Katelyn Tuohy is officially a professional runner. She signed with Adidas just a few weeks after her final cross country race for the NC State Wolfpack. She’s basically been competing at the pro level for the past year by running against non-collegiate fields. In fact, Katelyn Tuohy wins distance races so often that her races are more noticed if she fails to win for some reason. But now that her college career is officially over we have everything we need to give a proper assessment. As far as I’m concerned Katelyn Tuohy is legitimately the LeBron James of women’s distance running. No athlete has ever been as dominant as she was at the amateur level in high school, and built up as much hype as a result of it. So her college career was bound to come with a lot of scrutiny. Now that she has won many championships in college, it’s time we acknowledge that we are all witnesses to her greatness.

The first time I heard about Katelyn Tuohy

I first found out about Katelyn Tuohy from a high school team I was coaching at the time. I was simultaneously coaching a college cross country team, and a high school track team, so my focus really wasn’t on the high school track scene. My athletes told me that none of the girls on our team had a chance at winning the Sectional meet, because a young lady named Katelyn Tuohy competed for North Rockland high school. That was the same season where she would win the Gatorade player of the year award for the best girls high school athlete in the nation, that is for all the sports

In that season alone she broke the high school records in the 5K, 3200, and the mile! Remember this is not her senior year of high school. That level of range is hard for any distance runner to accomplish, much less be the fastest ever to do it in all of them. She even ran the fastest girls cross country time ever recorded in the 5K. 

I’m not going to rattle off every championship Katelyn won in high school, there’s not enough time for it. All that matters is she was so good that one of the parents for the high school team I coached, rushed into our sectional meet asking “did I miss it? Did I miss her run?”. To clarify he had a son on our team. He was more concerned with watching Katelyn Tuohy in that moment than anything else. At the high school level Katelyn Tuohy was the chosen one, just like LeBron James. The only difference is track and field isn’t like basketball so there was little incentive for her to skip running in college. In fact, NIL came just in time for her to be compensated while doing it anyway.

How good was Katelyn Tuohy in college?

All of Katelyn’s success is the reason for the hype. So her college career is where the story really gets interesting. Anything less than winning national championships was bound to be a disappointment. Katelyn chose to run for NC State, which is a program that had never won any national championships in track and field or cross country before she got there. Just like the Cavalierss had never won anything either until a kid from Akron, Ohio led them to the promised land.

Katelyn began college in 2020 when things were pretty unusual. She ran her first races as a result in 2021 and didn’t win anything, not one single heat in her first indoor season. So at that point nobody knew what to think. But Katelyn did run in a cross country championship that was moved to March of 202. She didn’t win the meet out right, but her performance helped NC State to finish second overall, for a team that had never finished that well in the past. 

Her freshman outdoor season was also underwhelming after that, not even running at the NCAA championships when it was all over. But that would be the last time she finished a year of college without at least one NCAA championship to show for it. As a sophomore she helped NC State to win the NCAA title in cross country! That was only a sign of things to come because she ran indoors at the NCAA championships in the 3K and the 5K finishing in second place in both. By the time the outdoor season was done she had figured out what running in college was all about, and won the outdoor 5K at the NCAA championships in 2022. It was not only her first individual title, but the beginning of her reign as queen of the NCAA! 

Katelyn Tuohy’s NCAA dominance

Since that moment, Katelyn Tuohy literally never lost a college race all the way through cross country and the following indoor season in 2023. She won national titles in cross country, the 5K, and the 3K. She led NC State to a repeat team title in cross country. But she broke collegiate records in both the mile and the 3K! The only thing that makes this movie even more interesting is that if you were paying attention, there was a woman right behind her in that cross country championship. Her name was Parker Valby. 

After dominating the NCAA almost for a full calendar year, Katelyn underachieved outdoors. She didn’t race much but when she did was still for the most part always in the front of the race. She was actually the top seed in the 5K at the championship meet, a race she never actually ran after losing in the 1500. But Parker Valby was there and won the race, running 1 second faster than Katelyn’s original seed time to do it.

The 2023 cross country season became Katelyn’s last one in a college uniform. A season where her first race of the season was at the Nuttycombe Invitational. She ran fast enough to beat the field of 250 runners by more than 20 seconds. But with one small problem. Parker Valby was even faster. That result was not supposed to happen, because we had never seen anyone actually run with Katelyn when she was on her game. She continued on through her season winning every other race she entered, setting up a showdown for the ages in Katelyn’s final collegiate race. But after the gun went off it was clear that Katelyn wasn’t right, and she ran like it. Not only did she lose to Parker but she lost to 3 other women, giving her a fifth place finish. And at that moment I wondered what happened to Katelyn Tuohy, and figured the team title hopes for NC State were all but over.

After the race we found out the truth. That Katelyn Tuohy, a woman who was the most talented distance runner in the modern era, was incredibly sick before the NCAA race went off. She was so sick in fact that her coach even believed she might not finish the race at all. Katelyn was gutting it out the entire way to hold on for fifth place. She was still the best finisher for NC State by a wide margin, and that actually mattered. Because without her performance, on a day when nobody would have blamed her for sitting out to preserve her legacy, the Lady Wolfpack of NC State wouldn’t have won their third straight NCAA title. The final score was 123 to 124 NC State over Northern Arizona. 

Katelyn Tuohy’s Legacy

During Katelyn Tuohy’s final race of her college career, she was much more like Michael Jordan than she was LeBron James. Jordan’s flu game only mattered because he led the Bulls to an NBA title with that performance. Katelyn Tuohy did the same thing, winning a national title to complete a three peat with a a performance that only the greatest of athletes can. Katelyn Tuohy was the most hyped distance runner we have ever seen to run in college. She earned that label by becoming the greatest distance runner we had ever seen at the high school level. She faced adversity early in her college career, and then figured out how to win, so much so that everyone else is still chasing her records. But then Parker Valby happened, the only woman who could ever figure out how to run with her at her best. Then when all else failed, including her body in her final championship race, she figured out how to get the job done, for her entire team to become champions one more time. It is unclear what her professional career will look like. But like most of you, I will be paying attention. As far as her amateur career is concerned, in high school and college combined, Katelyn Tuohy is the greatest of all time. She’s a really tough act to follow, but Parker Valby is going to try.

LOOK GOOD, FEEL GOOD, RUN GOOD.

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