The Viking women's distance running team is having one of the best year in school history thanks largely to three seniors who have become PSU record holders and who took different routes to get here.

Oh, and it's important to note that all three credit first year assistant coach (distances) Jonathan Marcus with helping them hit peak form in their last year representing Portland State (which we'll get to later).

Brittany Long, holder of the second-best mark in PSU history in the 3,000-meter steeplechase (11:25.00), Amber Rozcicha, the holder of the second-best mark at Portland State in the mile (4:56.07) and record-holder in 3,000 meters (9:36.54) and Bianca Martin holder of both the women's 1,500 meter record (4:23.89) and 5,000-meter record (16:28.60)—after just two outings as a Viking-- have set their marks this year and sent the Viking women's distance team into the upper ranks of the Big Sky Conference.

 “With the addition of Bianca and with Brittany and Amber both injury free, it's made a big difference,” said Marcus, who noted that Long and Rozcicha were injured when he arrived last spring.  As it turns out, Martin also has been injury plagued during her college career and that is the main reason Marcus was able to add her to the Viking roster.

Long, who started running in the 7th grade after she beat all but one of the boys in a mile race during a PE testing class, started running seriously (cross country) as a sophomore at Steamboat Springs High School in Steamboat Springs Colorado. Up to that point, she'd played basketball and volleyball and swum. She dropped volleyball as a sophomore in order to go out for cross country.

Rozcicha recalled that it was “my mom who got me into it (running).  She encouraged me to go out for track in high school.  I didn't want to.  I just wanted to play soccer.”  Her fledgling running career got a big boost when she won the first meet she ever entered an 800-meter run at Newberg High School.

Martin started in the sixth grade, competing in the 200 and 800 meter runs and long jump until high school.  She also played basketball and soccer and did competitive riding and ballet.  Afraid she wouldn't make the soccer team as a freshman at Westview High School, she said “ok, I'll run”… after all, she'd always been the fastest person on the basketball floor or soccer pitch.

It was in her junior year that Long began really focusing on running when people began asking her if she were going to run in college.  “That was when I really started training.  I trained over the summer and focused more on running.”

For Rozicha who still loved soccer as a high school junior, it was letters from college track coaches… some offers, too (Eastern Washington, among others) that got her focused on the possibility of running in college, and “I wasn't getting any in soccer, so that really made the decision.”
Martin's serious interest in sports was the product of growing up in an athletic family.  Her dad, Oliver “Butch” Martin, was a two-time Olympian in cycling and her mother, Rebecca martin, was a national cycling champion.

For different reasons, Long and Rozicha chose to join the PSU distance program right out of high school.  It took Martin four years to get here.
Long's major is naturopathic medicine.  “I had some D-2 and D-3 offers, but I'm a pre-naturopathic medicine major and not many schools offer that.  Plus, I like how green it is here,” said the 2010 Big Sky Academic All-Star, who was an All-Colorado State Academic team member in high school.
Rozcicha wanted to live close to home.  “I love it here, there are trails everywhere.  And when I came, the team was really nice.  Everyone was really welcoming… and they offered me a scholarship.  But the main thing was I wanted to stay local,” she said.

Martin's path was more complicated.

After two years of coaching which didn't fit her style, a new Westview track coach took over and her  love for running blossomed.  She bonded with Andrew Begley and his wife Amy.  “They taught me things I needed to know to be a runner, like icing and naps.  Amy (also a runner) is my role model,” Martin said.

Begley knew the track coach at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.  So, off she went to New Mexico, which she loved.
But it didn't go well on the track.  Once again, she said, “the training wasn't tailored toward the kind of athlete I am.”  More importantly, “I was injured for 3 ½ years and didn't know it.”

Since running was her life, she decided to come back to Portland and enrolled at PSU.  Not knowing she had a knee problem, she began club running.

Marcus was aware of Martin because she'd run at a club where he coached before heading to New Mexico.

“I saw her on the street one day and we chatted.  I asked her if she were enrolled at PSU, if she had any eligibility left and if she'd like to come out for track,” Marcus said.  “It took a while to get her cleared, but we got her out for the outdoor season… and she really did well.”
When Long arrived at PSU, she had been running the 800, mile and two mile.

 “I liked the mile best.  It's a good distance for me.  I like that rather than the patience needed for the longer races,” she said.  She developed an interest in the Steeplechase at PSU for similar reasons.

She ran cross country and track.  Indoor, Long concentrated on the three and five k races and developed an interest in the Steeplechase outdoors as a junior.  It was a natural race for her.

