MANNFORD — Her name is Pippin Gormley and she’s running ahead of schedule. She is supposed to be just figuring all this out. She is a freshman, after all.
New school. New competition. Older runners. Bigger meets. Faster fields.
Instead, Gormley seems to have fast-tracked the adjustment period and gone directly to winning.
On Oct. 8, at Feyodi Creek Park in Cleveland, on the shores of Keystone Lake the Mannford freshman captured the Tulsa 7 Conference cross country championship, covering the two-mile course in a personal-best 11:50.02. It was her third first-place finish of the season — varsity finishes. It was another reminder that Gormley is not simply having a nice freshman year.
She is building something. There is a pattern forming here. Last fall, while still in middle school, Gormley won the Tulsa 7 Conference cross country championship. Then came track season.
She won the conference 800 meters in 2:29.98. She won the 1,600 in 5:41.49.
She also ran on Mannford’s winning 4x400 and 4x800 relay teams.
Then summer arrived, and apparently she did more running. Gormley won the 3,000 meters at the AAU Oklahoma District Qualifier in 11:47.16, then lowered that mark to 11:39.13 while finishing second at the AAU Region 16 qualifier.
By the time she stepped into high school competition this fall, the question wasn’t if she could run with varsity athletes. It was how badly she might beat them.
The answer came fairly fast. Gormley placed sixth at Distance After Dark at Tulsa’s Mohawk Park early in September, running roughly two miles in 12:00.7.
Five days later, she won the varsity girls race at Inola, covering 3,200 meters in 12:56.47.
Then came Cleveland. The Cleveland Invitational brought runners from elementary school through high school to Feyodi Park, but for Gormley the day became another test. One she passed.
Her 11:50.02 was the fastest two-mile time of her high school career, and it came with a conference championship attached.
Distance running isn’t about that one race, even though that is the one that matters.
It’s about stacking days. Miles. Workouts. Small improvements nobody sees. Then, every so often, all of that work shows up on a stopwatch.
For Gormley, the numbers keep moving in the right direction. So does she.
She is still only a freshman, which makes the résumé already attached to her name seem a little ridiculous.
Conference champion in middle school last year. Conference champion in high school this year. Multiple varsity wins. Track titles. AAU success.
And more than three years left to keep tightening down the numbers.
For Mannford, that makes Gormley one of the more interesting young athletes to watch.
For the rest of the Tulsa 7, it creates a slightly less pleasant thought. Could be that her reign has just begun.