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Amy-Eloise Neale, Katie Knight enjoy journey together at University of Washington

Published by
DyeStat.com   May 14th 2017, 4:00pm
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For UW's Neale, Knight it's been a shared journey

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

Amy-Eloise Neale and Katie Knight are both on the start list for Washington for Sunday’s 5,000-meter final at the Pac-12 Conference Track and Field Championships in Eugene.

Once friendly high school rivals, then teammates and now roommates, Neale and Knight have grown up with one another, raised their games because of one another, and enjoyed good times and bad.

Because of how they entered Washington, as top-10 high school stars from opposite sides of the state, and been there for one another for four years in Seattle, it seems like they will always be linked.

“These two women have stayed the course and running is an extension of the two wonderful young women that they are,” Washington coach Greg Metcalf said. “Take away the running piece and they are still brilliant, opinionated, independent and strong-willed.”

Even before today’s race, or any that come after, their place in the Pac-12 record book is secure.

A year ago, Knight broke the Pac-12 meet record in the 10,000 in Seattle when she won with 33 minutes, 20.02 seconds.

Last fall, after a prolonged absence due to a chain of injuries, Neale ran to the Pac-12 cross country title. She’ll be one of the favorites in today’s 1,500 at Hayward Field as well.

But the journey, even for two standouts who were the toast of high school running in the Northwest, has taken twists and turns that nobody could have imagined.

“Their careers have gone in different directions at different times,” Metcalf said.  

Back in high school, when Neale was at Glacier Peak of Snohomish and Knight was at Spokane’s North Central, they were talents with national profiles. In four years at Nike Cross Nationals they never finished more than 13 seconds apart. They both finished in the top eight three times. As freshmen, they were 14th (Neale) and 16th (Knight).

Newspapers in Washington – and websites – compared them before, during and after every state championship for four years.

“I don’t know if anyone can love running as much as I did in high school,” said Knight, who watched the boys team coached by her father, Jon, win the 2008 national cross country championship amid a decade-long string of state titles.

Knight’s house in Spokane backed up against greenspace and miles of running trails.

Neale was born in Cheshire, England and moved to the United States in 1997 when she was still a toddler. She grew up in Snohomish, a town of 9,000 people 30 miles north of Seattle. Many of her summers and holidays were spent with family back in England, a place she still considers “home.”

Neale didn’t gain U.S. citizenship through naturalization until less than two months ago.

Knight and Neale met as ninth-graders, but it seemed that they were already on a similar track. They both became valedictorians. They both played instruments (Knight the violin, Neale the flute and piano). They both broke state records and won big races.

The buzz they generated at high school races was felt throughout the Northwest. Alexa Efraimson came up two years behind Knight and Neale and looked up to them as role models.

“I remember freshman year my coach saying ‘Those are the head honchos, some of the best in the nation,’” said Efraimson, a Nike pro. “I always admired them. I think they’re very consistent and classy people overall. They’re awesome people to be with and awesome to race against.”

As seniors, Knight and Neale considered all the same schools and even went on the same weekend recruiting trip to Stanford.

Knight committed to Washington before Halloween in the fall of 2012. Neale followed suit a couple of weeks later.

“I just remember feeling so excited,” Knight said. “And then at state (cross country), this is very high school and adorable of us, but we cooled down together in our Washington T-shirts.”

The glow of Washington’s 2008 NCAA cross country championship still glimmered and the signings of Neale and Knight, on the heels of Maddie Myers a year prior, seemed to ensure the success of the program for years to come.

“They were the two best runners, arguably, to ever come out of the state of Washington,” Metcalf said. “The impact they had was instant.”

In Seattle in the fall of 2013, Neale and Knight rolled in as freshmen full of enthusiasm and ambition. They went to class and they ran, and they found out what a big jump it is to the elite world of college running.

In November, the freshmen got a taste of the NCAA Cross Country Championships in Terre Haute, Ind. Neale finished 121st, Knight three seconds back in 127th.

“You finish the race and everybody is falling on the ground and walking around and you can see at least 18 people crying in a 10-foot radius. It’s kind of a mess,” Knight said. “I remember finishing that race and then walking back to the team tent together, like, dumbstruck, like what the heck had just happened?

“Coming in, we were going to conquer the world, honestly.”

Neale still recalls the aftermath as well.

“For me, that day was eye-opening,” she said. “It was very disappointing and it was a shock to the system. It was like, this is how the NCAA is, and we have a lot of work to do and we didn’t measure up to where she should have been that day.”

