Oct. 24, 2009

By Larry Watts
Contributor, BigTen.org

Elizabeth Yetzer loves to run in a pack. It doesn't matter if it's with her University of Minnesota teammates or with her family.

"Running will be part of my life forever," says the senior from Lakeville, Minn. "I'll probably be doing some road races after college and see where that takes me."

Yetzer's love for running traces back to her family. Her mother, Mary, ran for both Wisconsin and Minnesota during her undergrad days. Although her father, Greg, did not run competitively at Minnesota, Yetzer says he is still "a passionate runner" and competes in triathlons. And both of her sisters, Annie and Rebekah, ran for Minnesota.

"My parents both ran track at the same high school, but they didn't start dating until college," she says. "My mother ran three years at Wisconsin and then transferred to Minnesota after marrying my father. She had two years of eligibility remaining because she missed a year with an injury, but she wound up running only one year here because she got pregnant with my brother (Jake)."

Annie was actually the first of the three sisters to head to Minnesota because Rebekah chose to extend her running career at Colorado State. But after three years, including a redshirt season, she decided to move back closer to home, just in time for Elizabeth's freshman year in Golden Gopher land.

The plan to have three sisters run cross country and track didn't work out, however. Annie had developed an Achilles' problem and was forced to end her career, leaving Elizabeth with two years to run with her older sister.

"We thought all three of us would run for Minnesota and that's a big part of what drew Becca back," Elizabeth says. "The three of us are all best friends and it would have been pretty awesome to be together again, like we were in high school.

"It was great to have Becca here. It was someone I could really relate to and get excited about the same things together."

Although both of her parents had degrees from Minnesota and both of her sisters would become Minnesota graduates, there was no guarantee Elizabeth would follow in their footsteps.

"For awhile in high school, I said I wasn't going to be a Gopher, I was going to try something new," she says. "But when I came here for a visit, I just fell in love with coach (Gary) Wilson and the team. Having a sister already here was also a pretty strong influence.

"There's a lot of Gopher pride around our house. Jake went to Wisconsin and we always give him a hard time, but I think the Gophers are growing on him. He's training to be an oral surgeon (at Florida State) and we gave him a Gophers' surgeon mask for Christmas and he was pretty pumped up about it. That Gopher pride is pretty contagious."

Elizabeth made an immediate impact with the Golden Gophers, usually finishing as the No. 3 runner. She ran the second-fastest time by a Minnesota freshman at the Pre-NCAA Meet and was one of her team's top finishers when they placed 11th at the NCAA Championships.

She spent most of her sophomore season as the Gophers' No. 2 or 3 runner as the team placed 12th at the NCAA Championships. She posted a career-best time of 20:36.14 while placing 15th at the Big Ten Championships, falling one spot short of all-conference honors.

An Achilles' injury forced her out of the 2008 track season and set the stage for a letdown in her junior season on the cross country trails. She was the team's ninth finisher (80th overall) at the Big Ten Championships. Yetzer prefers to call it "my amnesia year."

"I was excited about the season, but I have no reason why my performance was so terrible. It was definitely a learning experience," she says. "After the season I did a lot of evaluating. The reason why I run is to glorify God, but going into the year I was trying to make sure running wasn't taking over my life. I didn't want to put running over God.

"But one of the things I took from that experience is running is a gift from God and He wants me to use that gift and develop it as much as possible. I had to let go of the idea of trying too hard and making running more important than it really is. Once I did that, I gained a lot of my confidence back during the track season."

And there's nothing like qualifying in the 1500 for the NCAA Track Championships to help restore one's confidence. She ran a personal best by six seconds (4:18.11) and her best time in the mile (4:44.37) now ranks fifth in school history.

"Sometimes you just have a pretty crappy season," says the Golden Gophers' captain. "You just have to move on and forget about it. God didn't take away my ability.

"The track season kind of rebounded me and gave me a lot of confidence for this fall I have been healthy now for a year and a half, and that confidence has carried over. I'm back to being the second or third runner and it's a lot of fun having so many girls with equal ability so we can keep pushing and pulling each other."

Yetzer places the bond she has with team on the same level as the one she has with her family.

"We have received some criticism about the size of our team (approximately 50 members), but this is really a big family," she says. "Even if they weren't standout runners in high school, coach Wilson sees potential in everyone and provides people with the opportunities to run. There are a variety of personalities and goals on this team, but we really do take care of each other. We may be competitive with each other, but we're always pulling for each other and I think that is what has made this program so successful."

Although this is Yetzer's final fall of cross country, she fully intends to take advantage of her redshirt year in track and compete on the oval in 2011 for the Golden Gophers.

"It all fits perfectly into my plans," says Yetzer, who is an elementary education major. "I'll be able to do my student teaching when I'm ineligible next fall and then be able to get my license while taking a couple of classes in the spring.

"I do like track a little more, but I am growing in the mental aspect of embracing the 6K (in cross country). But I have a better focus for four laps and I like the strategy. There's a unique strategy to cross country, but I'm still on the learning curve. I feel like I'm a sophomore because of how fast this has gone."

But as Yetzer says, even when her days of wearing a Minnesota uniform are over, she'll still be out there on the trails.

"My sisters both live in St. Paul and are always here to support me, so I'm sure we'll be out there in some races together," she says. "My father got my mother into her first triathlon last summer and one of the greatest things we do is run as a family, provided we're all healthy.

"I think it would be fun to have a Team Yetzer. Maybe some day, when we're all married, we'll get all our children together and have a big run."