When senior Amanda Boman was a sixth grader in Duluth, Minn., she was playing softball and basketball. She describes herself as an "aggressive basketball player. I loved to run around out there."
 
She also loved softball because "if I could hit it far enough I could run the bases really fast."
 
The key word in those comments by the PSU cross country and track standout is "run." One of her favorite activities in basketball was the baseline-to-baseline sprints, usually doled out as punishment.
 
But, the distances she could run in those sports weren't long enough.
 
So, when a favorite teacher, also the school's track coach, told her he didn't have anyone to run the mile and asked her if she'd fill in, she decided to give it a whirl.
 
It was a difficult first mile, she recalled. "My time was a horrible seven minutes, but I loved it so much. After that, it was challenging and no one else wanted to do it." The mile became her favorite event and she prefers it over cross country or the longer track distances, where she has been a standout as a Viking.
 
At the end of this year's cross country season in early November, Boman had finished in the top 10 at the Big Sky meet, becoming just the second Viking to earn All-Big Sky honors since 1999. Boman also took the individual crown at two meets this season, including at the Charles Bowles Invitational, where she set a new personal best for a cross country 5K with her time of 17:30.9.
 
In indoor track, she holds the school record in the 5,000 meters at 17:01.73, ranks fourth all time at PSU in the 3,000 meters (9:53.33) and eighth all time in the mile (5:03.90—a long standing goal is to break five minutes). Outdoors, she ranks eighth all-time at Portland State in the 3,000 meters (10:01.2).
 
And, oh by the way, she was a 2015 Academic All-Big Sky selection.
 
Boman has run for Portland State only the last two years. Prior to that, she was at Division II University of Minnesota Duluth, where she thought her running days might be over…a potential devastating blow at the time.
 
She tore her labrum (hip) while running for Minnesota Duluth in January 2013. It was misdiagnosed until June 2013 when she underwent surgery.
 
"I thought I might not run again and that really had me scared. Running was so much core to my being and who I am…I thought if I lose that, I don't have anything," she said.
 
And, that meant she had to work on who she was. She made an abrupt, life-changing decision.
 
"I realized that unless I left home, I'd never grow up. I needed to move across the country," she said.
 
Her boyfriend's brother had moved too, so she called him and said she was coming out. "I was pretty impetuous then…didn't take school very seriously. I took running for granted and no one thought I'd actually go."
 
But, she did. 
 
"I came to visit in October and thought that this reminds me of home…and it's far away. I didn't even look up Portland State. I just applied and I got in," Boman said.
 
She contacted then-distance coach Jonathan Marcus and asked if she should join the track team. It was only then she discovered that the Vikings were a Division I program. Marcus "was excited about me coming here and said 'you should show up and be on the team'."
 
After a successful 2014 cross country season, her hip began giving her problems again in February of this year. But this time, her attitude was different.
 
"It wasn't like 2013 when I thought I might have nothing. There's a large hiking and gardening community here. I'm glad I'm here, I thought at least I'll have this," she said (also, her boyfriend, Caleb, currently a pharmacy technician at OHSU…and thinking of starting next year at Portland State, had followed her to Portland).
 
She was having trouble healing from her hip injury, though, when she met PSU's new distance coach Dennis McCaffrey.
 
"When I got here, she was injured and didn't think she'd have a season. She was trying to come back and doing a lot of the wrong things. I worked with her and when she saw her progress, it built a trust. She responds well to coaching and is always receptive to more advice," McCaffrey said.
 
Still, Boman thought she'd get back only very slowly, maybe be ready for the Big Sky meet at the end of October. McCaffrey had other things in mind and entered her in the Bill Dellinger meet at the University of Oregon, an early September outing.
 
That meant a mindset change for Bowman.
 
"In running there's a lot of thought and talk that you have to be very attuned to how you're feeling, and listen to your body. I think that's overrated. Whether you're feeling good or bad, you go out there and get the job done. It's easy to overreact to that kind of advice about how you feel. Amanda can be guilty of that," he said.
 
And Boman agrees.
 
"So OK, after this last injury, I decided to take it one day at a time. I knew I didn't want to be broken like before." Tentatively she decided to run a mile with her Viking teammates. "I thought I'd run about a 10 minute mile but I did the first mile in 5:35. I did really well. But I was still cautious," she said.
 
Running is mostly mental, she agreed with McCaffrey. When she was entered in the early September meet, she said "I know I have to just go out and race…thinking: 'I'm going to do this, just put each step in front of the other'."
 
Last year she finished last in the Dellinger…"and there were the same schools and the same conditions this year. It was hot, over 90 degrees and there were the University of Oregon and Gonzaga. I knew I didn't want to be last. So I went out and put one foot in front of the other and didn't think about anything else. I'm not sure where I finished (she finished 13th in a field of 30, in fact), but I didn't finish last. You have to live in the present."
 
Same thing at this year's Big Sky meet where she earned All-Big Sky honors. "I was really nervous, but I kept telling myself 'you have to be thinking only about now, being very much in the moment'."
 
She credits McCaffrey with helping her recover her equilibrium and for challenging her.
 
"He thinks I'm faster than I think I am. I struggle with that," she said.
 
With her new approach to running, she's thinking about doing snowshoe running (she's from Minnesota, after all) and "maybe I'll try to make the national team."
 
After college, Boman is thinking about going into AmeriCorps and would really be interested in the Peace Corps. In terms of a career…"I don't know yet, the world is so big. There are so many things I could do.
 
When Boman graduates next June with a degree in sociology and women's studies, she said she'll be a much different person than when she arrived two years ago. 
 
"I've really grown up here. I'm excited for going home and seeing my family (parents Maria and James Boman and sister Melissa), but I'm not the same person I was before," she said.