Storied Career Preps Dahl for One More NCAA Regional

LITTLE ROCK – With what could be the final race of her college career approaching on Friday night, Emma Dahl has never felt better.
 
The Little Rock senior's entire four-year career has built up to the 3K steeplechase at the NCAA West Regional, and this time she's determined to finish strong.
 
Two years ago, at this same meet, Dahl could have raced her way to the national championship meet. But she peaked earlier in the season, and a bout of anemia left her unable to finish her race on the national stage.
 
"At practice leading up to regionals I didn't feel good," Dahl said. "I was exhausted most of the time. I didn't finish the race because my body couldn't handle it, my body was too exhausted."
 
Now, at the end of her Trojan career, she's feeling as strong as she ever has.
 
The last four years have seen quite a ride for Dahl. A native of Sweden, the senior excelled immediately upon arriving in Little Rock. Her name appears throughout the school record books, and she has earned victories and honors on the national and conference stage nearly as impressive as any distance runner in team history.
 
Those last four years all lead up to Friday night and a chance for redemption from the 2014 regional.
 
Those last four years have been nearly two decades in the making.
 
***
 
Emma Dahl's running career began with a television.
 
Back in her native Sweden, a 5-year-old Dahl was watching the track and field World Championship with her parents. She is too young to remember this specific moment, but her parents tell her that she stood up during a distance race and pointed to the television.
 
"That's what I want to do," Dahl said.
 
She began experimenting with different track and field disciplines at age 9. From distance races and jumps to sprints and even the shot put, Dahl tried it all. But distance running came naturally. By the time she was in high school, track became a more serious pursuit. She joined ÖIS, a large club team, and focused on distance running.
 
At ÖIS, Dahl trained under coach Midde Hamrin. A 1984 Olympian for Sweden in the marathon, Hamrin came across the Atlantic to attend school at Lamar University and praised her college years in Texas. Thanks to the influence of Hamrin and others with ÖIS, Dahl began to see the possibility of going to the United States for a college scholarship. In Sweden, there are no college or high school athletics teams.
 
"My coach said it was the best thing she had ever done, to come over here," Dahl said.
 
So Dahl created a profile on BeRecruited.com, a popular website that connects prospective college athletes and university coaches. It was already late in the summer after her high school graduation, so Dahl was pressed for time to find a university to attend.
 
Aaron Batey, Little Rock's cross country/distance head coach found her online, saw her race times and offered her a full-ride scholarship. Despite interest from other schools including Western Kentucky and Oklahoma, Dahl said yes to the Trojans and was on her way.
 
"Usually the recruiting process for an international athlete takes many months and could even take the entire semester to make sure they have everything in," Batey said. "Emma was the exception. I started recruiting here in late June. It was kind of a Hail Mary, but she and her mother got done what usually takes four to six months in two to three weeks."
 
Her trip to an unfamiliar land began soon after.
 
***
 
Dahl had never been to the United States before she got on a plane to Little Rock. Or, rather, a series of planes.
 
Travel from Gothenburg, Sweden, to Little Rock typically takes her between 15 and 17 hours with at least two stops on the way. It's a journey she's become familiar with as she's gone back and forth between the two cities over summer and winter breaks each year.
 
Dahl began taking English lessons in third grade with the rest of her schoolmates, so she was plenty ready to adapt to the language barrier. She even had American television in Sweden, which she watched in English with Swedish subtitles. Grey's Anatomy was her favorite show.
 
But compared to Sweden, Arkansas's weather was completely different. She heard from former Trojan runner Sanna Mustonen that The Natural State was way more hot and humid than her home country.
 
And then there was the issue of southern accents.
 
"This was the first time I heard people speaking like that," Dahl said. "[Teammate] Dylan [Wood], for example, I had trouble understanding him in the beginning. Sometimes I had to ask friends or other teammates what he said."
 
Dahl did have the luxury of two fellow Swedes on the roster to help out with any problems. Therese Moberg and Rickard Gunnarsson, both new to the team in 2012 as well, helped Dahl's adjustment to American life. Little Rock Director of Track and Field/Cross Country Milton Williams, Batey, as well as then-teammates Nathan Carr, Casey Lane and Ben Alexander were also instrumental to her adjustment, she said.
 
