When Kailee Stoppel toes the line at the 2022 Montana Mile this Friday, she’ll swap her bright yellow Montana State University Billings singlet for a racing kit she’s put together herself for this occasion. This race. This rare opportunity to run a true mile outdoors, unattached, free from the expectations of scoring points for a Division II track team, chasing another all-conference honor or breaking a school record. The Montana Mile will be the unofficial start to the final chapter of her MSUB career, which currently includes a school record in the indoor 800 meters, top-10 times in eight different events and the distinction of being the only female athlete in program history to earn All-Great Northwest Athletic Conference honors in multiple distance events.

Except the race might not be a lighthearted affair.

Kailee Stoppel is a competitor. She’d be the first person to admit it. To her, pouring so much time, effort and energy into something and not wanting to be great doesn’t make sense. Watching other runners race gives her a visceral reaction nowadays; Stoppel says she can taste blood in her mouth when she sees people run the 800 meters. Turning off that competitive part of her brain would be antithetical to who she is.

She’d also be the first person to tell you that overthinking is her calling card — especially before races. If Stoppel stares off into the distance at Daylis Stadium, complete with a stoic, blank expression on her face, that’s just how she operates. Maybe she’ll chat with Rocky Mountain College runners Sydney Little Light and Mei-Lei Stevens — both of whom she “loves to death” — but aside from that, she’ll be focused. So much so that she might experience physical pain while warming up for the race because she fears failing to live up to lofty expectations she puts on herself.

“I am definitely really hard on myself,” Stoppel admits. “I can’t be proud of myself unless people are proud of me for what I’m doing. I could do really well in the race and not think anything of it until someone comes up to me and tells me it was awesome.”

Once the gun goes off, everything will change.

The former Billings West hurdler has grown significantly since her first season in a MSUB uniform. Although she ran three seasons of high school cross-country, her younger self probably would have gawked at running more than one lap on a track, much less a mile, for fun. Four years of collegiate distance running can change a person — especially someone with the drive to succeed like Stoppel.

“I’m sure if you would’ve told her in high school that she’s going to run the Montana Mile, she would’ve said ‘no way,’” MSUB head cross-country coach Jonathan Woehl said. “If you would’ve said to me that by the time Kailee is a senior, she could be one of the top finishers in the mile, I think I would’ve seen her as more of a 5K runner. She’s a testament of the importance of hard work and that you can go to MSUB and still be a good athlete.”

Yet those changes have turned her into the person she is today: a confident, hardworking individual who has a desire to teach high school history and to coach cross-country so she could give back to others. None of these things will cross her mind when she’s running; Stoppel doesn’t like to think about the future because it’ll make her sad.

For now, Stoppel will be the only current MSUB women’s track and field athlete to compete in the Montana Mile, which has been a dream race of hers ever since she heard about it. Last year she ran a 5:23.59 and placed eighth in her Montana Mile debut, setting a personal best that stood until her indoor track season, in which she ran five-straight personal bests in the span of three weeks. Friday’s race could be a catalyst to a successful season just like last year.

This is what could happen in the latter stages of the Montana Mile: Instead of wilting down the backstretch, strung out by a race four times longer than she ran in high school, Stoppel’s sprint background shows up. Her kick is devastating. She has a way of slingshotting around the final turn with such ferocity that MSUB assistant cross-country and track coach Kevin Bjerke says she’s a pitbull. Combine Stoppel’s distance training with her natural footspeed, and she’s as versatile of a runner as MSUB has ever had.

“That’s where you can see her sprinting background,” Bjerke says of Stoppel’s kick. “When you have enough base mileage and can chill for a few laps, then turn that sprint speed on, it’s lights out.”

Kailee Stoppel wasn’t always a distance runner. Raised by two hardworking parents in a family that favored baseball and softball over most sports, Stoppel opted to play volleyball and compete in track at Billings West. During volleyball season, as a consequence for messing up in practice, Stoppel’s coach would make the team run laps on the stairs — except those stair laps didn’t feel like punishment to Stoppel. Sometime early in her sophomore year, right after Stoppel left her teammates in the dust on the stair laps for the umpteenth time, one of the volleyball coaches pulled her aside and offered a suggestion.

“My volleyball coach told me, ‘You know what, you should probably just run cross-country because you love running the stair laps so much,’” Stoppel recalls. “I didn’t know whether or not I should be offended that she told me I shouldn’t play volleyball anymore, but I ended up quitting volleyball so I could run cross-country. It was more to spend time with my friends, because that’s what all of them were doing since cross-country was a big social sport at West. And I ended up being kind of okay at it.”

