As if running for a nationally-ranked cross country team wasn’t enough, one such N.C. State runner has a lot of other interests and, well, quirks.
Wolfpack senior Julia Lucas just finished a month-long stay in the headlines for her running accomplishments, namely her Pre-Nationals race win last month, her ACC championship two weeks ago and her Southeast regional title this past weekend.
Her name also graced the headlines last season when she was forced to redshirt during what would have been her senior year — she ran into a burning building to help people and received second-degree burns on her legs.
Lucas doesn’t own a car, nor does she even have a driver’s license. Instead, she bikes everywhere and, when necessary, hitchhikes.
Lucas is an English major with a concentration in creative writing and, not surprisingly, an avid writer and artist. But above all, she runs. She loves running, and she runs fast. Lucas ran the 6K course at the Pre-Nationals race in slightly more than 20 minutes.
“Running came up when I was about 14 years old,” Lucas said. “I was good at it initially, and that makes anything more fun. As I became more and more involved with it and developed, I saw the parallels between my life and creative endeavors and running.”
In her final season at State, Lucas has helped the Pack to a No. 3 national ranking, heading into next weekend’s NCAA championship in Terre Haute, Ind.
“It’s amazing to be able to run with her,” sophomore runner Brittany Tinsley said. “She’s a great runner.”
Women’s coach Laurie Henes, the 2006 ACC coach of the year, said Lucas has been a huge part of the development of the team over the last few years.
“I’m really happy for her with the way the season has gone so far,” Henes said. “She’s had some ups and downs. I think she started the season with the goal of working really hard and seeing what level she could get to.”
But for all her successes in running, talking to Lucas for any amount of time quickly yields that she’s more than just another fast runner.
The Fire
Before the start of school last year, Lucas was sitting on her front porch one night. What followed changed the course of her career.
“I saw flames,” she said. “My friend and I went to investigate, and we found a woman frantically on the phone with 911. And she told us there was a family upstairs. The building was smoking, but it wasn’t really that bad.”
Lucas ran into the building to try to help. On her way out of the building, she saw the conditions had worsened.
“The flames were much higher,” she said. “I ran down the stairs, and as I was running down, flames welled up from beneath me and enveloped me. My friend was behind me and saw what happened. He ran the other way and jumped off the roof and broke his ankle.”
The burns were bad enough that Lucas was forced to redshirt in what was supposed to be her senior season.
“It was a long return,” Lucas said. “Burns are difficult to recover from.”
Lucas said the experience was one of the most frightening of her life, and it changed the way she looked at things.
“For the next few months, I would repeatedly go downstairs to make sure my stove was off. I didn’t have fire extinguishers in the house before, and I do now. I was more than anything just thankful,” Lucas said. “At the burn center, I was around people who were burned so much they were unrecognizable. I know how much more trouble I could have been in. What if the staircase had fallen through? What if I died there? What if I hurt myself more seriously trying to help someone? But I could die tomorrow, getting hit by a bus on the street. I can’t look at it too hard.”
In missing the season, Lucas was given the opportunity to be a member of this year’s national-title-contending team.
“If she hadn’t run into the fire, she would have run last year and used up her eligibility,” Henes said. “Maybe she would have gotten to this level last year, too, but you never know. She’s very happy to have her eligibility right now.”
Lucas said the whole experience made this season that much more meaningful. If the fire hadn’t happened, she said she would have missed out on the special season the team is having.
She said having to return from the injuries helped motivate her to become a better runner.
“Anyone who is into something long enough is going to come upon a setback,” Lucas said. “It definitely reinvigorated my passion for the sport. All the press releases going out in the preseason, saying ‘Lucas out with burns,’ I really wanted to get back and show them. Fire? Fire can’t stop me.”
‘She’s a little crazy’
Lucas doesn’t drive. It’s not that she can’t drive or won’t drive — she doesn’t even have a license.
“I bike everywhere. [Hitchhiking is] just something that’s sort of come about. I’ve taken long trips by bus and not gotten quite there, so I’ll be at a gas station where I might be able to find some directions. And I’ll find people to get rides. The number of times I’ve actually stuck out my thumb is very minimal, but it happens,” Lucas said. “I’m particular about the kind of people who stop. I got lost in the forest at Umstead State Park, and it was getting dark. I was in a sports bra and running shorts. I got a ride from a very kind teacher, Susan. I don’t know. It just happens.”