What Dahl had no trouble with, though, was running at the collegiate level. In her first few training sessions, she discovered that she was outpacing the rest of the women's team and even hanging with some of the men's team.
 
In her first indoor season, she ran the eighth-fastest 3K time in program history. When the outdoor season of her freshman year rolled around, she picked up the second-best 3K steeplechase in school history, finishing second at the Sun Belt Championship.
 
"She had run a good steeplechase time [in Sweden] and I knew arriving in she would be a top-two steeplechaser in the conference," Batey said. "When she arrived on campus I didn't know exactly what she was really capable of. But I quickly learned on her very first long run when she was starting to catch half the guys' team that she was going to end up being pretty good."
 
Her sophomore year, 2013-14, saw even more improvement. She had three scoring efforts at the SBC Indoor meet and, outdoors, her 10:16.66 in the steeplechase at the Rhodes Invitational was the nation's fastest time for several weeks. That was good enough to make her the first Trojan woman to ever qualify for the NCAA West Regional after the NCAA changed its regional format in 2012.
 
But by the time that regional rolled around, Dahl was exhausted. The pressure of competing in her first NCAA meet combined with anemia wiped her out. She began the regional race with hopes of making the national championship, but her body couldn't handle it. She dropped out with four laps to go.
 
Dahl overcame that disappointment with an even more phenomenal indoor season in 2015. At the Sun Belt Championship, Dahl won the mile and the 3K steeplechase while taking second in the 5K. Those results gave her the Sun Belt's High Point Award, and she was named the league's Most Outstanding Track Athlete.
 
"All my hard work finally paid off," Dahl said. "Everything came together that I'd been working on for years. I still didn't realize how hard it was to win it. I didn't even think about the possibility of the High Point Award when I was running."
 
With her junior season a success, Dahl was all set up for a memorable end to her career in 2015-16 as a senior.
 
***
 
When Dahl began her senior year in August, cross country season came with a second All-Sun Belt Team honor for Dahl as she placed 11th in the conference. She also represented the Trojans at the NCAA South Central Regional, coming in 27th overall while setting the school record in the 6K.
 
Dahl took the indoor season off to train, giving her plenty of time to get ready for the outdoor calendar and another shot on the national stage.
 
At the beginning of the season, Dahl ran a 5K at the Rhodes Invitational and a 3K steeplechase at the Louisiana Classics. But when the team went to California in April, Dahl began to suffer through another bout of anemia. Instead of setting a new personal record like she intended to at the Mt. SAC Relays, Dahl watched her teammates compete.
 
"Basically, I don't get enough oxygen to my muscles so it makes me very fatigued," she said of the anemia. "After running for 20 minutes I would be completely dead."
 
Iron supplements and rest helped her recover. And while she was unable to race in California, the time off helped. She returned for the Sun Belt Championship in early May where she set a season best in the 3K steeplechase of 10:23.72, a time that qualified her for the NCAA West Regional yet again.
 
And now, with memories of the 2014 NCAA West Regionals in her mind, she is feeling as good as she ever has.
 
"[Not finishing in 2014] definitely motivates me more this time," Dahl said. "Two years ago I didn't get the chance to show what I capable of. This time I'm peaking at the right time. I've been feeling great at practice for the last few weeks. I'm definitely ready to run fast."
 
Friday night at 8:50 could be the last time she ever races for the Trojans. Don't be surprised, though, if Dahl finishes in the top 12 in the steeplechase and finds herself representing Little Rock at the NCAA Outdoor National Championship in June.
 
Batey, who has watched Dahl grow since 2012 –  he's seen her set school records in two events and rank in the top 10 in Little Rock history in eight – knows she is capable of great things.
 
"Emma has made a lot of improvements during her time here, but the biggest was within the last six weeks," he said. "When things weren't looking so good in California, she could have easily just called it a season. But she kept her head in it and came out fighting.
 
"What stands out most about Emma is how tough she can be. When she is in shape and sets her mind to it, she can be the most dangerous runner on the track."