MORGANTOWN – Morgantown senior Irene Riggs captured the Nike Cross Country national championship Saturday in Portland, Oregon.
The Stanford commit continued her domination from the record-setting regional meet that she won last week. Riggs ran a time of 16:40.9, just three seconds off of the Glendover Golf Course record set by Katelyn Tuohy in 2018.
If that doesn’t say enough about her performance, the second-place finisher trailed her by 14 seconds in the national championship race.
On Monday, MHS students and staff gathered in the gym for an assembly to recognize and celebrate her accomplishments. Irene said she didn’t even have a clue it was happening.
“I was very surprised this morning,” Riggs said of her initial reaction to the celebration. “I was just going through a regular day, going to calculus, and Mr. Bowers asked if I could come with him to do a podcast. I didn’t think anything of it, went and did this 20-minute podcast and then went back to my classroom but no one was in there. It wasn’t until I got to the door of the gym and everyone was here that I knew what was going on.”
Irene described winning a national championship as a “full-circle moment” saying that after her freshman year when she fell just short of national qualification, turning around and having a great senior season means everything.
“I remember just being super upset about it,” she recalled of her freshman year. “But I’ve come such a long way to be able to qualify and then even win. It’s something that’s really crazy and something I’m very thankful for.”
The realization of a national run came shortly after Riggs returned to training after a small foot injury midseason.
“Right after my first workout after the small foot thing I had I started running hard again and working out well,” she said. “Then I ran 8-by-8’s (8x800s) and the times were the fastest I had ever recorded before so I became determined then to try and go for the national title.”
With the race being held on Saturday on the other side of the country, and Irene being present for school on Monday morning, the travel schedule is certainly taking a toll. Riggs says it is good preparation for her future at Stanford, which is located in California.
“That’s something I was thinking about on the plane,” she said. “It seemed like a super far trip for a race but when I got to thinking about it college athletes do this all the time for their races and they have to fly a long way. It’s just a mindset and you can’t let it affect you too much.”
Riggs says in preparation for the regional and national races, current WVU cross-country runner, Ceili McCabe, was someone she talked to often. Even sharing a story from a few weeks ago when the two ended up running together unplanned.
“I love her, she is such a nice person and great runner,” Riggs said on the WVU All-American. “I was actually at the trail a few weeks ago training and I ran into her and ended up having a run with her. She is always so supportive and I think even though she isn’t from West Virginia she represents WVU and the state in a great way and she should be proud of the accomplishments she has achieved.”
Now, after a well-deserved break for the holidays, Riggs says her focus will turn to track season in preparation for the spring.
“It’s crazy because I feel like last track season ended and we are already preparing for it again,” she said of her near future. “Right now will be downtime to reset mentally and physically. Then I’ll start base training, getting base mileage in and base workouts to try and peak my fitness towards the end of the outdoor season.”
TWEET – @ahhh_griff @dompostsports