Henes said she’s not thrilled about the hitchhiking, but Lucas makes it work.
“She’s a little crazy,” Henes said, laughing. “She thinks that hitchhiking is not a big deal. I kind of have a problem with it. We have our differences on that. She probably just doesn’t tell me now when she does it.”
Henes said Lucas has a different personality than most distance runners.
“I think that’s refreshing,” she said. “It’s really good for the team. She’s obsessed with running fast — there’s no doubt about that. But she has a lot of other things in her life that she’s interested in as well.”
Henes said Lucas is a great writer, although she doesn’t bring many samples by Henes’ office anymore.
“Some of them are so dark and disturbing I can’t read them,” Henes said, jokingly.
Lucas laughed it off.
“It’s not always disturbing, but I like to explore the whole range of emotions,” Lucas countered with a smile. “But anything other than bubbly, happy sort of stuff, she doesn’t want to read.”
Anatomy of a champion
Lucas said she has been working toward becoming a champion for a long time.
“Ever since I was a freshman, I’ve expected to be at that level,” she said. “I’ve been on the brink for a long time — near the top of races, but not quite there.”
This season, having won the Pre-Nationals race two weeks earlier, Lucas said she was the favorite going into the ACC race.
“I was expected to win going in, so I felt like it was my obligation,” she said. “It was less, ‘I hope I do really well,’ and more, ‘It’s my responsibility to my team.’ I know there are seven girls running behind me, giving everything they have. I was expected to win, so it was my responsibility to win.”
Lucas said feeling the responsibility to win a race puts a lot of pressure on her, but that pressure goes with the territory.
“It’s a really nerve-wracking thing,” she said. “I want to hide under the table before the race, but I love running. I love my teammates, and I love my coaches. My passion for this sport and this family –because the Wolfpack as a family far exceeds any fear I might have at the starting line.”
Getting to the starting line is quite a process. Lucas said her typical day starts at 6:30 a.m. with stretching, running and core work. After that, she studies until classes start at 12:25 p.m.
When she gets out of class just before 3 p.m., she heads to practice until approximately 6. After an hour-long stay in the training room, Lucas does some weight-lifting until 7:30, when she heads home to finish her homework, getting to sleep again at approximately 9:30 at night.
Lucas’s coaches would like for her to run at least 80 miles every week. She runs four miles every morning and nine miles every afternoon.
“That’s pretty much every day of the week,” she said. “I’ve found that the people who really, really want what they’re after, they’ll do the sensational things that end up in stories. The things that separate us are the long, boring hours in the training room, icing everything that hurts and working out by yourself. The time after practice from 6 to 7 in the training room — that’s the difference.”
Lucas said she knows she’s a leader this season — her fifth in the program.
“I’ve been to all these races before,” she said. “I know what to expect. I love helping to guide the girls along. I see myself in them and I know in a couple years they’ll be guiding other girls. I feel responsible for them as well as myself. I’m a part of something bigger than myself.”
Henes said Lucas is more of a lead-by-example kind of athlete. She said Lucas is a notoriously hard worker, and that her work ethic motivates the team.
“She’s not a rah-rah, have-a-team-meeting kind of leader,” Henes said. “She’s very encouraging. Some of our other top athletes are very young this year, so it’s good to have her kind of senior leadership on the team.”
Tinsley said Lucas brings a lot of energy to the team.
“She always has some crazy story to tell us,” Tinsley said. “She definitely leads by her example and what she does. She also talks to us a lot and tries to help us to do the right things. She’s always making sure we’re getting enough sleep, that we’re eating right — she’s always stressing that to us.”
At the end of the day, Lucas said she knows she and her teammates are having a special season.
“Every once in a while it kind of hits me,” Lucas said last week. “I take a step back, and I realize how amazing this is. It’s amazing that I’m a part of this. Most people can’t say they’re a member of one of the top anything in the country. And here we are ranked second. I’m enormously proud to be with this team. I feel so lucky to be here.”
Lucas said being at State has been a great gift, and she knows things could have been very different elsewhere.
“I feel very indebted to the program and to my coaches and teammates,” she said. “It would be really easy to have ended up in a different situation — an infinite number of possibilities and I ended up in the best one. I can’t imagine a better life. I love everything about where I am.”