Sixteen-year-old Izabelle Ith of Petersburg is a track star without a track.
Ith, the only athlete who won four individual events at last week's state track and field championships in Anchorage, lives in a tiny Southeast Alaska town that doesn't have a real track.
"We have a gravel oval in the muskeg that we use," Ith said.
The oval is 255 meters long and maybe two meters wide, she said. When she runs the 300 hurdles, she jumps over seven hurdles instead of the usual eight, because eight won't fit on the track.
When she practices the 100 hurdles, she runs in the school's dirt parking lot, because the oval lacks a 100-meter straightaway.
When it's time to practice long jump or triple jump, "we have a plywood runway and we jump into a sandbox kind of thing," Ith said. How long is the runway? "Not long enough," she said with a laugh.
"It's definitely a challenge," Ith said of the school's track facilities. "But especially as a team, practicing with those conditions makes us strong."
The gravel oval was expanded this year from 200 meters to 255, said coach Brad Taylor, who resurrected Petersburg's track program in 1983. "We were able to get a 50 meter straightaway on each side instead of running in a circle all the time," he said in an email.
But even with the expansion, the Vikings need to make adaptations.
"We only run a few hurdles (four to six) because the parking lot is not big enough to run all 10," Taylor said. "We are able to get a good practice in when we travel to Ketchikan and Juneau and get on a real track. We learn a lot when we are able to get a full set of hurdles out and get on a real long and triple jump runway and pit.
"Our kids have adapted well and I am able to simulate a lot with just a little. It has been fun to watch these kids develop from the first meet to our regional and state meet. Most of the freshman runners have never seen a 400-meter track in their life. They are amazed when they see how big it is."
Ith (rhymes with teeth) makes the most out of what's offered in Petersburg, a fishing town of about 3,000 on Mitkof Island. Last week at Dimond High, she won the long jump, triple jump, 100-meter hurdles and 300-meter hurdles.
A sophomore competing in the Class 1-2-3A meet for Alaska's small schools, Ith turned in quality performances. Her marks in the long jump (17 feet, 0.5 inch) and triple jump (36-1.5) were better than the winning jumps in the Class 4A meet for Alaska's big schools. Her times in the hurdle races (15.46 seconds in the 100s and 47.84 in the 300s) would have placed her fifth in each of the Class 4A finals.
Petersburg finished fourth among 20 teams in the Class 1-2-3 girls' team standings. All 40 of the Vikings' points came from Ith.
Ith gets coaching advice from Taylor and YouTube. Taylor's daughter, Mariah, is Ith's best friend and the reason Ith decided to give track a try in the seventh grade.
"Going over the hurdles and jumping sounded fun," she said. "We had one meet that year, in Ketchikan, and I did well. I beat the high schoolers that were competing, and that's how it started."
By the time she joined track, Ith was already a dancer, swimmer and diver. She started dance at age 3 and takes four classes a week. She started swimming in the first grade.
"Hurdling requires a lot of flexibility, and I get that from dance," Ith said. "And it's great to start the (school) year with swimming, because it creates a cardio base, and swimming is a lot easier on the body than track."
Last year as a freshman, Ith won the 100 hurdles and the triple jump at the state meet to become Petersburg's first state track champion. This year, teammate Ben Zarlengo won the discus to become the school's first boy to win a state title.
Ith and Zarlengo's state titles earned the six-member Petersburg track team a hero's welcome Sunday afternoon when the Vikings returned from Anchorage.
"It's kind of a Petersburg thing," Ith said. "We get to ride in the fire truck and we get a noise parade."
With the fire truck's siren wailing and a line of honking cars following, any team that returns home with a state champion gets a ride from the airport, down the town's main street and to the school.
"It's pretty loud," Ith said. "We got reports people out on the water fishing could hear us."
Dream mile Saturday in Kodiak
The state championships are in the rear-view mirror, but the track season's not over yet.
Many of the state's top performers will meet in Kodiak for this weekend's third annual Brian Young Invitational.
A field of 110 athletes will compete in the meet, which runs Saturday and Sunday. Headliners include three of the four athletes who set individual records at the state meet -- Kodiak distance runner Levi Thomet, Thunder Mountain hurdler Naomi Welling and Anchorage Christian sprinter Tanner Ealum.
