“Nerds, nerds, nerds” exclaimed NCAA announcer Will Leer, watching as a three way tie between academic heavyweights UChicago, MIT, and Johns Hopkins was carried into the final leg of the distance medley relay (DMR) race. While UChicago’s DMR team certainly brought the brains to their national championship race, the brawn stood out on March 14th as UChicago earned its first national Track and Field championship in four years and first Track championship in nearly a decade. Yet, the UChicago DMR team’s national championship story started long before March 14th. The redemption arc was, in fact, years in the making.
For fourth year Claudia Harnett, the anchor for the 1600m run, the podium was a familiar sight. In both 2022 and 2023, Harnett found herself barely off the top step of the podium as the relay team’s designated 800m runner, helping the team to consecutive third place and second place finishes. Both times, Harnett barely missed out on first by approximately one second. As a graduating fourth year in June, there remained only one other podium spot left to add to the trophy cabinet.
For third year Nora Holmes, assigned the crucial task of setting the pace in the first 1200m leg, a time split remained lodged in her memory. While her 3:37.979 split in the 2023 relay had immediately put UChicago in a competitive spot to start the race, she knew there was still an extra gear to unlock. A faster pace, cultivated through two additional years of experience, that would leave all other runners in the dust.
For fourth year Ren Brown and third year Emma Kelly, the pressures of being the top seeded DMR team was not a new experience having entered 2024’s NCAA indoor championships as the respective 400m and 800m runners of Division III’s fastest DMR team. However, a fast start was not enough for the Maroons on the day as they finished eighth in a tightly contested race. While it was not the result Kelly and Brown hoped for at the time, the experience would turn out to be a valuable asset going into the following year’s championships.
UChicago’s DMR roster was now complete with four experienced runners. Four runners who had fallen just short. Four runners prepared, now more than ever before, to get their hands on the elusive championship.
While the Maroons began the season with an ‘all or nothing’ pressure, faced with the reality of Harnett and Brown’s graduations at the end of the season, they took the expectation in stride, once more asserting themselves to be the DMR team to beat. Included in the team’s resume was a record-breaking 11:31.24 time at a February meet, beating out a record that had stood for over a decade by a whole second. Thus, the indoor championships was not a battle between twelve schools, but rather a question of who could catch up to the blazing Maroons.
Based on Holmes’ opening leg, the answer to that question seemed to be no one. Within thirty seconds of the start of the race, Holmes had established herself as the pace-setter for the pack, keeping her eyes focused forward on the objective ahead as the trailing runners tired in her wake. While MIT was eventually able to grab a narrow lead at the baton transfer, Holmes’ experience shone through the pack, keeping UChicago in a competitive position with a significant five second improvement on her 2023 mark. With the 400m coming up, Brown’s job was simple: sprint, sprint, sprint.
Within thirty seconds of picking up the baton, Brown had open track ahead, effortlessly overtaking MIT on a long turn. Within thirty seconds, the rest of the pack understood that the previous year’s best 400m runner had only grown faster in the yearlong gap. Brown had beat out the closest runner by a whopping two seconds. For reference, the gap between first and nineteenth place in the Women’s 400m earlier in the day was 1.72 seconds. The prior experience had clearly paid off for both Holmes and Brown, and now, with the baton in her hand, Kelly was ready to show her merits in the 800m.
Going up against Krystal Montgomery, a taller MIT runner with a longer stride, the odds seemed stacked against Kelly to maintain first place for the Maroons. Yet, on the day, a height difference was outweighed by Kelly’s experience and calmness, enabling her to not only stay glued to Montgomery for the duration of the 800m, but eventually regain UChicago’s lead. Following the trend of Holmes and Brown’s legs, Kelly had improved on her time from the prior year by over two seconds, asserting that the whole team had brought their A-game to the track. Entering the final leg in a perfect position, all that lay between the Maroons and a redemption championship was a 1600m run, tasked to the squad’s most experienced member.
While this year’s race marked her first championship DMR race as the 1600m runner, Harnett looked far from being a novice to the anchor leg. Settling in just behind Kate Sanderson, MIT’s 1600m runner, to start her run, it quickly became apparent that it was Harnett’s race to lose as her stoic concentration juxtaposed Sanderson’s wincing expression. For four minutes, the race remained deadlocked with Sanderson shooting the occasional glance back only to see Harnett directly behind. Suddenly, after four minutes of ‘taking it easy,’ Harnett made her move, summoning her years of practice and training to swiftly overtake MIT. No matter how much the camera panned out, Harnett’s competitors could not be found and the Maroons, as they had been all year, were in a league of their own.
Harnett, finally showing a touch of exhaustion in the last 200m, sprinted to the finish line, setting a time of 11:37.62, nearly four seconds faster than the next best team. The competition’s best roster had finally gotten their hands on an elusive national championship, earning the coveted spot at the top of the podium.
While the DMR squad will lose two of its key pieces in Brown and Harnett for next season, the years of effort and training that went into this national championship will surely be replicated by future championship-winning teams, spearheaded by the guidance of rising fourth years Holmes and Kelly. With its first championship in four years and a new national ranking of No. 5, it appears that Women’s Track and Field will have no shortage of success in the years to come.
