SNOHOMISH — Somewhere in the rather large shadow cast by Amy-Eloise Neale stands Katie Bianchini.
Only if it weren’t for Neale, Bianchini would be casting quite the shadow herself.
Bianchini is the No. 2 runner on the nationally ranked Glacier Peak girls cross country team behind the two-time defending state champion Neale, but Bianchini might be the best No. 2 runner in the state, if not the entire nation.
“It has been really, probably not what a lot of people would think, I have run on her team since middle school,” Bianchini said. “And so initially I would be comparing myself and be like, ‘Why can I not get up to that speed?’ And it kind of knocked me down for a while.”
But Bianchini got back up.
“It has been really cool to be on a team with someone who has had so much racing experience,” Bianchini said. “To be able to play off that and learn from her and run with her and now that I am able to keep that more consistent, things are going to be happening around here I think.”
Neale and Bianchini, along with a cast of other very talented runners, helped the Grizzlies place second as a team in state in 2009 and win the team state title last year. They are the favorites to do the same at today’s state meet at Sun Willows Golf Course in Pasco.
Bianchini improved from an 18th-place finish at the 2009 state meet to finish third last year and today she looks to improve some more. Still, she was behind Neale, who won her second consecutive individual 3A state championship in 2010.
When the two came to Glacier Peak as freshman, the expectations could certainly be felt, especially for Neale. But Bianchini said it wasn’t as much pressure, but she felt like the secret weapon on the team.
“It took a lot of stress off because basically there is nothing to lose,” Bianchini said. “Nobody knows, even me, what I was capable of at that point.”
Bianchini now knows what she is capable of and others in the running community are starting to take notice as well.
“This is the first year where people have really started noticing Katie,” Neale said. “Katie wasn’t getting a lot of the attention that she probably should have been getting if I wasn’t on the team and she should have been getting a lot more credit than she was. But this year, people are starting to realize, ‘Wait, they have two front-runners,’ and I think that’s really cool actually.”
For some, it might be frustrating to be running behind Neale, but Bianchini seems to take it all in stride.
“As far as being the No. 2 runner, somebody has to be No.2,” Bianchini said. “Being on this team is phenomenal. To be the No. 2 runner here is insane, basically. Because what we are doing with being a new school and breaking records and all this is just, it is really unique and I’m glad to be a part of it.”
Still, Bianchini has had to play some mind games with herself to stay at the top.
“I have to make it my own race now,” Bianchini said. “For example, we race at Stanford every year. If I go out there focusing on myself being behind Amy than it is a different race than if I am focusing on me driving forward and racing as well for the team as I can and us doing as well as we can.”
Bianchini’s focus stays on trying to run the best race that she can.
“I don’t want to beat her,” Bianchini said. “We are competitors, but I’m not trying to beat her all the time, I guess. That’s not really my main focus, it’s beating my own times and if I end up next to her, that’s cool with me. If I don’t, which is more often than not, it’s nice to be able to beat my own goals and to be able to drive forward on our team.”
In fact, Bianchini can use Neale’s past results to help her prepare for her own races, something she is doing with today’s state meet.
“In terms of state, I am trying to shadow Amy’s time from last year,” said Bianchini. “So I would like to run a 17:31. Kind of my main goal at the beginning of the season was to break 18 (minutes) and I got to do that at Stanford (University Invitational).”
Neale placed first at Stanford with a time of 17:09, Bianchini was second in 17:37. Neale said that the course runs similar to Sun Willow.
The two girls say that they are best friends and Neale says that they support each other doing the best they can.
“If me and Katie both run amazing and Katie beats me, I would be really happy,” Neale said. “As long as I knew that I put in a really good effort and that I ran a really good race. You just have to really separate yourself and focus on what you are doing.”
Though Bianchini said she isn’t trying to beat Neale, if the two were side by side with the finish line in sight, her competitive instincts are the same no matter who is next to her.
“It has happened before,” Bianchini said. “I would try to outkick anyone who is near me. That is just what I have been trained to do, so that is what I would go out and do. Not just if it was Amy beside me, it would be any person that is near me in that last 400. It’s going to go down until I pass them and I don’t want them to pass me back.”
The fact that Bianchini has steadily improved over her first two years of high school and that she can keep better pace with Neale has helped the two train better together.
“We have been able to play off of each other’s good and bad days in workouts a lot more this year now that I am able to keep a little bit faster of a pace,” Bianchini said. “We are able to kind of race a little bit more together.”
Neale’s biggest individual competition, Katie Knight of North Central High School in Spokane said that she is envious of Bianchini being able to train with Neale.
“Honestly, to have such an amazing training partner, I would love that,” Knight said. “I’m jealous.”
It was Knight who came in between Bianchini and Neale at the state meet last year, placing second. Bianchini has that on her radar today.
“It is always a goal for me to pass whoever is ahead of me from the other team,” Bianchini said. “It would be phenomenal for me to go one, two with (Neale) at state, which we got to do at Stanford this year and it was amazing.”
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