Happy All The Way Around
Offerman is rejuvenated at CSU, and the Rams are beneficiaries
Being happy, Lauren Offerman has found, has a carry-over effect.
It wasn’t the easiest path to enlightenment for the graduate student on the 18th-ranked Colorado State women’s cross country team, but she feels in the long run, it has served her well.
She grew up in Loveland, was a standout in track and cross country at Mountain View High School, and her entire family – grandparents, parents and brother – all attended Colorado State. Guess where they wanted her to continue her running career?
“I was sort of stubborn,” Offerman said, laughing. “I wanted to just have a different experience, having grown up here my whole life. My whole family going here was sort of pushing me toward CSU, so I was, ‘no, I’m going to go out of state and getting the experience.’ I don’t regret going to Texas Tech, because I think I learned a lot about myself and what I need to be happy and successful. That gave me that experience, and now it’s made me appreciate going to CSU and being close to family and the mountains. I don’t know if I would have had that appreciation for Colorado if I just stayed here my whole life instead of experiencing other places.”
The Rams certainly appreciate her path leading her back home. She has played an integral part in the rise of the program the past two seasons, reaching a long-held goal of making the NCAA Championships a year ago, now entering as a team with the pursuit of a top-10 finish this Saturday in Tallahassee, Fla.
But finding the joy in her life, and her running, wasn’t as easy as moving back home. That took some time, but head coach Art Siemers was more than happy to welcome her back. He knew her performances had dropped at Texas Tech, but he’d watched her as a prep and figured if she was going to regain her spark anywhere, he wanted it to be with the Rams.
“I think a lot of it just came with confidence. She lost all of her confidence there,” Siemers said. “She got slower and slower, and she was so good in high school. That tends to happen if you go to a school that’s probably not the right fit for you, and that’s hard to know as a high school athlete. It’s easy to start losing your confidence, and you forget why you did it in the first place and you start to lose the love of the sport. This sport is so hard that you have to love it.”
She wasn’t able to meet with the team, but she did know Lily Tomasula-Martin from running against each other in high school, so she started messaging her, asking about the team dynamic, how they functioned, how close they were.
Tomasula-Martin gave her nothing but positive feedback, and Offerman experienced it first hand during the outdoor track season her sophomore year. Both Texas Tech and CSU were at a meet in California, and while she was wearing red and black, her future CSU teammates were still cheering for her, too.
What she missed in Texas she regained in Colorado. She sees her family every week. Her grandparents still live in Fort Collins, so she has lunch with them every Sunday, and sometimes her cousins from Denver make the trip. Everything she enjoyed growing up was back in her life once again.
That helped with her training, but Siemers and assistant coach Andrew Epperson still had some work to do with rebuilding Offerman in competition.
“The performances didn’t improve right away, but you could tell she was more comfortable in our training philosophy and how we do things here than she was at Texas Tech,” Siemers said. “She fit in with our program really well right away. It took about a year of her consistently training with us to have the breakout performances we started to see last year in cross country and track.”
It sort of feels like everything is going the way it should right now.Lauren Offerman
She holds the ninth-best time at CSU in the 1,500 meters outdoors and the second-best in the 5,000. This indoor season, she will focus on the mile and a 3,000, but she also wants to step forward to a 5,000, if all goes well.
Her addition to the cross country team has been like a missing piece. She has been an All-Mountain West performer the past two seasons, fitting in nicely as someone who pushes Tomasula-Martin at the top spot, consistently running as the Rams’ No. 2 finisher, and not by a wide margin.
The training program at CSU is what she felt she needed.
“It’s a lot of individuality. I’ll text them each week, and they give me what my mileage should be for the week, and that’s different than probably almost everyone else on the team,” she said. “We all need different things, and I think they realize that. That’s really helping me. It’s also the team atmosphere. Being able to get through the workouts with the girls on the team is such a big help. Even in a tough workout, you’re next to your best friend, so you’ll work hard for them when you don’t want to work hard for yourself.”
She’s basically found a second family with the program, as all of them basically live together in one of two houses. Much of the time, they are together at one place or another for dinners, just to hang out or celebrate a birthday.
Tomasula-Martin understands this as well as anybody. She loves the fact Offerman is a fierce competitor, someone who when she steps to the line, she’s ready to go all out for the team. That’s the person she remembers from their high school days. She also sees that same person smiling more often than not.
“I think it’s everything. It’s the whole person approach,” she said. “You’re not going to be a good runner if you’re not happy in other elements of your life. It’s really obvious when you’re miserable, and I think that relates a lot with training, because if you’re unhappy somewhere else, it’s not going to react well to how your running or how you’re pulling on runs. It’s sustainable for little bit, not long term.”
Offerman’s finishes may be key to the Rams success, but getting to those times is a hard path, and Tomasula-Martin feels she’s brought an element to the team which fit in perfectly and added to the overall composition of the team.
The runners all genuinely like each other, and even their differences are key. Tomasula-Martin and Offerman approach running from different places – Offerman more mid-distance, Tomasula-Martin more long distance. Their common ground is the 5,000, but whereas Tomasula-Martin dares not drop lower, Offerman would prefer to stay under.
That, Tomasula-Martin says, works great. There are younger runners on the team who naturally gravitate to one or the other, helping each style progress.
When it comes to personalities, they differ, too. Again, it works.
“She brings more of a life-of-the-party to things, and I’m a bit more serious,” Tomasula-Martin said. “I think it’s a good balance, and it’s good to be self-reflective, but Laruen is definitely the fun one. I’m not the fun one.
“That girl does not stop talking during workouts. She is always cracking jokes, just like having the best time and it’s amazing, honestly. Most of us are like, I’m breathing way too hard to be talking, but you do you. She’s got such bubbly energy, and it’s so fun to be around, and it makes practice go by quicker, because she is great to be around. She’s just a great teammate overall.”
But are her jokes funny?
“It depends on the day, or what rep we’re in.” Tomasula-Martin said. “If we’re doing speed stuff, I don’t think they’re funny, ever. If we’re doing a longer run, then I’ll think they’re funny.”
As they head to NCAA Nationals, the team is ripe to prove a point. Last year, getting there was the key, though they wanted to beat some ranked teams, which they did. This year, the aim is to have the best finish in program history, which was 12th in 1997.
This meet, because of the upward arc, carries a unique vibe.
“I think it’s a different sort of excitement,” Offerman said. “We’re more excited for the actual race and less excited about actually making it, because we were more expecting it this year. So our goal wasn’t to make it, our goal was to place top 10 at the meet.”
They’ve seen the best this season, so they know they can stack up. The Tallahassee layout promises to be a fast track, similar to what they ran at Provo, Utah for regionals, and the Rams had their best performance of the year. The only difference is they trade altitude for sea level and humidity.
But tradeoffs have been good for Offerman, especially as of late. Leaving the state for college was what she felt she needed, but in the end, it showed her what she required. The return trip has been glorious, all the way around.
“I’m happy at Colorado State, which has contributed to the running success, which then extends to the happiness,” she said. “I’m a lot closer physically to my family, so I get to see them once a week. I get to be by the mountains, have the option to get away within 15 minutes and go up to Horsetooth if I want to. I’m finally figuring out what I want to do with the rest of my life career wise, so that’s exciting. It sort of feels like everything is going the way it should right now.”