By Christopher Hunt
GREENSBORO, N.C. – She had every right to cry. Sometimes there’s too much emotion for anything else.
Suffern’s Shelby Greany cried because her storybook season wouldn’t end with a happily ever after. She cried because the season, her last in high school, had to end. She raced in the 5,000 meters at Nike Outdoor Nationals for fun. She wanted to make her prom so that meant the national record-holder and last year’s national champ in the steeplechase would have to forgo the race that gained her national acclaim.
But part of the “fun” meant that she’d winning. Instead it ended with Greany fighting to not completely fall apart over the last six laps. It ended with a fifth-place finish in 17:34.69 at North Carolina A &T.
“I always say that you going to have one bad race a season,” she said. “I really thought I would go the whole season without a bad race but I guess not.”
It would be the only blemish in a season that saw Greany break the national record in the 2,000 steeplechase, win her second straight state championship and the races that frustrated her the most were two races where she fell short of her own record. Not just this season, but since the start of the winter track season Greany transformed.
The Providence-bound senior was visibly in the best shape of her scholastic career. She divorced her stopwatch, stopped analyzing splits. Greany stopped feeling like if she didn’t get her splits, the whole house would come down. She let go of the idea that one mistake would inevitably trash her race. Instead she simply ran. And became the best runner she’d ever been.
“The whole season, I couldn’t ask for anything else,” she said. “I hit every time I wanted to hit. I accomplished everything I wanted to. I really couldn’t ask for anything else.”
It all showed Thursday night when she moved from fifth into second three and a half laps into the race. Then closed in on Missouri’s Emily Sisson at the 2,000 mark and took over the pace. Greany held the lead for 200 meters until Sisson surged hard and Greany couldn’t cover. Then her legs grew tighter each lap while she attempted to latch on to each runner that passed her.
Her body betrayed her for the first time in months and that wasn’t the memory she wanted to bring home. So she cried after the race. Then she cried on the medal stand. Because Greany genuinely expects – not wants – to be great every time out, even if it’s just for fun. Even if the race was supposed to be the icing on the season.
As a seventh grader, Greany would say after every race that she just wanted to improve her time and run better than she did the last time. Seventeen state meets, a national championship and a national record later, that remains the principle behind each race. It’s the principle behind her tears.
So maybe it’s not happy ever after. Instead, once the tears dry, it’s to be continued.
Hickey places seventh: Pearl River senior Mike Hickey finished seventh in the boys 5,000 in a personal best 15:12.59. Hickey, who will compete at Iona College in the fall, dropped as far as 12th with just over a half-mile to go. "I just thought, forget this," he said. "This is my last race and I want to run with some guts."