Off in the distance on a blustery mid-March Saturday afternoon, she appears as a precise maroon dot, measured and graceful as each leg easily clears the hurdle in front of her. It's hard to think that at any time Leah Nugent of
Abington (Pa.) was ever told she wasn't coordinated enough to perform the hurdles.
If anything, the 5-foot-9 Nugent seems fitted and made for the event. The Virginia Tech-bound Nugent has certainly stamped the 100- and 300-meter hurdles as
her events in southeastern Pennsylvania and hopefully later this spring at the PIAA Track and Field state championships.
Leah Nugent.
Photo by Joseph Santoliquito
What's fueling her fire is an arduous task: winning district and state titles in both the 100 and 300 hurdles, and then taking the prestigious 400 hurdles at Penn Relays. The reigning 60-meter state indoor hurdle champion had a mishap last spring, when she crashed into a hurdle in the 100 state finals, which threw off her rhythm and timing - which means everything in the hurdles - and later affected how she performed in the 300.
Still, Nugent took fifth in the 100 (14.57) and second in the 300 (43.28), times that were considerably off from her personal-best clockings of 13.9 in the 100 hurdles and 41.4 in the 300 hurdles, which came when she won the 300 hurdle state championship as sophomore in 2009.
It's her performance in the 2010 outdoor state finals that plagues her, gnaws at her, because she knows what she was capable of doing. She's getting another chance this season.
"I was so upset from the 100 last year, and when I fell, I was thinking about all of that," Nugent recalled. "I was so angry last year that I ran the 300 really hard. The problem was that I went out way too hard, way too hard. I didn't pace myself properly and it cost me the race. I think I learned a lot from last year. Everything that happened last year has made me work even harder. I needed to look at everything in perspective. I was good, I think, because of my speed. I had no technique. I had no hurdler coach. I was basically teaching myself in high school."
She always seemed infatuated with the hurdles, but that yearning to run the event always came from a distance. A cheerleader who tried track because her friend asked her to try out, Nugent was actually a middle-distance runner in grade school.
When she asked her grade school coach to try the hurdles, Nugent was told she wasn't "coordinated enough" for the hurdles.
The words were indelibly etched on her conscience - "not coordinated enough." In Leah's mind, it screamed "not good enough."
"I don't like people telling me what I can and can't do," says Nugent now, laughing. "Being told that really young helped me. Everything happens for a reason. Being told I wasn't coordinated enough, that's the wrong thing to tell me, that I can't do something, in other words. I consider myself a very competitive person. I remember going over the roles for the meets, and it was a depressing thing every time. I kept being placed in the 800, in the 800. I didn't want to run that long, and I did the mile one time, and I remember sprinting the first lap of the mile, and that was a bad idea. I came in last. But I just had this tag as this distance runner. I didn't like it. I liked and wanted the challenge of the hurdles."
No one would confuse Nugent as a distance runner now. She's long and lean, agile and her steps are exact. Great hurdlers aren't necessarily born, they're made. It's timing, and repetition, mixed with a certain dose of fearlessness. One missed hurdle, one toe or heel that gets caught, one mistake can often cost a hurdler a race.
Nugent's secret to success delves into her personality. She's straight-forward, head down … "and never afraid, you can't be afraid if you want to be good at the hurdles," Nugent said. "For me, that's the most important thing. Either you run without fear, or you fear it and you fail. I played with my older brother and his friends growing up. I was the little sister that used to tag along and get beat up all the time. I'd get back up and never got hurt. That's the way I attack the hurdles. It's attack, attack, attack."
It's what will make Nugent so formidable this spring. No one in Southeastern Pennsylvania can compare to her, and not many across the state. The only one that can beat Leah Nugent this spring is Leah Nugent.
"That's why I can't have any more mishaps, the goal is to shoot for the five big races (400 hurdles at Penn Relays, 100 and 300 hurdles at districts and states), to win them and finish my senior year," Nugent said. "I have a lot of work ahead of me. I can't let up. It's why I'm out here by myself with my hurdles coach on Saturdays for two hours. I'm trying to make a statement this year. I really don't like losing. That's the biggest thing."
Joseph Santoliquito can be contacted at JSantoliquito@yahoo.com.