“I played basketball in high school, so the transition to steeple and it's jumps is a natural.  You really have to jump over the barriers and in the water pit, you jump onto the barrier.  It's really fun,” she said.  And, “every 75 meters there's a barrier and that gives me something to focus on, rather than thinking about how hard it is and how tired I am.  I focus on the next barrier.  It works well with the way I race, makes it fun.”

Rozcicha has run the 800, 1000, 1,500, 5,000 meter events and the mile.  She placed first in the 5,0000 meters at the Willamette Invitational in 2011 and earned silver in the distance medley in 2011-2012 in the Big Sky Indoor Championship.

Over their careers, Long and Rozcicha also have battled nagging injuries.

As a freshman, Long developed a nerve problem and her junior year, a stress fracture… then another stress fracture last fall (after being out a month with that, she set a personal record in the 6k…”that was interesting.”).

Rozcicha had a series of minor injuries.  Then, last year, she began developing a hip problem and had to sit out for a while.
It was with these injuries that Marcus' approach to running has been important.

 “As a runner, you want to go hard all the time.  You don't always take the time you need between runs.  I kept running too hard all the time.  Jonathan taught me that recovery is important.  You've got to take time between runs to recover,” which she does by “getting lots of sleep… I need 8 ½ to nine hours of sleep daily.  I drink lots of water and rest and chill out between runs,” she said.

All runners will have some injuries, said Long.  It's the way she has started to approach them that's made the difference for her.
 “I'm now paying attention to problems when they start, rather than waiting until they are full blown.  We have great resources here… doctor, acupuncture, massage… I take advantage of those.  Coach Marcus is very understanding if I have to take a week off... but for me, it's early intervention, because I get plenty of sleep and have plenty of calcium.”

It was discovering and correcting the knee problem which has brought Martin to the top of her sport.

“For 3 ½ years, I had an extra piece of tissue in one knee.  No one spotted it, but running wasn't going well,” she said.  This is a women (by her own description) who eats, sleeps and breathes running. “Every decision I make during the day revolves around my efficiency as a runner”… and not being able to run as she felt she could, caused a great deal of emotional distress.

When Martin went for her knee surgery, “they had to call it exploratory surgery.  Even though the doctor was 99 percent sure he knew the problem, it often doesn't show up on an x-ray.”  So, when she woke up after arthroscopic surgery on the knee last year “the doctor showed me the photos, that it was just what he thought, and I just started balling.  I was going to be able to run.  It was finally fixed.”

Complications caused by the long delay in diagnosing the problem made for a long recovery and she didn't run a full mile until last November.
“I knew the recovery would be difficult, so I knew I had to do everything right.  I do all the little things… like I'm in bed at 10 p.m…. really boring for a 22-year-old… and I nap.  But, It'll be worth it in the end,” Martin said.

Since then, she's set a personal record in every event she's run and, in her second race, set the school record in the 1,500 meters.
Long became the No. 2, all-time PSU Steeplechasee runner in April at the Mondo Meet in Sacramento, where, she said conditions were just right.
Although she flew into Sacramento that afternoon, “all the conditions were just right.  The track was fast.  The weather was good and there were the right number of girls.”

By “the right number of girls”, she meant enough for there to be a competition.  In the steeplechase, she often competes in a small field… sometimes just one other runner.  “That makes it easier.  In a small field, things can spread way out.  When you have someone to race against, rather than just competing with yourself, you run faster.”

All three women graduate this year.

Long, who credits her dad Greg Long with being the spark behind her running career (he still holds the mile record at Utah State.  Mother, Jill, is a skier) is heading for a four year doctorate program at a naturopathic medical school in Portland and hopes to continue running “whenever possible.

Rozcicha's mentor was her mother, Cyndi (“without her, I wouldn't be running”) wants to go into health care administration, which means graduate school.  There's still time for that down the road, she said.   Right now her focus is on running.  “My dream is going pro. I'd be very interested in trying out for the 2016 Olympics.”

Martin hopes to run full time after graduation and would like to get a contract to run and ultimately would love to coach.  Already, she's an assistant coach at Westview High School.

 “Coming here was a good decision.  Because of the injury, I'm playing catch up to where my parents were at my age.”  The Olympics also beckon Martin… but “2016 is just too close to train… maybe 2020.  Women don't peak until their late 20's.”

Although Long, Rozcicha and Martin arrived at this year's outdoor season from different directions, Marcus and Head Coach Ronnye Harrison are delighted with the result.   And, they hope it's just the beginning of the re-emergence of that portion of PSU's track efforts.