The Natural

Tampa native Annis, who will use the Napa Valley Marathon to prep for her second U.S. Olympic Trials, seemed born to run

By MARTY JAMES
Executive Sports Editor

Caroline Annis took to long distance running at an early age growing up in Tampa, Fla.

Going out on a training run came very easy to Annis, who showed remarkable pace and endurance at St. Mary’s Episcopal Day School and later at H.B. Plant High School.

Her coaches recognized that talent, often telling Annis: “You’re going to be a marathon runner some day.”

The marathon, a distance of 26.2 miles, may have been the farthest thing from her mind at the time. But now it’s a race that she excels at.

“I’ve always had the ability since junior high to be able to run long distances comfortably,” she said. “I’m a really consistent pacer. I can do long runs and they don’t really take too much out of me. For the most part I can go on a 20-mile or a 22-mile run. I don’t do them frequently. But in training I get it done and I feel OK.

“I think that’s just kind of a sign of what my body is meant to do. That’s something I want to capitalize on and use that gift. It comes pretty naturally.”

Annis has already qualified for her second U.S. Olympic Marathon Team Trials, which takes place April 20, the day before the 112th running of the Boston Marathon. But before she heads east to test herself against the country’s top runners, Annis will be in the field for the Kaiser Permanente Napa Valley Marathon on March 2.

Annis, a San Francisco resident and member of the Stanford University cross country and track teams from 1998-2002, won’t be looking to win or even place in the annual race.

The NVM follows a USA Track and Field certified point-to-point course from Rosedale Road and the Silverado Trail in Calistoga starting at 7 a.m. to Vintage High School in Napa.

She will be pacing and pulling two runners, Shaluinn Fullove of Palo Alto and Claudia Becque of Chicago, as they attempt to qualify for the Trials. All three are coached by Tom McGlynn, the president of Focus-N-Fly.

Napa is one of the “last chance” qualifying marathons for women, and requires a “B” standard, a sub-2:47, or the faster “A” standard, a sub-2:39. The qualifying period began Jan. 1, 2006 and ends on March 23.

“I want to have a really hard, solid training effort,” Annis said in a telephone interview. “And I want to help Claudia and Shaluinn along as much as possible — those are my main goals in the race.

“I’m not sure how long I’ll be in there. But I’ll be in for a good portion of it. I think you’ve just kind of got to keep going. I’m not sure I’ll be in there for the whole thing.

“Of course, I want do what I’m there to do. But I think I’ll be fine.”

The majority of the race — known as the “Biggest Little Marathon in the West” — is conducted on the Silverado Trail. It’s considered a flat, fast course for what is expected to be a sold-out field of 2,300 runners.

This year’s race has again been selected by the Road Runners Club of America as its National Marathon Championships.

Napa is only the sixth career marathon for Annis, a member of the Impala Racing Team of San Francisco and the captain of Stanford’s cross country team in 2001. But she has a very good record in the race.

She ran a time of 2 hours, 47 minutes at the Dec. 2003 California International Marathon in Sacramento to advance to the 2004 Olympic Trials in April. There, she ran a 2:46:00 in St. Louis, finishing 40th after being ranked 110th in the field.

“I was just kind of happy to be there in 2004,” said Annis. “It was only my second marathon. I was kind of surprised to be at the Trials but I took it seriously. I didn’t get too overwhelmed or too star-struck and just really enjoyed the experience. I wasn’t too nervous and I had a really good result.”

She was the second American woman finisher and 13th female overall at the Boston Marathon in April of 2005 in a personal-record time of 2:43:46.

“It’s one of those things, sometimes you just have a good day,” she said. “I remember the day before I went to a Red Sox game and I walked all around Boston, and it was hot. I wasn’t super smart about it, but I just got in the race and felt really great the whole time. I think I had some people to run with. It just happened to be kind of one of those days when you really have it.

“All of my training leading up to it was indicating I was going to have a good race. But I really didn’t expect to run that well. Everything just happened to click that day, I guess.”

Annis, 27, completed the April 2006 Boston Marathon in 3:01:39. She qualified for this year’s Trials by placing 57th overall with a “B” standard time of 2:45:25 at the December California International, a fast, net-downhill course that follows an historic gold-miners’ route, starting at Folsom Dam and finishing in front of the California State Capitol.

Annis, who works as a manager for clinical operations for Genentech, Inc., said advancing to the Trials is a wonderful accomplishment.

“In particular, over the past two years, I wanted to qualify again,” she said. “I had some setbacks over the past two years. I ran Boston in 2006 and it didn’t go quite as I wanted, and then I was training for New York and then I got a stress fracture, so I couldn’t run for like four months.

“It was a goal that I really wanted to achieve and so I had to be persistent. I went back to CIM and qualified, so it was a really great feeling to just finally see all that training and persistence come to fruition.

“Every marathon you run, you just learn a little bit more about yourself and your racing style and what works. In the four years since 2004 I’ve learned a lot more about myself as a competitor.

“One of the biggest things I’ve learned about the race itself is kind of knowing what’s in reach and just being a little bit more conservative at the beginning. That’s something that Tom, my coach, really emphasizes.

“I’ve learned just to really know the pace and really know what shape you’re in and run within yourself. That’s what I try to remember and also to have confidence in my training.”

At Stanford, she earned NCAA Division I All-American honors as a freshman in cross country. She graduated with a BA in Human Biology in 2002.

Other accolades at Stanford:

• Recipient of NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship, 2001-2002.

• Verizon Academic All-American, Third Team, 2001-2002.

• Pac-10 All-Academic Cross Country and Track and Field Selection, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002.

• Member of USA Junior Cross Country team that competed in the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Belfast, 1999.

“I had some successes there, getting to run with some amazing women and know some amazing people and some of my best friends,” she said. “Overall, it was a wonderful experience.”

She attained collegiate career bests in four events: 1500 meters (4:44.30); 3000 meters (9:58.31); 5000 meters (16:51.33); and 10,000 meters (35:45.95).

Annis was a star runner in high school. She was a four-time Florida Class 5A cross country state champion.

In track, she captured six state championships — the 3,200-meter run three straight times from 1995-97, the 1,600 twice and another title in the 4x800 relay.

Annis also qualified to run against the nation’s best by reaching the finals of the Foot Locker National Cross Country championships during her junior and senior seasons. To do that, a runner must finish in the top eight of a 12-state regional meet in North Carolina.

Racing in the Napa Valley Marathon and the Olympic Trials aren’t the only highlights of what is shaping up as a big year for Annis. She is engaged to Eric Almon, a Dartmouth graduate, and they will be getting married in Napa in July.

“I love Napa,” she said. “It’s just a luxury to be able to run there. I’m really looking forward to the race. I’ve always wanted to do it. I think it will be great.”

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