Oct. 25, 2003

Heading into the NCAA Pre-Nationals meet last week, Missouri junior Jill Petersen knew she could run a pretty good race.

But she had no idea she could shave more than 45 seconds off her previous personal best. Petersen finished 37th in the 222-person field in Waterloo, Iowa, with a time of 21 minutes, 19.19 seconds.

"I told myself that if I got it in the 21-minute range, I'd be happy, but I didn't think I'd do that well," she said.

Petersen said the key to setting that record time was her teammates. Valerie Lauver, Serena Ramsey and Petersen ran together the entire race, and they all set personal bests in helping the Tigers to a sixth-place finish.

"Just to be running with your teammates and have you pushing them and have them pushing you, makes a huge difference," she said.

That performance by Petersen was just the latest chapter in the story of her breakout 2003 campaign, which she hopes will continue next weekend at the Big 12 Championships in Austin, Texas.

In her first two seasons in the Missouri program, the O'Fallon native had only two top-10 finishes. After just two meets this season, she matched that total, finishing second at the Missouri Cross Country Classic on Sept. 6 and third at the Bradley Open the next week.

"We always thought she could be a great runner," MU assistant coach Rebecca Wilmes said. "That's why we recruited her. It took her a little bit to get used to things on this level, but she's really coming into her own this season."

Petersen knew she had a good summer of conditioning and thought she could place higher this year than the previous two, but she admitted she was surprised by her progress.

"Coming into this year, I just told myself I wanted to run my best and see what happened," she said.

She kept that strategy in the first two meets. She said she didn't change anything at the Roy Griak Invitational in Minneapolis, but she finished a disappointing 61st.

"I still think she had a pretty solid day," said Wilmes, noting that her 22:06 posted in that meet was a personal best until a week ago. "There is a learning curve at those big meets, and it takes some experience to know where to run and how to run in those."

MU Coach Jared Wilmes said Petersen's success has been in the making for quite a while. In last year's outdoor track season, Petersen was an All-Big 12 runner in the 1,500 meters.

"She's just had a great last year - from last track season to last summer and now she's carrying that over to this fall," he said.