Making a splash in the steeplechase
Iowa State’s Janette Schraft is among the nation’s best, while other Iowa-connected runners are faring well in the event, too
Distance runners are a breed of their own. Round and round they go, lap after lap for anywhere between about 5 minutes and several hours. Crazy, right?
And there are the hurdlers. Running as fast as they can but jumping over things along the way, maybe clipping them and falling on their face. Nuts, right?
Then take those two things but make the hurdles bigger and heavier and add a giant puddle of water. There is only one word to describe that kind of insanity:
Steeplechase.
Three thousand yards, 28 barriers to leap over and seven water jumps. It takes a certain sort to want to try it once, much less make it a regular thing.
“Steeplechase is kind of right up my alley,” said Janette Schraft, an Iowa State senior who won the Big 12 steeplechase on May 10. “If you give me two options and one seems a little crazier than the other, I’m going to gravitate to the crazy one.”
There’s a reason the steeplechase is a race that was originally developed for horses, not people. But actual humans are pretty good at it, too, including athletes this season with Iowa ties.
Schraft, who ran for East Mills and Glenwood high schools, has the sixth fastest time in NCAA Division I this season, a 9:48.20 she ran at Stanford on March 29. She will run in the NCAA West first round meet this week and hopes to improve upon last year’s 17th place finish at the national meet.
Mattison Plummer of Illinois State, who went to Southeast Polk, won the university-college steeplechase at the Drake Relays last month. She finished second at the Missouri Valley Conference meet earlier this month while also placing third in the 1,500. Plummer will also run at the NCAA West meet.
Northern Iowa’s Emma Hoins, who was fourth at the MVC meet, will also run in the NCAA West meet.
Steeplechase runners are used to questions about why they do what they do.
“It’s interesting,” Plummer said. “A lot of people look at it and say, ‘Why would anyone want to do that?’ I thought, ‘You know what? I want to do that.’”
The steeplechase did indeed start as an event for horses, but in the 19th century someone thought it might be a good idea for people (OK, men) to try it and it was an Olympic event as early as 1900. It became an Olympic event for women in 2008. Women have been competing in it at the NCAA level since 2001.
The race is seven laps of four barriers and one water jump. The barriers are the same height as the hurdles in other women’s races, 30 inches, but instead of a flimsy thing that will tip if you clip it with your foot, the steeplechase barriers are solid and 5 inches wide.
“You go over a 400 hurdle really low, and if you do that with a steeple barrier, you could get hurt really badly,” Schraft said, “because that thing is not moving.”
Schraft came to Iowa State with success at a variety of distances. She was a three-time state champion in the 3,000 meters, 1,500 and 800 and won two titles in the 400 hurdles. In 2018, she was the Class 3A champion at the state cross-country meet.
All those distances mixed with the hurdles made her uniquely qualified for the steeplechase.
“I don’t know if this is like most of the other people in a steeplechase, but I hardly notice the barriers,” Schraft said. “I credit my 400 hurdle background. The barriers don’t scare me.”
Plummer had run 800 through 3,000 races in high school and her high school coach mentioned that she might want to try it. She started watching races on TV and video and was intrigued. She got to college and liked it right away. She enjoyed the challenge, but also the focus it brought to her running.
“The longer distances, you can lose focus,” she said. “But when you throw in a few hurdles, it keeps me more engaged,” she said.
Most steeplechase runners clear the barriers like they would a regular hurdle, just with different form and rhythm. When it comes to the water jump, most jump onto the barrier and use it as a springboard to clear the water jump that can stretch to as long as 12 feet.
“I know some people who [jump over it all] but it just doesn’t make sense to me,” Schraft said. “If you’re going to hurdle it like a regular hurdle, you’re probably using up a lot of energy.”
The water jump is what people are most curious about, both runners say.
“People always ask if your feet get wet, but I don’t wear socks so I don’t even notice it,” Schraft said. “If your feet get wet it’s like asking someone if they’re sweating when they’re racing. I don’t even notice.”
Plummer has only gone down in the water once, her freshman year. It was no big deal, she said.
“I just got up and kept going,” she said.
Schraft said the questions she also gets most are if the steeplechase is hard and if she’s ever fallen.
“Definitely hard, no I’ve never fallen,” she said. “If I do, whatever. You just get up and get back in the race.”
It takes a certain type to run, jump, get wet and keep running. Then again, for steeplechase athletes, a challenge is no barrier at all.
The NCAA West first round meet is May 22-25 at Fayetteville, Ark. The NCAA track and field national championships are June 5-8 in Eugene, Ore.
Jane Burns is a former sports and features writer for the Des Moines Register, as well as other publications and websites. She’s a past winner of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association’s Mel Greenberg Award for her coverage of women’s basketball. Over the course of her career she’s covered pretty much everything, which is why her as-yet-to-be-written memoir will be called “Cheese and Basketball: Stories From a Reporter Who Has Covered Everything.”
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