By the time she was a senior, Stoppel was the Golden Bears’ top finisher at the 2017 Class AA State XC Championships, where she placed 23rd in the 5K with a 20:01.13. Although she put together her best cross-country season as a senior, she went back to the hurdle events for her senior track season. To her credit, she wound up placing sixth in the 300-meter hurdles and 13th in the 100-meter hurdles at the state meet — both of which were the best finishes of her career.

“When it came to track, it was really weird doing preseason with these people and then going over to the dark side by doing sprints and hurdles,” Stoppel said. “I definitely think from freshman to senior year, I got worse [at sprinting] because I was doing so much distance stuff.”

Regression or not, Stoppel’s hurdling experience would eventually pay dividends. During her first cross-country season at MSUB, Woehl’s training program helped Stoppel and her freshman teammates — most of whom were sprinters and hurdlers in high school too — progress to the longer distances. Aside from an open 400 meter run and a few 4x400 meter relay appearances, Stoppel became a middle distance runner in her first indoor track season. Once outdoor track rolled around, Stoppel toed the line alongside team leader Nikki Aiken in the steeplechase, which came as a surprise to her at the time.

“I honestly had no idea what I was thinking when I went to college,” Stoppel said. “Nobody told me, ‘Hey, you should do distance. You’ve never run distance track in your life, but you should do steeplechase.’ I just watched a steeplechase race on YouTube to see what it was. I was like, ‘Huh, that would be interesting.’”

Ever since then, Stoppel went from a quiet freshman who knitted sweaters on bus rides and competed in Aiken’s shadow, to one of the most accomplished distance runners in MSUB history. 

“She’s not only a great example of hard work paying off, but also an example of how you don’t have to go to a Division 1 school to be really good,” Woehl said. “You also don’t have to go a long way from home to be a good runner. You can stay in your hometown, train and get better. Big programs don’t make athletes good. The athlete has to make themself good.”

Her progression wasn’t easy. As an underclassman, Stoppel viewed running as a chore, or another thing to do on top of going to class, doing homework and working several jobs throughout the year. But she’s had help along the way. Stoppel credits her parents for instilling her drive and work ethic, Woehl for being a positive presence and former assistant track coach Evan Kohl for helping her realize her full potential. The men’s team — specifically Ase Ackerman, Billings West alum Logan Straus and Carson Jessop — has been in her corner ever since she arrived at MSUB. In particular, Josey Smiedala, a 2019 MSUB graduate who holds the school records in the indoor and outdoor 400 meters, was a key role model for Stoppel during the early years.

“She had a good outlook on training and doing your hardest,” Stoppel said of Smiedala. “It was nice to see that even if things didn’t go her way, she could still work hard and try to achieve her goals. She was always looking out for the younger people on the team and she took good care of us.”

Although Smiedala and Stoppel were teammates for only one season, Stoppel took what she learned from Smiedala and applied herself during her sophomore year. With Aiken set to graduate in spring of 2020, Stoppel was ready to take the mantle of being the next great MSUB women’s distance runner. But after competing in multiple events at the 2020 GNAC Indoor Championships for the first time in her career, the coronavirus pandemic canceled her sophomore outdoor track season, grinding everything to a halt. Once the 2020 cross-country season got canceled shortly thereafter, Stoppel was so discouraged that stopped running for weeks.

“I didn’t see a point in running,” Stoppel said. “I got into an even worse mindset when I didn’t have running to keep me mentally sane during the pandemic. That season when we got cross-country taken away from us was definitely a confidence blow. But for whatever reason, I told myself I needed to get ready for indoor track, because that could still happen.”

Once the Yellowjackets returned to the track in spring of 2021, Stoppel had a productive outdoor track season. In the steeplechase, she shattered her freshman-year time of 12:38.53 with an 11:17.82 and a fifth-place finish at the 2021 GNAC Championships — the best finish in her career at the time.

But Stoppel would outdo herself the next year.

For the first time in her collegiate career, Stoppel put it all together during the summer of 2021. Her weekly mileage was the highest in her life, she stayed healthy throughout the summer and she kicked off cross-country season with back-to-back personal bests. Every time the team ran time trials at Lockwood High School’s track, Stoppel became more and more eager for track season.

“I was very confident in my training and I knew it was going to get me where I needed to go,” Stoppel said. “In previous years, I never ran more than 35 miles per week. I never understood how much mileage impacts how you’re going to do. Once I started hitting 45-50 miles per week during cross-country season and tapering down for track, I knew that the season would be alright.”

