With the Athletes...Nicole Wilkerson

Author: Andreo Niccoleo Zimmermann

Runner Nicole Wilkerson's Achilles heel is her achilles heel. Quite literally that is about the only thing that could slow Middlebury's assistant cross-country and track coach down.
Following a strong college career at Rice University in Texas and after flirting with making the U.S. track team in the years that followed, the 31 year-old Wilkerson has found a home coaching at Middlebury and running marathons to feed her competitive desire. Just over a week ago she competed in the storied Boston Marathon, finishing as the 44th woman to cross the finish line in a time just over three hours.
Marathon running is a recent exploit for Wilkerson as her first 26.2 mile race was in Houston in January 2001. Before that she had raced middle-distance for her high school and college teams. Like anyone who meets success, Nicole started small. "My first race was a turkey trot when I was nine," she said. "It was one mile and I finished in seven minutes or something." Her father and her older sister both provided good examples for Nicole in her younger years. "My sister started running," she said, "and I just did everything she wanted to do."
In Shoreham, NY, track ironically enough was the "cool thing to do" according to Wilkerson. Her high school team was some 80 people and it wasn't until her junior year that she started to distinguish herself on the oval. "We'd do cross country and indoor and outdoor track," said Wilkerson. "Oh yeah, we'd do all three and have to shovel the track and everything."
At Rice University no one ever had to shovel snow off the track . "I didn't realize until a couple months later," she said, "that this is Texas and it's hot there." A wide-eyed freshman, Wilkerson went out the first day of practice with the upperclassman. "It was maybe six or seven miles and I was hauling ass, almost dying on the back end and trying to hang on. And apparently that was like an easy to medium day according to the upperclassman. I thought 'My god there is no way I am going to handle this.'"
Handle it she did, fighting an urge to transfer from Rice early and going on to become an All-American and with a best finish of fourth in the 3,000 meters her final year at Nationals.
That attitude that helped propel Wilkerson to success early on in her running career is the same no-nonsense one she brings to her coaching today. "I have no tolerance for laziness and not working hard." she said. "If you are not ready to [work hard] it doesn't matter what program you are in - DI, DII or DIII - don't show up. I don't care how good you are." Part of that hard-nosed attitude stems from Wilkerson's approach to running and racing. It is an approach that emphasizes both team and self. "Racing is a real self test," she said. "You can see what you are made of. It's a true test of strengths and weaknesses."
Being hampered by injuries throughout her career, Wilkerson has been tested again and again, not only during her races, but also on her ability to come back. In college, she experienced nine stress fractures and began a long battle with problems in both her left and right achilles tendons. "At U.S. Nationals I had to be carried off the field on a stretcher," she said of one of her post-college competitions. "I wasn't healthy yet at the Olympic trials."
Despite that Wilkerson has come close to representing her country in the Atlanta and Sydney games. In an event she started racing "on a whim", the 10,000 meters, she was one of just 18 women to clock in ahead of the "B" standard of 33.24 in the Olympic trials. After her first attempt in 1996, Wilkerson decided the pain in both her achilles was enough and she had surgery . Remarkably her career after that point has been as impressive as it was before the surgery.
She went on to coach at Texas A&M for three years before she came to Middlebury. Her husband Keith was offered a job at the University of Vermont just about the time a coaching position opened at Middlebury. "Coming to Vermont was such a pipe dream," she said of the circumstances surrounding their relocation. "It's just amazing it worked out."
As Nicole has gotten older, the distances at which she has competed have gotten longer. The one mile turkey trot gave way to the 3,000 meters in college while the 10,000 meters at the U.S. Nationals and Olympic trials have given way to her latest distance - the 26 plus mile marathon. "I've only done three," she admitted. Yet in our interview, she said she has plans to run her third of 2003 and fourth overall - the Burlington marathon in late May.
"I never had that much of a desire to run a marathon," Wilkerson said. With her achilles still hurting and her body beat up after the 2000 Olympic trials, she wanted a chance to run in a capacity in which she hadn't run before. Wilkerson and a friend and training partner at Texas A&M joked about racing in the Houston marathon.
Joked, that is, until they entered it and raced in January of 2001. "It was nice to be a beginner at something again," she said. Beginner, yeah right! On her desk now sits a plaque which she received for finishing seventh place among women at the Houston marathon. After her move to Middlebury, she went on to run the most grueling of road races down in Hartford this fall and Boston just two weeks ago.
Wilkerson had to make the transition from the 10,000 meters to the marathon. Easier said than done. In Houston she doubted whether she would be able to complete the last two tenths of a mile even though the finish line was in sight. Of her strategy now she said, "The first 13 miles of the marathon you want to make sure you don't get too caught up in the excitement of being there and the adrenaline. All I'm really thinking about is the second half of the marathon because that is when the race really starts."
Though she fell about 10 minutes shy of her target in the Boston marathon (she finished in 3:05.31), her improvement as been steady just like the track and cross country teams she coaches.
"The women's cross country team has been stellar," she noted. Behind a true devotion to the sport and a hunger to both teach and learn from track and cross country runners, she is helping Middlebury become a place where track is the "cool thing to do" again.