HAMILTON — Annick Lamar hasn't forgotten her roots. But then, how could she? She still works out on the high school track where her running career began.
She has run in Europe, Puerto Rico, Mexico and across the United States since graduating from Nottingham High School eight years ago. But her most important runs are less than a week away, when she competes in the 1,500-meter event at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Oregon.
That’s a long way from Klockner Road.
Seated on a wooden bench next to the Nottingham High track recently, the Olympic hopeful, now 26, looked out across the field, thinking back to the 14-year-old girl of her youth who first stretched her legs in early enthusiasm for the sport of running.
“This was a really big scene of, I want to say, development, and kind of truth-finding,” she said with a wistful smile. “I loved running since I was a little kid. There was no middle school program, so this track was the first time I really got tested about whether or not my love of running was actually grounded in my abilities or I was delusional.”
For somebody trying something new, with no particular skill or training at the time, it took a while to become comfortable with the sport.
“So the first couple of years it was terrifying just because I had had no formal experience — just racing against my brothers or my poor friends who didn’t want to run with me. So this track really was humbling in the beginning. Then, toward the end, it was my home.”
Now 26 and a professional runner for the past four years, Lamar has come a long way since those awkward first steps on the Nottingham track.
She’s now sponsored by the New York Athletic Club and the Brooks shoe company, and runs for the New Jersey-New York Track Club, a group guided by well-known track and field coach Frank Gagliano.
She works out a couple of times a week at Rutgers University with the club and runs every single day, averaging 50-60 miles a week. For diversity, she hits the trails at Mercer County Park and Washington’s Crossing, or sometimes Central Park in New York City. She does strength and conditioning workouts at her local gym, Crossfit Hamilton.
Lamar ran four years at Haverford College, where she took up the 1,500 meter event. She was an assistant coach at her college for a while, but since the fall has focused strictly on her running.
“You have to be very sure about what you want,” she said. “You are not going to make a lot of money in track and field. It has to be very fulfilling on a personal level. Living at home at 26 would seem unappealing, but for me, chasing my dream, living with my parents and on a low budget, it’s not upsetting or concerning. It’s part of the game.”
“People never mean this in a bad sense, but they say, ‘Are you really going to keep doing this running thing?’ It’s a curiosity. I mean, I could be a clown and that would make more sense to people — joining a circus rather than being a professional runner,” she said.
With a personal best of just over four minutes (4:14) for the 1,500, she will probably have to cut close to 10 seconds to make the Olympic Team. She acknowledged that the goal might be too ambitious — but there’s always the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Brazil.
"I'm not counting myself out. You never do that," she said. "You always go to the line believing you have the ability. But it's going to be hard to make the team."
Lamar is perfectly willing to do whatever it takes to make the team this year.
"I'm determined, I'm gritty, and stubborn," she said. "And stubborn in the sense that I refuse to give up."
Sometimes that means that practices are not going to be enjoyable.
"It's insanely painful. It's very lonely and very exhausting, and if you don't enjoy it you're going to stop pretty quickly," she said.
But it’s always been worth it, she said.
“I’ve never regretted the decisions I’ve made. I’ve never felt I’ve missed out on anything. My experiences have greatly outweighed any of that,” she said.
She has represented the U.S. at the Pan American Games, and said there is nothing like wearing the letters USA.
“All the opportunities are amazing and you want to do them all over again. You want to make another team and represent the United States again, whether it’s the Olympics, Pan Am Games or the World Championships,” she said.
“But the closer you get to the Olympics, the farther away it seems,” she added with a laugh. “I’m in a position to be at the trials; and being on the starting line, that is a huge goal in itself and an amazing dream in itself. But then you look forward and see all these women in the field ... and you realize how much further you have to go.”
There is no stopping now, so she continues to run after the dream, negotiating with pain as she goes.
“In the 1,500,” she said, “the last two laps your body starts sending signals that it is ready to stop and it would like you to step off the track. My body will say to me at some point in every race, I think we’re done here. I think we should go home.”
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