Alli Cash runs in a class of her own in Kansas despite being relatively new to track.
Photo courtesy of Jeff Onnen
Alli Cash, one of Kansas’ all-time great distance runners, didn’t expect to run track when she entered
Shawnee Mission (Kan.) West in the fall of 2009. She hadn’t run competitively in the past and believed she was going to play soccer. Cash and several friends joined the Vikings' cross country program to stay in shape for the spring soccer season.
She eventually finished third at the Class 6A state cross country meet.
“It was a lot harder than we thought, but we really liked it,” she said.
Jeff Onnen, the head cross country coach and assistant track coach in charge of the distance events at West, and head track coach Rick Rogers, talked with Cash about running track instead of playing soccer. The choice was difficult, but Cash eventually chose track. She now plays some indoor soccer in the winter and recreationally with friends in the summer.
“(Onnen) was like, ‘I don’t know how good you are in soccer, but you have got a chance to be pretty successful in track,' ” Cash said. “We were like, ‘OK, we will give it a try.’ ”
The decision fueled Cash’s record-breaking career. Now a junior, she earned Kansas’ Gatorade Girls Cross Country Runner of the Year honors after collecting the Class 6A state crown last season. In late April, Cash won the Outstanding Female Performer award at the prestigious KU Relays, one of the Midwest’s top track meets.
“She gets out and she just sets the tone for everybody else that is running,” said More Prep-Marian (Hays, Kan.) junior Heather Ruder, a six-time Kansas track champion who ran against Cash at KU Relays, said. “She is a very good runner.”
Alli Cash, Shawnee Mission West
Photo courtesy of Rick Rogers
Cash won the 800 meters in 2 minutes, 13.99 seconds and the 1,600 in 4:50.71, a meet record and personal best in an open competition. In addition, Cash competed in the mile relay and 880 relay, which took second and fourth, respectively.
The results surprised Cash, who has dropped more than 40 seconds in the 1,600 and 2 minutes in the 3,200 since her freshman year. As a freshman, Cash was 11th in the 1,600 at the KU Relays at 5:31.13.
“I definitely did not think, coming into high school, that I could win anything at the KU Relays,” Cash said with a laugh.
Helped by Onnen’s workouts, strong motivation and a love for running, Cash is ranked No. 1 in Kansas in all three distance events this spring. Historically, her 1,600 time stands third all-time in state history, while her personal best of 10:32.01 in the 3,200 ranks fourth, according to longtime Kansas historian Carol Swenson.
“She has a great head on her shoulders,” Rogers said. “It would be easy to have all this pressure on you and start kind of freaking out about going to meets and things like that, and she takes it all in great stride.”
Cash is roughly 11 seconds off qualifying provisionally for the Olympic Trials in the 1,500. No Kansas prep athlete has qualified for the Olympic trials in 12 years, according to Swenson.
What's more, Cash is about 2.5 seconds away from qualifying for the Adidas Dream Mile in June in New York City, though she is uncertain what, if any, national or international competitions she will compete in this summer.
“I will probably just enjoy the year,” Cash said. “I haven’t really thought about it.”
In school, Cash carries a 4.4 grade-point average and participates with the dance team, the National Honor Society and has volunteered in the community. She hopes to pursue a career in physical therapy. Rogers calls Cash “a great representative” for the Vikings.
Cash enjoys the competition and team camaraderie of cross country and track. At the Nike Cross Country national meet last December, Cash took 40th. However, she was more focused on running on a rare muddy course than winning.
“You have to go into it with a positive attitude,” she said. “Even if I am like, ‘I am not feeling that good today,’ I kind of go with the mindset of, it will be OK, I will have fun.”
Many of West’s runners look up to Cash, and she pushes many of the varsity boys — whom she runs against daily in practice and occasionally in meets. In the season-opening Shawnee Mission South meet, the mile relay was run with boys and girls together. Cash ran the opening leg against the boys and posted a personal best 4:47.
“Not only has she gotten a lot of mileage in, but a lot of quality mileage in as well,” Onnen said. “That’s what seems to be, for her, the stimulus for a lot of the improvements.”
That started her freshman year in cross country. Onnen didn’t have “any idea” when Cash first started that she was going to be state-caliber. Then, Cash continued to improve as the season went along. Onnen started to point out some of the runners Cash was competing against and how they did in track the previous season.
At the end of the year, the Kansas City Metro area always has a banquet to honor the top runners. Onnen brought “a bunch” of cross country and track results to the banquet and talked with Cash.
Onnen told Cash the one aspect she lacked against the other elite runners was track credentials. The only way to earn that was to come out for track in the spring. Onnen labeled the situation “still kind of touch and go” until after Christmas break when Cash showed up for track conditioning.
“After a lot of work and talking to a lot of people, I finally convinced her to come out for track in the spring and that’s made a huge difference,” Onnen said. “I think that is something she has kind of fallen in love with. Really made an awfully significant part of her life.”
As a freshman, Cash’s only individual state medal at track came when she took sixth in the 1,600 at 5:15.78.
As a sophomore, Cash probably should have taken second at state cross country. She collapsed 50 meters from the finish line and placed eighth. West fell into a tie for first in the team standings and lost the championship to Olathe East on a tiebreaker.
"She felt a lot of the responsibility for that," Onnen said. "I think that's really been the thing that has motivated her. Whenever she fails at something, she gets back up and she is more determined."
At state track last spring, Cash ran 2:16.92 in the 800, 4:58.59 in the 1,600 and helped the Vikings to a 9:37.28 in the 3,200 relay, all gold medal times.
In the summer, Cash put in about 400 miles that consisted of running, biking and swimming. She ran with the team during the week and usually did the swimming at a pool where she was a lifeguard.
“Whenever she had a break, she would jump into the pool and swim laps,” Onnen said.
In the winter, West started conditioning a few weeks after cross country ended. This past winter Kansas was unusually warm, which allowed Cash to be outside more often. She logged 500 miles, including several runs of half marathon distance.
“I just think about how hard everyone else is working and you can’t get better if you don’t push yourself and keep trying,” Cash said.
In track, Onnen bases the track workouts off a runner’s personal best in the mile. In the past, Cash ran part time with the boys before she moved over full time this year.
“He has raised the bar on the expectations for these kids,” Rogers said of Onnen. “They are going into miles that they haven’t been in before and doing workouts that they have not been asked to do before. Alli just does what she is told to do.”
For Cash, that includes pushing herself when she is tired. This past Friday Cash helped set a meet record in the 3,200 relay and then broke a meet mark in the 1,600 at the Shawnee Mission North relays. Cash thought she was tired before the 800, but then ran a 2:13.61, just off her personal best, to win easily.
“I think she is always kind of surprised with herself a lot,” Onnen said.
A similar occurrence happened at the KU Relays. Cash’s last event during the two-day competition was the 1,600. Onnen said Cash was “really nervous” before the race and concerned she wouldn’t do well because of the high workload. The pace went slowly and Cash took control midway through the second lap. She ran a negative split over the last 800 meters, including a 69-second final 400 meters to set the new record.
“You keep coming and telling me that you don’t think you can do something and then as soon as you step on the starting line, you go out and do it every time,” Onnen said.
Conor Nicholl has covered sports, mainly high school and college, since 2003 in the Midwest. In addition to his work with MaxPreps, Nicholl is a sports reporter at The Hays (Kan.) Daily News and for KPreps.com. He can be reached at cnicholl1@gmail.com.
