TACOMA — Minutes after Ridgefield senior Danica Allen ran by far the best 3,200-meter race of her life at the 2A/3A/4A state championships Saturday, all she wanted to do was run. And run.
After all, she still had more left in her. Allen spent the time between her second-place finish in the event and her trip to the podium jogging laps around the Mount Tahoma Stadium field shoeless. As wave after wave of athletes came up to the podium for awards, she continued to keep a steady pace, occasionally smiling and waving at a supporter in the stands as she ran by.
Allen entered the day with a lifetime best of 11 minutes and 9.65 seconds in the 3,200 meters and had never recorded a sub-11 time. Not even in practice. On Saturday, she crossed the finish line in a blistering 10 minutes and 46.23 seconds in her final prep race.
"Yesterday, I really made sure to stay out of the sun and focus on today. The mile really didn't go very well for me," said Allen, whose 1,600-meter prelims performance wasn't enough to qualify for the finals. "This was my last high school race ever, and I had nothing to lose."
All season, Allen scouted her potential competition and kept an eye on their times to determine what she might need to run to just take home a medal. Her senior year marked her first trip to state in the 3,200 meters, but she had collected hardware in the 1,600 meters and the 4x400 relay.
"I think I proved to myself that everything I've been doing is working. This season has been a little tough with a lot of races not going my way and setbacks," Allen said. "I was so happy. That was kind of the first moment this year where I was able to actually do what I thought I could do. I couldn't have ended [my career] any better."
Allen will run at the University of Portland upon graduating from Ridgefield. The Spudders also collected points from junior McKenna Calkins, who took fifth in the 100 meters and seventh in the 200.
On the boys side, Davis Sullivan concluded his prep career with his second straight medal in the 800 meters, placing sixth at 1:56.72. Sophomore Elias Farley picked up a huge PR by over three feet in the discus as his sixth and final throw landed 155 feet and 10 inches down the field to give him seventh in the event. Junior Brian McLemore III also collected eighth in the finals for the 300-meter hurdles.
Prairie's Parker Rice, eighth, medaled in the 3A javelin, and Hockinson senior Madsen Richardson set a PR in the 400 meters at 49.69 seconds, stunning the competition in third place after starting as the projected 12th-place finisher out of 16 entries.
