact, as an incoming frosh at Maple
City’s Glen Lake High School, she
had the goal of putting the names of as many
sports as possible on the back of her letter
jacket. Then came the spring, and her hoped
for soccer-track double didn’t work out. She
became a track runner.
Her father remembers coach Paul
Christiansen saying of Marissa, “She’s going
to have to learn to love to run.”
“And she did. She’s always been willing
to do what it takes. As parents, we’ve never
had to push her.”
Once she committed, the accolades came
fast. In ninth grade, she won the distance
double at the Division 4 state meet, sweeping
the 1600 in 5:00.56 and 3200 in 11:11.91.
The next fall, in her first season of running
cross country, she won the state title in
18:21. The next year in track, she successfully
defended in 4:56.15 and 11:07.84.
Treece flourished under a fairly light
training load. As a junior, she won another
cross country title in 17:58. Her track coach
was Christiansen, who now doubles as the
school’s athletic director. “Less is more,” was
the guiding philosophy. It was a plan that
worked to keep Treece healthy and fast, and
Photo by Victah Sailer / photorun.net
Marissa Treece
in effect helped build the mechanics she needed
for her big senior year.
A turning point for Treece came at the
Division 4 state track championships in
2006. She clocked a PR 4:55.94 in the 1600
and lost by 0.37 seconds. In the 3200 she
clocked a PR 10:56.72 and lost by only 0.24
— to the same runner. Afterwards, she ran
into Central Lake coach Joe Shay, father to a
family of distinguished runners headlined by
Olympic Trials marathon qualifier Ryan
Shea.
“He wanted to make sure I wasn’t going
to give up. He said he could see talent —
raw talent.”
Shay offered to guide her summer training.
She got her first exposure to big-time
competition at the Nike Outdoor Nationals
in Greensboro, S.C., and the USA Junior
Nationals in Indianapolis.
At Nike she ran 14th in the mile in
4:59.72. In the 1500 at Indy, she didn’t
even make the final. Says her father, “It’s
one thing to be a big fish in a little pond.
Learning to face kids at a national level has
been good for her.”
Treece’s training loads got bigger,
and she started doing strength work.
Usually she ran alone, often on sandy
trails in the area. For tempo work
and occasional long runs with
Central Lake’s Kari Johnson, she
would hit the roads.
In cross country, the transformation
was convincing. At the state
finals at Michigan International
Speedway, Treece ran with amazing
confidence to win her third title in
17:55.
At Kenosha, Treece finished ninth
in the Foot Locker Midwest
Regional. That qualified her for the
national meet in San Diego’s Balboa
Park, where she finished 29th in
18:52.
After continuing to build her base
in the winter, she unleashed an amazing
performance at the National
Scholastic Indoor track meet in New
York, clocking a state-record
17:04.32 to win the national 5000-
meter title. She came back with a
runner-up performance in the twomile,
hitting 10:22.96, another state
record.
Treece also had to deal with college
choices, and more and more schools
began taking note of her. After a visit
to Notre Dame, she knew where her
future lay. She says, “I liked the
school, I liked the coaching, I liked
my teammates. We got along really well. I
stopped doing college visits.”
Track meets during her final outdoor season
usually saw her racing four events. She
understandably used many of them as speedwork
sessions, keeping her eye on the big
end-of-season meets.
“I wanted to win the big three (1600,
800 and 3200 meters) at State.” That she did,
clocking 4:51.73, 2:13.96 and 10:57.57. She
won the 1600 at the Midwest Meet of
Champions in 4:51.25.
Then she traveled to Greensboro again
for another shot at a national title. Treece
chose the 5000 and hammered the field with
her state-record 16:36.34. She came back two
days later in the mile, finishing fourth in
4:50.12. That nicked Bethany Brewster’s state
record, but still is short of the 4:39.4 state
mark in the slightly-shorter 1600.
A return to Indianapolis saw her run the
only race she says she has regrets about. In
the 5000 she took the pace out hard, passing
800 meters in 2:28. She continued to lead
most of the way, but was unable to shake her
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