Zia Fadil, an 11-year-old sixth grader at Miller Middle School, earned All-American honors running cross-country on Saturday.
Competing in the USA Track and Field National Junior Olympic Cross-Country championships in College Station, Texas, Fadil finished 11th out of 350 runners in the girls 3K race for ages 11 to 12, finishing the race in 10 minutes, 54.5 seconds.
The top 25 runners from each race were named All-Americans. It was Fadil’s seventh such honor, which also includes performances in indoor and outdoor track.
On Saturday, Fadil had the second fastest time from Colorado’s contingent and was the third 11-year-old to finish. Fadil’s time was also faster than 303 of the 382 boys who ran in the 11-12 championship.
Avery Kroger, 11, of the Boulder Mountain Warriors, finished 0.5 seconds ahead of Fadil in 10th place, but Fadil crossed 0.1 seconds ahead of the 12th-place runner, Ella Alberici of Alpha Crush (Georgia) in the sprint to the finish. Addison Michalak of the Kokopelli Kids also brought All-American honors home to Colorado with a 16th-place finish in the race at 11:02.0.
Gianna Rahmer of Albuquerque Athletics won the girls race by 13 seconds in 10:25 while Karanveer Patil of Palatine Pack (Illinois) won the boys race in 9:24.1.
Fadil started running in 2019, and she moved to Durango with her family from Providence, Rhode Island, in July.
During the fall, Fadil trained two days with the Durango DEVO on her mountain bike and two days with the Durango Trail Runners and coach Chad MacCluskey. She raced for the Durango Trail Runners before the USATF championship meets, then continued training with her father, her trail runner teammates, her older cousin or alone. She raced unattached in the USATF meets, but continued to wear her Durango Trail Runners singlet and represent Durango.
To qualify for the national meet, the athletes had to finish in the top 30 individually, or run on a top-five team, at both the Colorado Association state meet and at the Region 10 Championships, which includes Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and part of Texas.
Fadil finished seventh at the same distance at the Colorado Association Meet Nov. 5 in Colorado Springs in 11:29.
At the Region 10 championship meet Nov. 19 in Lyons, Colorado, Fadil finished fifth on a snow-filled course in 12:20.
Twenty-two athletes from the Colorado association earned All-American honors in Texas while two won national titles: Oliver Horton (13-14 boys) and Robert Stepanov (9-10 boys). Four Colorado teams also had top-three finishes, while the Kokopelli Kids won the 11-12 boys team title.
