BILLINGS — Whitewater cross country coach Carly Hammond expected Shelbi LaBrie to be among the leading pack of runners when they came over the final hill of the Rebecca Farm course at last season’s Class C state meet in Kalispell.
When a lone figure emerged on the crest of the hill with some distance ahead of the other runners, and Hammond realized it was LaBrie, the coach couldn’t contain her emotions.
Hammond is LaBrie’s coach on a part-time basis. She’s also a full-time aunt to LaBrie, so all that pride and happiness came bubbling up.
“I just started bawling,” Hammond recalled. “The other coaches probably thought I was crazy.”
Hammond — as coach and aunt — knew what a tough stretch it’d been for LaBrie. The Penguins junior hadn’t won a meet all season. More long term, LaBrie has had to fight her way through competitions for at least the past two years because of painful side stitches that she endures just about any time she’s on distance runs.
But here’s something else Hammond knows. There are few people out there with a tougher mental disposition than LaBrie.
“Oh, my gosh, she is the most mentally tough person I've ever met, like she can push through pain like almost nobody I've ever met,” Hammond said. “I think you're just born that way. I don't think that's something you learn. I think it's just something that you're able to do, and not very many people can do it.”
Side stitches be damned – LaBrie has tried just about everything to prevent them, including trying an inhaler this fall in case her condition is athletic-induced asthma, like one doctor suspects – blocking out obstacles is just who LaBrie is.
With just one teammate last season, LaBrie essentially had to push herself in training. Her meet results were admittedly up and down, and her best time entering the state meet was more than 90 seconds behind Taylee Chirrick of Roberts.
So LaBrie essentially talked herself into knowing she could not only compete for a title, but win. She ran a lot of hilly courses during the season, she told herself, so she knew she could handle the load. And after all, once LaBrie sets her mind to something, consider it done.
Like the time last summer Hammond wanted to run her first marathon. She asked LaBrie and former Malta and Montana State Billings standout athlete Bobbi Knudsen to run with her.
Neither LaBrie nor Knudsen had trained to run a marathon, but the duo figured they could find a way to get through the 26.2 miles. So, they shared a bike; LaBrie biked the first half while Knudsen ran, then they switched roles.
“Let’s just say I was feeling great for the first 10 miles,” LaBrie joked.
The point is, all three made it to the finish line, something that amazes Hammond. Not her own accomplishment, but the fact LaBrie and Hammond ran 13.1 miles without even training for it.
“If she says, ‘OK, I’ll go do it,’ she’ll just go do it,” Hammond said of her niece.
Returning to last season’s state cross country race, LaBrie trailed for much of the opening distance of the 3.1-mile course. She overtook Chirrick with about a mile to go, LaBrie said, though Chirrick was still close enough that LaBrie could hear Chirrick breathing and her footfalls.
Then, with about 800 meters to go … silence. Unbeknownst to LaBrie, Chirrick had dropped out of the race and didn’t finish.
The race belonged to LaBrie at that point.
“I feel like at state, that's probably the most mentally I've ever been somewhere, you know, like, wanted it,” LaBrie said. “Actually, like, ‘All right, let’s go. Quit sandbagging it and let’s go.’”
That victory spurred what became quite a junior year for LaBrie. In the winter, she was a part of the North County co-op (Saco-Whitewater-Hinsdale) that won its second consecutive state basketball championship, and in the spring she claimed the 1,600-meter title for the second year in a row and won the 3,200-meter gold medal for the first time.
What will she do for an encore in her final season? LaBrie isn’t sure.
She’s usually not idle enough to think about such things. To her, championships are merely the reward of enjoying the trip to even get there.
LaBrie went out for cross country simply to humor Hammond, who’d been trying to nudge her into the sport. Hammond essentially started the program the year before LaBrie got to high school, so in her freshman year LaBrie participated in both cross country and volleyball.
The plan, at least LaBrie’s plan, was to tell Hammond, well, I gave it a try, but I can’t do both sports, so I’m dropping cross country.
Instead, things went the other way. And LaBrie has never looked back.
Cross country “just draws you in somehow,” LaBrie said. “It's not the most fun sport, but once you do a full year of it, it’s somehow addicting.”
Being a defending champion, be it in basketball or track and field or now cross country, has never weighed on LaBrie, who wants to become a veterinarian and has yet to decide whether her collegiate future is in running or basketball.
Her goals have always been the same: Overcome what you need to overcome and push yourself to the best of your ability. Don’t stand still.
“I don’t really think about it, that I have all these state championships,” LaBrie said. “It’s a big deal, and it feels great for about a week. And then after that it’s like, OK, I’m on to the next thing. You win and then you’re focused on a different thing, you know?
“I feel like I’m always focused on something, so I don’t think much about what already happened.”
She just takes it mile by mile.
