Definition of self-determination

Mirjam Swanson

NORTHWEST GLENDALE -- Ever watched the runner who finishes last and

wondered what the deal with that person is?

You know, the one last across the finish line of a swift mile? Or a

marathon? Or maybe in a high school cross-country invitational?

Is it that runner’s first race? Last race? Is that another soccer

player just trying to stay in shape? Or is she a distance runner who’s

desperately out of shape?

Is she a winner just for finishing? Or is she, by definition of last

place, a loser?

Hoover High’s Laura Zung, the 17-year-old senior upstart with the

nagging habit of positive-splitting and the 36-second lead over the rest

of the Pacific League entering today’s league final at Crescenta Valley

Park, o7 was f7 that last-place finisher.

She shouldn’t have been, but an extreme, then-undiagnosed iron

deficiency wouldn’t let her fly.

“It felt like someone was putting their hands up to me, like I was

trying to run against it, but they were like, ‘No,”’ Zung said.

Of course, four doctors and more than a year of continual massive

doses of iron later, Zung is running so well that letters from collegiate

cross-country programs are starting to trickle in.

The first was from a school she hadn’t ever heard of.

Among those that arrived last week, one from Claremont-McKenna College

most appealed to Laura’s mother, Patricia.

This week there was one from Whittier College, and another from

University of California at Santa Barbara.

How impossible that seemed the afternoon the first doctor phoned

Patricia, telling her to put down the receiver o7 now f7 and go get

Laura off the track. Blood test results had just arrived, and the doctor

said she would explain later, but Patricia needed to go get Laura first.

“My mom came to the track and pulled me out of workouts,” Laura said.

“And I was in tears.”

What the doctor explained was that the amount of iron in Laura’s blood

was dangerously low. Possible-heart-failure low. Laura learned that most

people with such low iron wouldn’t even be walking, let alone trying to

propel themselves over three-mile courses.

“It was frightening,” Patricia said. “We were scared.”

Still, knowing beat the heck out of not knowing.

***

Since Laura’s race results plateaued and then regressed during eighth

and ninth grade, there seemed no reason for her to keep pushing so hard.

She just wasn’t cut out for running. No matter how hard she said she

tried, her times didn’t improve. They got worse.

Her father, Thomas, was concerned the sport was hindering her

schoolwork. Patricia was worried about Laura’s mounting frustration. And

Laura’s teammates were less than impressed with her efforts, and wound up

saying so behind her back.

“There was a lot of pressure to quit the team,” Zung said. “But giving

up wasn’t ever really an option for me. It was for my parents and

everyone else. Not for me.” Zung, who claims to have whupped an

eighth-grade Anita Siraki by 30 seconds as a seventh-grader, is a runner.

A dedicated, convicted, talented runner. And even when no one else on

Earth believed it -- she did.

“I remember doing races and feeling so bad that I’d be hoping I’d

sprain my ankle and I’d have to stop, or maybe that I’d trip and fall.

“I’d do workouts and I’d start out and I’d feel better -- for the

first interval. And I’d be like, ‘OK, OK, I can do it.’ And it wouldn’t

happen.

“I’d be like, Laura, this isn’t that hard. Why are you feeling like

this? But it wasn’t mental, my legs just didn’t want to go.

“I loved running, but I dreaded it at the same time.”

And so, the diagnosis came less than a week after Laura finished dead

last as a sophomore at the Kenny Staub Invitational, in 30-something

minutes, wandering away afterward from the course, from her teammates, to

cry, unable to say anything expect, “I don’t know, I don’t know why this

is happening.”

Turns out, the diagnosis saved what is now a promising running career.

“I was about to force the issue,” Patricia said. “I was going to make

her quit. I didn’t know what her problem was, but she needed to find

another outlet.”

Instead, Laura took a break and started taking iron supplements. And

then the battle began over how much to take. Different doctors prescribed

different amounts, for different periods of time, and so Zung would get

better, and then get worse.

Finally one doctor realized Zung would need to extend the duration she

took heavy dosages in order for the iron to bond with her blood enough to

rebuild her bone marrow.

Now Zung’s healthy. Obviously, impressively healthy. Her academic life

is on track, evidenced by her 4.3 grade-point average.

So is her running. Sixteenth-year Tornado Coach Greg Switzer’s

optimistic preseason prediction was that Zung could run around 19 minutes

30 seconds -- which would have been a more than a minute improvement on

her previous best, 20:41.

Then, in Pacific League Meet No. 2 on Oct. 11, Zung motored across

Arcadia’s course in 18:34.

Nine days later, she won her Division I race at the prestigious Mount

San Antonio College Invitational in 18:48.

This afternoon, the senior with the graceful stride, the

now-irrepressible grin and that grand self-determination will make her

case to keep the girls’ league title that Siraki harbored for four years

at Hoover for another year.

“During the summer, I knew I was up there with the top girls in the

league,” Zung said. “So whenever I trained, I always had that in mind.

And whenever I’m running, I’m always like, these other runners haven’t

had to go through what you’ve gone through. “I guess it gives me extra

motivation. Like, I haven’t gone through all of this just to be second in

league, you know?

“[Winning is] indescribable. Especially feeling good while doing it,

is just really worth everything. I didn’t know running could feel so

good. I feel like I’m flying now.”

Switzer’s said it more than once this season: “We’re just beginning to

scratch the surface here.”

Makes you wonder, doesn’t it, where that last-place finisher will be

placing a year or two from now? Which college she will choose? And just

how fast she can go?