Senior runner wins CAA
Spickard returns from injury to win conference title
By Caroline Morris, staff writer
Posted on November 9, 2006

Last year, junior cross-country runner Dena Spickard was at UREC, rehabbing a stress fracture in her left foot while the rest of her team was at the Colonial Athletic Association Championships.

“I was on the elliptical machine at the exact time they started, 10 a.m., and I was like ‘There they go,’ Spickard said. “It was so hard.”

One year later, Spickard found herself crossing the finish line first at the CAA Championships in Newark, Del., with a time of 21 minutes, 34 seconds. Her time helped the team finish in third place.

“I was ready. I was excited about racing,” Spickard said. “I kind of knew the course, but it was my type of course — hilly and rolling. You were by yourself for a lot of the time; there weren’t spectators everywhere. I think that gave me an edge.”

William & Mary is traditionally the powerhouse team of the conference, and though Spickard was definitely a contender for the title, she was going to have to get past a handful of the Tribe’s elite runners.

“The girl that I beat, Meghan Bishop, was favored to win,” the Marion,  native said. “Throughout the race, William & Mary fans were like, ‘This is your title, this is your race; you’ve got it.’ And I was like ‘No, she doesn’t!’”

Spickard has been emerging as a premier runner all season. On Sept 29, she finished 10th out of 287 runners at the Paul Short Invitational in Bethlehem, Pa. Her performance earned her CAA Runner of the Week.

JMU coach Mark Rinker is happy with Spickard’s recent progress, but unlike others in the cross-country world, who until this year had never heard of her, he isn’t surprised.

“She was conference champion in the 10,000 meters in track [her sophomore year] and that was kind of a glimpse of maybe what she was capable of doing as things progressed on,” Rinker said. “Last year, with the stress fracture in the fall, it curtailed that improvement.”

Spickard’s injury last year came at a key time in her development. The cross-country program, designed by Rinker, takes 18 months before runners really begin to see improvement. Spickard had only begun to show what she was capable of when she fractured her foot in August. She missed the entire season and wouldn’t rejoin the team for practice until November.

“That was probably the hardest thing I’ve had to do,” Spickard said of her rehab. “Getting up at six in the morning and going to the pool, biking, watching my teammates leave…you see everyone else progress and you’re just stuck here.”

Spickard’s rehab has paid off.

This weekend she will head to Louisville, Ky., to compete in the NCAA Southeast Regionals. While her goal was originally to finish in the top 15, she now wants to finish in the top 10 and hopes to qualify for the national championships in Terre Haute, Ind. 

Rinker thinks she has a chance.

“I think that she’s at the optimal stage right now for making big jumps because there’s no pressure on her,” Rinker said. “When she lines up to run against the William & Mary girls, or when she lines up to run at regionals this weekend, there’s no pressure; nobody knows who she is.”