“Alright” would be an understatement. Stoppel took indoor track by storm, rattling off five-straight personal bests in three different races to open the season. First, a thrilling 800 meter win at Montana State after shaving two seconds off her mile. One week later, she ran a personal best in the 3,000 meters at Black Hills State. The next week’s trip to Chadron State — the same meet where, during her freshman year, she accidentally missed a race because she warmed up too long — yielded two more PRs in the 800 and the mile, both by four seconds or more.

“Of course, the most rinky-dink meet we went to was the one that showed her true potential,” Bjerke said. “She was racing around a small track that’s not fast and she was racing against no competition. To be able to double back [in the 800] like that made us think that if we ran her fresh in an 800, then she was going to really do something.”

Heading into the conference indoor championships on Feb. 21-22, Stoppel was ranked sixth in the 800, ninth in the mile and sixth in the 3,000, marking the first time in her career that she qualified in multiple individual indoor events. As if competing in her first conference indoor meet in two years wasn’t exciting enough, the 2022 GNAC Indoor Track & Field Championships was held at The Podium: a brand-new indoor track facility in downtown Spokane, Wash. that hosted the MPSF Indoor Championships, GNACs and the 2022 USA Track & Field Indoor Championships all in the span of a week.

“When I stepped on the track, I told myself that the race was going to be great,” Stoppel said. “I was really excited about running at The Podium. I ran at the track the day before, and I was so excited to be on that track. It felt surreal — thinking about who had run at The Podium the week before and who was going to run there the week after.”

Stoppel had mixed emotions going into the 800 meter prelims at GNACs. For starters, she has a love-hate relationship with the 800 meters.

“It’s the worst race and the best race at the same time,” Stoppel said. “The 800 is literally just putting two 400s together because everyone is so fast. You have to run hard and then run harder to finish, but I like that way of thinking. You don’t have to strategize too much in a race that short.”

Secondly, the thought of competing against Simon Fraser’s Alison Andrews-Paul — the eventual national champion and Division II record holder in the 800 meters — was daunting. And if she made the finals in the event, running three races on the final day of GNACs would be a steep task. But in order to do that, she had to place in the top two of her 800-meter preliminary heat.

Sunlight peered in through The Podium’s narrow windows as Stoppel and the five runners in heat two of the 800 meters stepped onto the brand new, deep-blue rubber track surface. Outside, snow from a blizzard the night before whipped against the building. The handful of spectators in the crowd stirred silently in their seats. Stoppel reminded herself that although she wasn’t at altitude, the race was going to be painful.

The starting gun echoed in the cavernous arena.

At first, the race was packed. Seattle Pacific’s Ellie Rising led a group of Stoppel and Simon Fraser’s Kate Cameron and Elizabeth Vanderput through the first lap in 31 seconds — on pace for a 2:04. This wouldn’t be a tactical prelim race. Racing on fresh legs at sea level for the first time all year, Stoppel followed stride-for-stride as the leaders went through the second lap in 33 seconds. The third lap was where she turned it on. As Cameron began to fade, Stoppel seemed to only look stronger with every stride as she held on Rising’s hip for the third lap, which she clocked in 34.6 seconds. One lap remained.

“The look that came onto her face with 100 meters to go, when coming along that last corner was something Jon experienced the year before in a 4x400,” Bjerke said. At conference she ran the 5K and the team needed her to run in the 4x400, and she ran like a pitbull. She was running pissed off. I don’t think she was running pissed off in the 800, but I think she had that same aura.”

Hanging on Rising’s hip for the majority of the race, Stoppel broke free as she whipped around the final turn. As the finish line got closer and closer, Stoppel threw down her final surge, pulled ahead of Rising and took the lead right before the line, stopping the clock at 2:15.86.

Unbeknownst to Stoppel, she broke the school record. But it didn’t feel that way.

“When I finished, I told myself, ‘Oh my god, that sucked,’” Stoppel said.

Breathing heavily with her hands on her head, Stoppel stepped off the track and was immediately congratulated by her teammate Maisie Hoskins, who was working with the MSUB athletic training staff at the meet. While watching Woehl examine his clipboard and stopwatch from afar, Ase Ackerman complimented her on her race and for breaking the school record.

At first, Stoppel didn’t believe it. 

“I was like, ‘No, no I don’t. Don’t say that,’” Stoppel recalled. “I was immediately upset because I thought he was messing with me.”

Sure enough, her 2:15.86 was not only the school record, but also the second-fastest time in the prelims; she was only one-hundredth of a second off from Saint Martin’s freshman Cassidy Walchak-Sloan’s winning time in the first heat. After wondering all season about what she could do in a fresh 800-meter race, Stoppel and her coaches finally saw her potential in that event.