Thomet will be part of an impressive field that will run the meet's marquee event, the Alaska Dream Mile. The race is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
Kodiak great Trevor Dunbar, a pro runner who is the only Alaskan to break four minutes in the mile, pulled out of the race on Thursday, citing an injury. Still in the field are five-time NCAA All-American Parker Stinson, a former teammate of Dunbar's at the University of Oregon, and Jacob Hurysz, a recent graduate of the University of Colorado. Idaho state high school champion Elijah Armstrong is also entered, as are the five Alaska boys who broke 4:20 in the 1,600 meters this season -- Kodiak runners Thomet and Levi Fried, Chugiak's Ty Jordan and Kenai Central twins Jordan and Jonah Theisen .
The meet is held in memory of Kodiak fisherman Brian Young, who died in 2011 while descending Mount McKinley. Thanks to fundraising efforts that brought in about $25,000 this year, organizers pay for all of the athletes' travel expenses, according to Kodiak coach Marcus Dunbar.
A unified meet
Among the events contested over two days at Dimond Alumni Field were a handful featuring Special Olympics athletes.
In unified competition, a special education athlete is paired with a general education student from the same school. In individual events, the results of both athletes are combined to determine placement. In a relay race, a team consists of two special education students and their partners.
Dimond High's Jared Hall was a double winner, taking the long jump title with partner Reese Kodama and teaming up with South's Joe Smithers and partner Jaye Alie to win the 400-meter relay.
In the 100 meters, Thunder Mountain runner Gill Fowlkes and partner Ben Landes set the pace. In the shot put, the winner was Service's Jon Parker and partner Antonio Pereda.
The unified competition has been part of the state meet since 2013. Track is the only high school sport in which special education students compete at the same state championship meet as general education students.
100 – 1) Gill Fowlkes/BenLandes (Thunder Mountain) 26.74 total time; 2) Jared Hall/Reese Kodama (Dimond) 27.16; 3) Joe Smithers/Jaye Alie (South) 27.79; 4) Donovan Brim/Nathaniel Hague (East) 28.17; 5) Fakhir Berry/La'Shaye Graham (Bartlett) 28.65; 6) Tony Edmonds/Andre Gaskov (Service) – 29.65; 7) Will Weinlaeder/Jacob Campbell (Thunder Mountain) – 29.67.
400 relay -- 1) Dimond/South (Jared Hall, Reese Kodama, Joe Smithers, Jaye Alie) 54.336; 2) Thunder Mountain (Gill Fowlkes, Ben Landes, Andrew DeGroat, Justin Sleppy) 57.14; 3) Thorne Bay (Colby Silverthorne, Titus Tripple, Clayton Music, Josh Robertson) 58.28; 4) Service (Antonio Pereda, Jon Parker, Tony Edmonds, Andre Gaskov) 58.75; 5) Bartlett (David Magrath, Hieu Nguyen, La'Shaye Graham, Fahkir Berry) 1:00.34; 6) East (Donovan Brim, Nathaniel Hague, Isabelle Pope, Elisabetta Allen) 1:06.18; 7) Juneau/Thunder Mountain (Brianna Fallis, Toma Kimlinger, Will Weinlaeder, Jacob Campbell) 1:11.69.
Shot put -- 1) Jon Parker/Antonio Pereda (Service) 59-5; 2) Colby Silverthorne/Titus Tripple (Thorne Bay) 56-0.25; 3) Jared Hall/Reese Kodama (Dimond) 51-1.75; 4) Gill Fowlkes/Ben Landes (Thunder Mountain) 47-6.5; 5) Tony Edmonds/Andre Gaskov (Service) – 45-6.75; 6) Andrew DeGroat/Justin Sleppy (Thunder Mountain) 42-4.5; 7) Donovan Brim/Nathaniel Hague (East) 40-2.
Long jump -- 1) Jared Hall/Reese Kodama (Dimond) 27-6.25; 2) Donovan Brim/Nathaniel Hague (East) 27-1.75; 3) Joe Smithers/Jaye Alie (South) 26-6.25; 4) Jon Parker/Antonio Pereda (Service) 24-3.75; 5) Tony Edmonds/Andre Gaskov (Service) 22-3.25; 6) Brianna Fallis/Toma Kimlinger (Juneau Douglas) 16-1; 7) Malikhi Hanson/Jennifer Morris (Soldotna) 15-5.