Eagles Senior Shows She's the Bos
September 27, 2012
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
At first, Julia Bos competed against herself.
She started in sixth grade, running the mile in gym class, and she finished in seven minutes. Bos wanted to go faster, so she started running a half-mile, on her own, every day.
Then the competition became her sister, Anna, two years older, who was having success in eighth grade cross country. Julia wanted to win too. So the sisters started running together, Julia struggling to keep Anna within sight -- until one day when Julia was a freshman, decided their pace was too slow, and took off on her own.
Julia's still running away from the pack. Bos finished 18th at the Division 2 Cross Country Final as a freshman, in 19:15. She cut her time to 17:48 a year later, finishing fourth. Last fall, she beat out two previous MHSAA champions to claim her first title in 17:24.
Now what? She's back to competing against herself, but now as arguably the top runner in the state this fall.
"My freshman year, I never dreamed I’d be into the 17s,” Bos said. “Every season I have the thought that this is it. I can't get faster.
"Then I prove myself wrong."
She gets a Second Half High 5 this week after proving herself as perhaps the runner to catch statewide on Sept. 14, when she finished first in the elite race at the Spartan Invitational at Michigan State. She crossed the line in 17:20 – 15 seconds ahead of a field that included West Bloomfield’s Erin Finn, the reigning MHSAA Division 1 champion and a national meet record setter during the offseason, and one of the nation’s top middle distance track runners in Grosse Pointe South’s Hannah Meier.
Last season's MHSAA Final win was huge, but Grand Rapids Christian coach Doug Jager said he’d never seen Bos as happy as when she stood on the medal stand at MSU.
Bos said it took a mix of factors for her to finish first that day. She said Finn remains ahead of her, and respects her greatly because of how she’s handled stardom and the expectation that she’ll always win.
But Bos is in that class now too. She hasn’t finished lower than first in a race since the 2011 Spartan Invite, when she took third behind Finn and Meier.
She just gets faster
"She's very gifted as a runner. She also works harder than anyone I've ever had," said Jager, who coached the Eagles to Division 2 team championships in 2005, 2006 and 2010. "In fact, I usually have to tell her to do less."
Late last season, that meant training only four days a week. This fall it has been five, and Bos spends many of those running with the Eagles boys team, especially on longer runs. She and Anna don't really run together anymore, although Anna did finish for Rockford's third-place team at the 2010 Division 1 Final.
Julia has another theory for the jump she took between sophomore and junior year. She grew three inches, to 5-foot-5, and longer legs turned into faster ones.
Indeed, Jager said, Bos has improved her leg speed. But also her strategy.
At the Spartan Invite her freshman year, Bos was about 80th after a mile, and despite working hard to get back among the front packs, finished 10th.
At last season’s Final at Michigan International Speedway, Bos at first planned to go out behind the other favorites, drafting off them before coming on late. But figuring they expect that strategy, she charged out hard – and just kept going.
Jager said Bos’ best trait might be that she does keep going. Often, her third mile is faster than her first, which “grinds people down.” Bos isn’t so sure her third mile is her fastest. But it’s at least faster than the final third of her opponents.
Flying like an eagle
At MSU this month, Jager and Bos accidentally got separated from the rest of the Eagles before the start of the elite race. That did allow for some final one-on-one coaching, or, rather, convincing.
“Everyone was looking at Finn and Hannah Meier, and she goes, ‘What do you think? Can I get second?’” Jager said. “I said, 'Are you conceding first already?'
“She said, ‘No, but Erin is so good.’ I said, 'Look, just put yourself in position. Don’t put expectations on yourself. Just put yourself in position where you never know. … Just keep your head up and watch.”
"I'm going into it thinking to myself, there's only a 10 percent chance I can win this," Bos recalled.
Teams generally run similar schedules every season, and the Spartan was only event the Eagles run that Bos hadn’t won during her career.
Cross that off the list. Bring on the higher expectations.
"I had a really good day. I did all the right things with eating and drinking and resting, and I was ready to peak for that day," Bos said.
"(God's) the one who gave me the talent. ... I've just gotta take each race one at a time, with His help, and deal with all the pressure."
PHOTO: Grand Rapids Christian's Julia Bos broke away from the pack during last season's Division 2 Final at Michigan International Speedway. (Click to see more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com).
DaDamio Follows Sister as Elite Pacesetter
October 10, 2019
By Keith Dunlap
Special for Second Half
While the best part of a cross country or track race is the sprint to the finish line, it was actually having the race be over that excited Audrey DaDamio the most.
Growing up, DaDamio loved watching older sister Rachel, who finished second at the 2014 Lower Peninsula Division 1 Cross Country Final and won the 1,600 meters at the LPD1 Track & Field Finals the following spring. But Audrey enjoyed a postrace ritual with Rachel even more.
Once a race was over, Audrey DaDamio would join her older sister on the track or at the end of the cross country course and do a cool-down run with her, the only time the two could run together at meets since they were six years apart.
“I was such in awe watching her race,” DaDamio said.
Fast forward a few years, and more and more race fans are finding themselves in awe of watching Audrey DaDamio run.
Now a junior in high school and member of Birmingham Seaholm’s cross country team, DaDamio should be on the short list of contenders at this year’s Division 1 meet Nov. 2 at Michigan International Speedway.
DaDamio is off to a terrific start to this season. She won the first Oakland Activities Association Red jamboree in September in a time of 18:02.16. This past Saturday, she was the individual champion at the Oakland County meet held at Kensington Metro Park, besting a competitive field in a time of 18:09.3.
DaDamio also finished fifth in the “elite” race at the prestigious Spartan Invite at Michigan State University and has built on a performance that exceeded her expectations at last year’s LPD1 Final at MIS, where she finished 11th.
“My goal was to be top 20, so coming away 11th, I was really excited about that,” DaDamio said. “It definitely made my goals for this season a lot higher.”
DaDamio said she started running track in fifth grade, mainly because she was inspired by Rachel’s accomplishments.
“My goal was to be how she is,” DaDamio said of Rachel, who went on to run cross country and track at Notre Dame.
Before the MHSAA spring track season in March, DaDamio competed at an indoor national track event in New York, where she finished 15th.
She then finished fifth at the Division 1 Track Finals in the 3,200-meter run and placed seventh in the 1,600-meter run to set the stage for this cross country season.
Seaholm head coach Craig McCardell said a big reason for DaDamio’s success is how well she knows her body and how to train.
“She intuitively knows when she can train hard and when she knows her body needs to recover,” McCardell said. “From this, she has avoided interruption in her training caused by injuries.”
DaDamio didn’t run in the second OAA Red jamboree because of soreness after running in a meet a couple of days prior. Instead, she rested up for her winning performance at the county meet and has her eyes set on the third league Jamboree, the Regional meet, and of course, the Finals.
DaDamio said she has a goal of finishing among the top three in Division 1, and hopes learning some technical aspects of the course the last two years will pay dividends in November.
“Last year was kind of my first taste of being in a lead pack and being with girls who I know are very fast,” she said. “You have to put yourself into a position to be successful. Last year at states, by the two-mile mark, I wanted to be in the chase pack. That’s what I did, and it worked out. Hopefully this year, it will be kind of the same thing. That second mile, it’s going to be really hard. But I just have to stay mentally in the race.”
PHOTO: Birmingham Seaholm’s Audrey DaDamio races to an 11th-place finish during last season’s Lower Peninsula Division 1 Final at Michigan International Speedway. (Photo courtesy of Seaholm cross country.)