“She ran smart, tactically and put herself in the right position to race from start to finish,” Bjerke said. “I kind of expected her to make the final. I think that was a great way to run a prelim because it gave her confidence for the next day.”

“That race was fun, but then the next day was definitely really tough,” Stoppel added.

Qualifying for the 800 meter finals was a gift and a curse: On one hand, Stoppel was in prime position to break her own school record and place well in the finals. On the other hand, she would have to do so two hours after running the mile and 30 minutes before toeing the line for the 3,000 meters. If she pulled it off, she’d be the only runner in the GNAC to triple on the final day of the meet. The triple was much easier said than done.

Tuesday’s finals were an emotional rollercoaster.

Stoppel’s pre-race nervousness was at an all-time high. With her mind looking ahead to the 800 meters finals, Stoppel’s mile came and went — a 5:34.84, 14th place overall — but she had no time to dwell on it. Bjerke told her to shake it off.

“I was not prepared to run that many races, and I think it showed through how nervous I was during the mile for the 800,” Stoppel said. “I didn't want to over-exude myself and I didn’t know how much I had left after I ran so hard.”

Realistically, Stoppel’s best chance at placing well was in the 800-meter final — and unlike most meets that season, she had nearly two hours to recover. After all, doubling in the mile and the 800 wasn’t anything new for her that season. 

Wedged between Andrews-Paul and Walchack-Sloan, Stoppel assumed her position in lane five of the banked, six-lane track for the 800-meter final. Predictably, Andrews-Paul rocketed out to the front and didn’t let up. An upset wouldn’t be in the cards that day. The more competitive race was for second place. A chase pack of Stoppel, Rising and Walchak-Sloan through the first lap in 31 seconds — just like the prelims. Unlike the prelims, Stoppel asserted herself early by leading the chase pack for the first 400 meters. Despite running a mile hours before, Stoppel ran a faster two-lap split than she did in the prelims. Could she break her school record again?

The tide turned. Holding off fatigue for as long as they could, Stoppel and Rising put a two-second gap on the rest of the runners in the third lap. Rising inched ahead of Stoppel, then tacked onto that distance in the bell lap. Stoppel hung on for one frenzied lap.

She crossed the line in third place with a 2:16.06 — not the school record, but still the second-fastest indoor time in MSUB history.

But Stoppel didn’t experience that post-race euphoria for long. Before she could catch her breath, the thought of running the 3,000 meters popped into her mind. Panic set in.

“The 800 went pretty well, but I was almost in tears laying on the ground after the 800 meters because I only had 20 minutes before I had to run the 3K,” Stoppel said.

Yet she went through with the warmup anyway, jogging around the outside of the track as the runners in the men’s 800 meters finished. Precious recovery minutes slipped away. Anxious thoughts swirled around Stoppel’s mind as she walked over to Woehl’s seat on a short set of bleachers along the backstretch.

“Are you ready to do this?” Woehl asked.

“I don’t think I’m able to,” Stoppel answered.

“Do you know what we’re going to do?” Woehl said.

“Not run it?” Stoppel asked.

“We’re going to take it one lap at a time.”

Thirty minutes after stepping off the track, Stoppel lined up alongside 13 runners for the 3,000-meter final. She could still taste the blood in her mouth and feel the lactic acid building up in her legs. Lined up along the outside of the waterfall start, Stoppel slid into the back of the pack at the pop of the starting gun and hung on for 15 grueling laps. 

“I’m proud of myself for doing it,” Stoppel said of the 3,000 meters. “It was definitely a humbling feeling after taking third in the 800 and feeling on top of the world for a minute. Before that race, I never placed — or was close to placing at conference — except for steeplechase the year before. But It was definitely very humbling because it was a tough turnaround.”

In the aftermath of the 3,000 meters, Stoppel’s coaches reminded her that one bad race didn’t take away from everything she accomplished that year. The five PRs. The school record. Her first GNAC medal. At the end of the day, Stoppel was the only athlete who did the 800-3K double and, unlike a Western Oregon runner in the 3K, she resisted the urge to drop out.

“She’s got a good head on her shoulders, but I think the combination of everything going on in her life, running and her own expectations for herself was difficult,” Bjerke said. “And she works a lot, so she was stressed out at times. You could tell that affected her. I know she had a lot of expectations on herself, and she did a good job of managing those expectations given where her headspace was most of the time.”

But the mental and physical rollercoaster of preparing for an all-out sprint, placing third, then pushing herself for her fourth race in a 24-hour span took a toll on her.

