Mercy Rules Cross Country: Chelangat’s Run For Alabama Nothing Short of Historic

Imagine yourself as a record-breaker. At least try.

Then, after uprooting your life, imagine setting records on another continent.

It's a whole other thing.

Now, snap back to your 9-to-5 and dismiss said utopia. You’re not Mercy Chelangat. Instead, be equally envious and proud of the junior Alabama distance runner. Seriously, how many people travel across the globe to compete at the highest levels and shatter records? Rhetorical question; finite suffices … unless you count her accolades.

Now include national champion among them, as Chelangat finished first at the NCAA Cross Country Meet on Monday, and led the Crimson Tide to a program-best eighth-place team finish at Stillwater, Okla.

That's a long way from her home country of Kenya, and Chelangat’s westward journey has been not only unconventional, but matched in magnitude by her post-jetlag performances for schools of West Texas and, currently, West Alabama.

The Tuscaloosa trail blazer had to first refine her raw ability — which was brimming talent with fortunate bloodlines — prior to joining the Crimson Tide. So she enrolled at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in 2018, and ran for the Vaqueros.

“When I was training in Kenya, I didn’t really know where to go," Chelangat said, “I just really wanted [to go to] any school.”

A few years earlier, though, Chelangat was not even competing. That's how far she's come in the sport in a very short period of time.

“In high school and even before high school, I wasn’t running," she said.

Chelangat was far from an early bloomer, unless one considers the brotherly nudge from older sibling Vincent Kiprop. Besides steering his sister, he was an All-American in three different events while at Alabama from 2017-19, and was a two-time NCAA runner-up.

“There was a family connection," Alabama assistant coach Will Palmer said, “You don’t always recruit someone for the genetics, but […] we felt like she was kind of trending in the same direction."

Words have weight, as do expectations, but making good on them hasn't been debatable.

The 2019 Alabama cross country season — her first on campus — was the equivalent of a dry run, like the job your boss assigns during the 'prove it' period, knowing you'll inevitably fail to bust down the door at first attempt.

Despite facing top-level competition, she still passed the eye test. Enough for it to be tallied as a glorified warm-up.

“When she got to us, we felt like she was pretty talented, but she was also a pretty unproven athlete," Palmer said. “It’s always fun coaching athletes that are talented. They have this naivety about things that is just super fun.”

The real naivety would have been anyone thinking that Chelangat's low finishes would remain the norm. With the acclimation period completed, the 2000 indoor season marked the less-than-two-year evolution of transfer to transcendent.

Chelangat swiped a silver medal, two first-place finishes, and set a school record in the 5,000-meter run, eclipsing its previous owner with a time nearly 30 seconds faster.

It wasn't just inherited success, either. Her competitiveness and ambition were just as important as anything else, an equation Chelangat at least halfway solved as she continued to make strides.

“She’s incredibly tough and incredibly fearless with the way she races,” Palmer added.

It was on display one year after her cross country debut for Alabama, capturing a gold medal in the 5k at Florida State and winning the 6k at SEC Championships, the Crimson Tide's first individual win at the event in almost three decades.

Chelangat also set a facility-record time at South Carolina in the 5,000-meter run earlier this year, avoiding the dreaded letdown of not setting a facility-record time.

An additional UA record tumbled this spring when she won gold in the 3,000-meter run with a time under 10 minutes — surprising to, well, few — on what Chelangat may describe as an 'off day.'

Then came the crucial decision that led to her championship.

Championship Monday for Mercy Chelangat and the Crimson Tide!#ChampionshipSchool #NCAAXC #BamaDistance #RollTide pic.twitter.com/9mUKLS6Nv0
— Alabama Track & Field (@AlabamaTrack) March 16, 2021

With the NCAA cross country meet, which is normally held in the fall, pushed back due to the coronavirus pandemic, Chelangat had to choose between focussing on trying to score at the NCAA indoor track and field national championships held in Arkansas over this past weekend, or lead the cross country team that had finished second in the SEC meet last October.

The Alabama women hadn't had much success in cross country at the national level. Just once had a Crimson Tide runner finished in the top 10, Carole Trepanier placing fifth in 1988.

“When my coaches talked to me about indoor track and cross country, I agreed that I wanted to focus on cross country, because I personally love cross country," Chelangat said. "I think it was the right decision.

"I’m so proud of my teammates, we’ve been training for this for so long and we’ve worked so hard. I love my teammates, I have the best teammates ever and I’m so happy for them.”

Perspective can be absent, unfortunately, when hard-wired athletes consistently do the incredible, but not this time. This race, and this title, just the second won in SEC history ("Which us a big deal," Alabama track coach Dan Waters said) went way beyond the length of the 6K race and 20:01.1 time.