Fleet-of-foot Treece boasts Olympic dreams

By Nadine Gilmer
Sun contributor
On my first day as a cross-country runner at Glen Lake High School two years ago I was told that, without a doubt, Marissa Treece was going to win the race. I assumed that just meant she was “pretty good”. So I watched that race. Indeed, Marissa was the first person to finish, but I was confused because she was all alone — really alone. A few minutes later the second-place runner came down the shoot. “Wait a second … was Marissa in the same race,” I asked. The rest of the team smiled knowingly at me. She was, in fact, part of that race.
Photo courtesy of Pete Edwards

And now, as Marissa’s heralded high school running career comes to a close with the state finals on June 2, the Maple City native has her eyes set on even bigger races: NCAA Division 1 accolades, and maybe even medals in Beijing in 2008 or London in 2012.
For two years I’ve participated in almost every single track and cross-country race that Marissa has run. I know how hard it is to run those three-, two, one-, half-mile or the 1600-meter relay races, much less maintain the pace she keeps.
She is an amazing runner in the truest sense of the word, and she excels at more than just running. Marissa’s grade point average during her senior year at Glen Lake is 3.97 and she was a central part of the girl’s basketball team before she focused on cross-country. Marissa, who will run at Notre Dame next year on a full-ride athletic scholarship, is known simply as a winner. Her recipe to success is simple: “I am not really afraid to be around people I don’t know. I am comfortable with myself and I’m not worried about getting embarrassed. I’m pretty outgoing, so if I want something I always strive to get it … and people can recognize that passion in someone.”
That passion, and the opportunity to work with northern Michigan running guru Joe Shay of Central Lake over the past year, secured her Michigan’s Female High School Athlete of the Year award on May 14. The Detroit Athletic Club chose her among thousands of seniors and many sports, not just for her running talent but also for her grades and extracurricular activities. Marissa and five other nominees were presented on stage, and interviews with each student-athlete were shown before the product of Maple City was announced as the winner.
Comprehending what this honor means is so difficult that Glen Lake held a full school assembly to promote it. Thirty-two pairs of running shoes were lined up on the gym floor before Athletic Director Paul Christiansen announced to the crowd that 32 was the number of running shoes Marissa has gone through during her high school running career. And these shoes had their miles cut out for them. Her miles over the past four years add up to roughly 6,000. That’s from here to Orlando, Florida more than four times.
“I hated running for the longest time,” Marissa admits. “Now it’s definitely my favorite sport,” because of, “the success I have had and the competition I go against. It’s really fun to be with good competition and know that you are giving it your all, plus it forces you to be in good physical condition.” Of running seriously, Marissa remembers, “I was never really excited about it until freshman year when I won states … but even then I thought I was going to be a basketball player. I got really excited about it after my sophomore cross-country season and then got more serious about it after I lost the state track meet my junior year.”
Serious training is no light jog, and it requires very specific personality traits to obtain the kind of success Marissa has enjoyed. “I am very competitive,” she says, “and I’m always interested in becoming the best that I can possibly be. Most people hear 60 miles a week and they are amazed or dumbfounded. But it’s not like I just jumped in — I worked myself up to that point, and if I did much less than that I wouldn’t be where I am now. I know that it will pay off in the long run.
“Plus, I just feel better after I go running. For sure, there are days when I don’t want to go on a speed workout or when 10 miles seem like they are taking forever, but I always try to keep a positive mind. Only once Joe Shay saw me lose and decided he would help me did I finally realize that I would go somewhere with my running and that I needed to focus in order to become the best I could be.”
She certainly is going somewhere. Marissa plans on becoming an All-American at Notre Dame and going on to become an NCAA champion in track and cross-country, and eventually running in the Olympics — 2008 or 2012, “or hopefully both”.
With the lustrous possibility of glory in Beijing or London hanging over her head, Marissa gets a lot of attention. Fellow track athletes have come to her asking for autographs, and she has become something of a celebrity among runners in the area. “I try to be as humble as possible, say ‘thank you’ and always try to remember what I was like when I looked up to the high school athletes. And I try to be a role model for all the younger the kids.”
It’s rare to find someone who could very possibly be in the next Olympics or someone that breaks impossible records. To really understand her achievements, I guess you would have to walk a mile in her shoes — or in her case, run 6,000 miles, fairly quickly, in what would take 32 pairs of Marissa’s shoes.