TIME flies when you’re having fun or running fast. In Laura Nicholson’s case, it’s both – she’s having a blast and running faster than ever.
On St Valentine’s Day the Ballinascarthy woman turned heads when she ran a new one-mile personal best (4:30.85) at the Boston College Eagle Elite meet, smashing her previous PB by almost four seconds.
It saw Laura surge up to fourth in the all-time Irish women’s indoor one-mile ranking, but the University of Toledo senior came away wanting more.
‘I was actually disappointed with the way that I raced it,’ Laura tells this week’s Star Sport Podcast.
‘We thought it would go out really hard so I was going to go in the back, but I let myself fall off the front pack just a bit too much and just came back hard over the last 800 metres.
‘Obviously I can’t be too disappointed with a four-second personal best, but I did feel like I wanted to race it again and do it differently.’
When the former Bandon Athletic Club athlete ran 4:31.26 the following night at the Boston University David Hemery Valentine Invitational, it was back-to-back fast times, further proof that Laura is on the right track.
‘I was kinda disappointed with that too, and my older sister is always giving out to me, saying “she’s never happy!”’ Laura laughs.
‘It’s the way the sport is going, everything is getting so much faster. I am probably going to miss out on the NCAA national indoors whereas in any other year if you ran 4:30 you’d get to go. But every year it’s getting faster, faster, faster.’
Laura’s frustration is a good sign, too, as she feels she can run even faster, and has been in good shape in recent months. In December she ran a 3000m personal best of 9:13.54m, which broke a Toledo school record, as did her one-mile PB. In January she was named the Mid-American Conference Athlete of the Week after winning the mile race at the Notre Dame Invite and finishing second in the 800m. The West Cork woman is making an impact in the Ohio school that she has called home for the past two years, following four years at Temple University in Philadelphia. It’s almost six years since Laura left home in Ballinascarthy in the summer of 2019 to start an athletics scholarship in the States.
Laura Nicholson in action for Ireland at the Celtic Games.
‘Honestly, the time has flown,’ she says, ‘It doesn’t feel like six years.’
Now 24 years old, Laura’s journey from being crowned the West Cork Sports Star Youth Award winner in 2017 to where she currently is hasn’t been a linear line. Within her six years in America have been ups and downs, but all important chapters in her own story.
‘I am glad I came to this team (at Toledo) as a twenty-something year old rather than an 18-year old because they definitely see a slightly different version of myself compared to when I first came to the US. It’s definitely been a journey,’ she says, reflecting on her four years at Temple University before she switched to the University of Toledo. It’s a move that has paid off.
‘It was a transition moving from Philadelphia to here because it’s a much smaller city, but I felt I needed it to help me run faster,’ Laura explains.
‘I mostly go to practice, go to class, go to the sauna, drink tea with friends; that’s about it. It’s definitely the people that make the place, and I really like the coach too.’
Laura has also felt the benefits of an injury-free run – she feels this is key to the personal bests she is punching in now.
‘You need to be able to train consistently for months and years to see progress,’ Laura explains.
‘I am so grateful to be healthy and able to train at the moment; that’s key to this sport.
‘I am getting fitter. I have always had natural speed but my weakness was not having that aerobic base so I have been working on that. It’s week after week, and I have been building my mileage a bit more.’
She is taking confidence from her recent personal bests because it shows her hard work is paying off on the track with faster times, and this is what she had envisaged when first making the move to the States. It didn’t work out like that, though. Back in 2019, Laura was coming off the back of a number of successful years in Ireland that included national titles and personal bests, and her expectation was to hit the ground running at Temple University. The reality was different, as injuries sidelined her, but Laura saw the silver lining to those frustrating years.
Laura Nicholson in action for Bandon AC.
‘I got injured in the first two years,’ she explains.
‘At the time it was bad but I was able to get a masters degree while still running so it’s working out now for me.
‘I had stress fractures in both my femurs, one year after the other. At the time I was upset but with hindsight – and I’m not glad it happened – but I took that time to develop more as a person than an athlete.
‘When you are a teenager and you are so into a sport, it becomes almost your whole identity.
‘I feel that gave me time to step back from the sport and see myself as a person before a runner. That has stood to me now because it can help you deal with the bad days. If you have a bad performance and are upset with your race, you’re fine because you are still confident in yourself as a person. Your whole confidence is not tied into your running.’
It’s why Laura says she arrived at the University of Toledo at the right time, learning from her experiences at Temple University.
‘A lot of the girls on my team here are a good bit younger than me and that is something we talk about, being able to like yourself as a person and not like yourself just because you are running fast so then you hate yourself when you are running slow,’ says Laura, who is enjoying life on and off the track right now.
‘Those two years when I was injured I wasn't even thinking about running that much because I wasn’t doing it.
‘There is no real joy in the sport if you are doing it and not seeing any progress. It is so measurable too so it can be a really hard sport because it’s impossible not to compare when you were or where you want to be.’
Her times now suggest the recreational therapy student is moving in the right direction though she’s uncertain what the future holds once she stops walking the school corridors at Toledo.
‘We have the outdoors coming up, and after that my NCAA time is over, six years later. I need to do an internship so I won’t graduate with my masters until December,’ she says.
‘It’s up in the air what I will do after this summer. I'd really like to keep running but we’ll see how realistic that is. Everyone is running really really fast so I need to get on it if I want to get into a group.
‘I’d really like to get some sort of professional contract, if that was possible, after I finish college.’
While she feels the NCAA indoor track and field championships in Virginia Beach are just out of her reach, Laura’s attention will soon switch to the outdoor season with the goal the same: running fast. It’s what she knows, and why the Bal woman has enjoyed her adventure in the States. And it’s not over yet.