The following summer, Neale earned a spot to compete for Great Britain at the 2014 IAAF World Junior Championships in Eugene in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.

Despite knowing that she had a stress reaction in her tibia, Neale went for it – prelim and final.

“It was a stupid decision on my part,” Neale said. “I probably shouldn’t have run.”

A month later, in the fall of 2014, reality hit even harder than the end of the NCAA cross country race.

They were both hurt. Knight had a foot injury. Neale had a stress fracture.

While the rest of the team went for a long run, Knight and Neale rode on bikes together along the Burke-Gilman Trail, which stretches for miles north of campus.

It was that day, in particular, that forged a deeper bond between the two.

“Coming in freshman year we definitely had a friendly rivalry,” Knight said. “We were nice to each other, but there was a competitive thing we had to let go of and that took some time.

“We stopped for a second and started talking and all of that competitiveness just left. We developed a friendship that was based on a lot of respect for one another.”

Neale remembers the day more for the conversation they had.

“I think that bike ride was meaningful in the sense that we talked about where we wanted to go, and how we wanted to get back, and how we weren’t satisfied being injured, and we made a decision that we wanted to do all we could to get back (to being healthy),” she said.

Knight missed the 2014 cross country season but recovered for her sophomore track season.

Neale’s injuries mounted, one on top of another. Months stretched into nearly two years of struggle to regain her health and strength.

“During that time there were moments when I should have been more patient than I was,” Neale said. “At the end of the day, whether you run or not, or how far you run, or cross-train, as much as coaches can give you as much guidance as possible, you’re the only one who knows how you feel. I made some judgments and bad calls that put me out for longer (than necessary).”

But through every down moment, disappointment, bout of self-doubt, Neale and Knight had each other.

“I’ve leaned on her more times than I can count and more times than I’ve probably even realized,” Knight said. “(Amy) is a very giving person. She gives a lot of support to me and the younger girls on our team.”

That encouragement has always been a two-way street.

“During the first stress fracture of mine, (Katie) was one of the primary people who was really supportive at that time,” Neale said. “We did a lot of cross-training together. Her injury was shorter than mine, but she kept me going.”

A year ago, when Knight was at the peak of her running, she broke the Pac-12 Championships record in the 10,000 with a run that Metcalf called, “As good a day as I’ve ever seen one of our young women have at that meet.”

The result also emboldened Neale.

“It was a really powerful thing watching a teammate go out and do that,” she said. “Especially when you come from similar places, it was encouraging for me. I was so proud of her that day, but at the same time you know that you can get back and be running next to her and maybe one day have that (success) too.”

Knight said she thought it was funny the first time she heard people saying that “Amy-Eloise Neale is back” last fall.

“She’s always been here,” Knight said.

Neale, finally healthy, enjoyed a breakout season where she won the Pac-12 cross country title, the NCAA West Region title and then finished eighth at the NCAA final.

“I am extremely proud of her,” Knight said. “I’m grateful for the example she sets for the team. It makes my heart happy that I can see her accomplishing her goals.”

Neale’s perseverance is an inspiration to her team, but the lessons she has learned through trial and error have given her wisdom that she hopes to hand down to her teammates and anyone else who can benefit from it.

“Running a hard workout is easy,” she said. “We love going lactic at the end of a workout or finishing a race feeling like that was so hard. That’s the easiest decision to make. Sometimes the hardest decision is saying, ‘I shouldn’t run today, or I should only run three miles.’ There’s a limit to how hard you have to work to be successful.”

Neale and Knight and another friend live in an apartment together in a quiet neighborhood off campus. They’ve been roommates for two years.

Neale will get her degree in Public Health this spring and has been accepted into graduate school in UW’s Evans School of Public Policy and Governance. Due to her previous injuries, she still has another full year of eligibility waiting for her in 2017-18.

Neale is also engaged to be married to a former University of Washington rower.

Knight is closing in on a degree in Civil Engineering with a focus on Hydrology and Environmental Studies. She still has a senior thesis project to occupy her next winter and spring and she will graduate in 2018. She also has seasons of cross country and indoor track eligibility remaining.

“If I could write the script, they would both be on a starting line together, like this weekend in the 5K, but my goal is that they walk away from their last race together, whenever that is, and they both have a great day together,” Metcalf said. “Talent does not go away. Sometimes it gets buried or suppressed, but it never goes away.”

With Knight and Neale, running has never been the defining characteristic, or the ultimate measure.

“They both want to make the world a better place, and they both have the intellectual firepower to do it,” Metcalf said.



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