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Thursday, 5/29/97 Breaking the limit W. TRACK: Kechris' perseverance will help team in championships

By Donald Morrison Daily Bruin Contributor Hard work and determination are qualities that distance runner Katherina Kechris brings out to the track when she runs. It is these qualities that have helped Kechris qualify for her first ever NCAA Championships in June. However, Kechris is not just satisfied with qualifying, but is determined to end her track and field career by helping her team win a national title. At the Pacific 10 Championships, Kechris placed a personal-best third in both the 3000- and 5000-meter runs, running 9-minutes, 24.22-seconds in the 3000 meters and running a personal best of 16:24.84 in the 5000 meters. This season, her hard work has paid off as she has set personal records in the 800-, 1500-, 3000- and 5000-meter runs. Now Kechris is ready for the NCAA Championships in Bloomington, Ind. "It's been the major focus of the season," Kechris said of going to the NCAA Championships. "I'm in the best shape of my life. It's now or never." Distance coach Eric Peterson, who has coached Kechris for four years at UCLA in cross country and track, believes that Kechris now has a very good chance of scoring at the NCAA Championships in the 3000 meters. "Emotionally and psychologically she's right on," Peterson said. "She's in the greatest shape of her life and that combination is helping her come to the track each day with the attitude that she wants to improve and get better each day and she seems to be." Kechris' determination to improve race after race has placed her at 14th in the nation in the 3000 meters and seventh all-time at UCLA with a personal best time of 9:23.18. She is also the No. 1 distance runner on the team. Head coach Jeanette Bolden feels that Kechris has been able to gain a lot of confidence with her track performances. "It's like a snowball effect," Bolden said, describing Kechris' improvement. "You do well at a meet and you get more confidence and you do well at the next meet and you get even more confidence." Her desire to improve has helped her get better each year. As a sophomore, Kechris ran a time of 9:55.6 in the 3000 meters, good enough for fourth-best on the team, before improving that time to 9:49.56 her junior year. Now, as a senior, Kechris has already bettered her time in the 3000 meters by 26 seconds. Cross country has been no different. As a redshirt sophomore she placed 41st at the Pac-10 meet before moving up 12 places this past fall as a junior to finish 29th in the Pac-10 and third on the UCLA squad. Kechris does not credit herself for her recent success. She credits her teammates, especially freshman Kim Mortensen, for pushing her to run faster and harder. Mortensen is redshirting this year but still trains with Kechris and the team. "Some of my teammates are Olympians," Kechris said, referring to teammates Amy Acuff, Nada Kawar and Suzy Powell. "Even though they're jumpers and throwers, it's being around that that has been a big influence on me." Improvement of her times is not the only thing that has propelled Kechris to the top of UCLA's distance runners. Her mental outlook has changed throughout her career and she is still learning how to run. Kechris said she has learned to "not (put) limits on what I can do. I've tended to always do that in the past. I'm still learning to be more stable mentally too. I used to worry about it (race performance) too much. The more I think about it the worse I do. I guess it's part of this year's learning experience. I still need to work on just running and not thinking about it. You don't know how a race is going to be when the gun goes off. You can't plan for it." What Kechris plans to do is help her team at the NCAA Championships. "That's my major goal," Kechris said. "I think this is the year where I'm most capable of doing that." Kechris is also a capable distance team captain, an honor that's been bestowed upon her for two track seasons and last fall's cross-country season. Peterson described Kechris not as a vocal leader but a quiet leader who leads by example. "She's a great leader because she's always at practice and always on time for practice," Peterson said. "She works as hard if not harder than anyone on the distance team. The younger people are intelligent enough to see that she is the top athlete in the (distance) program right now and the reason is because of the way she works." "It just shows that with hard work and persistence you can achieve anything," Bolden said. The one thing that she still has to do, Peterson said, is to finish the job she has started. Kechris, Peterson feels, still needs to perform at the right time and he wants to see her excel in Bloomington. "The challenge is whether or not she can approach those championship meets and get the most out of herself," Peterson said. PATRICK LAM/Daily Bruin Katherina Kechris has shown incredible determination, in her senior season alone, she improved her time in the 3000 meters by 26 seconds. Previous Daily Bruin Stories: Women's track to defend title

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