“People see you race and they’re like, ‘Wow, she did it!’ And then they see you on the track again and they’re like ‘Oh look, she’s doing it again!’” Stoppel said. “I don’t think people think of the warmup, the cool-down, and the mental and physical exhaustion of actually doing each race. If you talk to Kevin, he’d tell you how nervous I get for races. It’s to the point that I make myself physically sick. I don’t know if I can toe the line.”

“I don’t think that anyone understands how hard it is unless they’re constantly watching you.”

Three weeks passed between indoor and outdoor track, yet Stoppel returned without missing a beat. Unlike indoor season, she even got to run her favorite event — the 5,000 meters — in the season-opener at Lockwood High School. After helping pace freshman Kit Wiersema through the first kilometer, Stoppel broke away from the seven-woman field and won with a comfortable two-minute cushion. Although her 18:58.83 was four seconds off her lifetime best in the event, the steeplechase and the 800 meters came calling.

Racing outdoors in Montana during the springtime is rarely easy; each week the team battled wind, rain, cold temperatures or all of the above. Good competition is hard to find. Stoppel’s first steeplechase at Black Hills State — 12-and-a-half minutes of battling harsh winds while competing against two other runners — tanked most of the confidence she had going into the outdoor season. At one point, she thought about stepping away from the steeplechase for good.

“She was not happy with her first steeplechase of the season at Black Hills State,” Bjerke said. “I know she didn’t have a ton of confidence in her steeplechase after running it. She didn’t run it terribly, but I know she wanted a lot more out of that race than what she got.”

Stoppel would get redemption a month later during a memorable three-meet trip to Los Angeles, where better weather and competition from all over the country promised fast times. Racing at Azusa Pacific’s Bryan Clay Invitational — one of the largest collegiate track meets on the west coast — for the first time in her career, Stoppel had no expectations for herself when she toed the line in the steeplechase. Yet she bounced back with a strategic, come-from-behind race to run a 11:15.57, her best time ever.

“I was proud of how she attacked that steeplechase,” Bjerke said. “It was almost the opposite of an attack — she went to the back of her field in that steeplechase, which was almost a good thing. I was proud that she was able to do that and have the confidence to run her pace because she paced it perfectly.”

“Everything felt the way it was supposed to, and definitely the time was a result of that,” Stoppel said after the race. “It was a big confidence-booster crossing the line in under 12 minutes – especially after how my last race went."

Going into the conference meet in Ellensburg, Wash., Stoppel was aiming to break 11 minutes in the steeplechase and hit the Division II provisional standard in the event. Depending on how much she’d dip under that 11-minute barrier, she’d have a shot at making the final cut of 24 runners who would compete at nationals.

Unfortunately, the race was not as close — or as fast — as the steeplechase at Bryan Clay. Western Washington’s Ila Davis and Simon Fraser’s Olivia Willett came into the meet as the clear favorites; both of them gapped the field early in the race, leaving Stoppel and Alaska Anchorage’s Alfin Nyamasyo to fight for the last all-conference medal. The duo went back and forth for the majority of the race before Stoppel pulled away for good on the sixth lap.

“Towards the end of the race she slowly pulled away over the last few laps,” Wohel recalled. “To me, it really wasn’t ever a question as to whether or not she’d make all-conference or not.”

Although the time wasn’t what she wanted, Stoppel’s third-place finish not only was a career-best, but also made her the only MSUB women’s distance runner to earn all-conference honors in multiple events.

“Seeing Jon’s face when I finished the steeplechase this year was the only thing that made me feel excited about how I did during that race,” Stoppel said. “I was so nervous before that race. I wasn’t feeling well, I was overthinking everything.”

Like she did at the indoor conference meet, Stoppel had to battle a lack of ample recovery time between her races at the GNAC Outdoor Championships. The meet format puts the steeplechase as the first distance event on day one, with the 800 meter preliminaries later that afternoon. Running on fatigued legs from pushing off each barrier and falling on the track for 3,000 meters, Stoppel was put behind the eight-ball when she toed the line for the 800 meter prelims.

The race felt all but determined when the starting gun fired. As the only runner in her heat competing on tired legs, Stoppel lingered towards the back of the second heat and finished in 2:29.63, missing the cut for the finals by 11 seconds. Her 4x400-meter relay leg in the meet finale aside, Stoppel’s season was over.

However, her junior outdoor track season was still a success. Despite the lofty expectations she put on herself, Stoppel still ran the program’s second-fastest times in the 800, 1,500 and the steeplechase — all while navigating the pressures of being the team’s top female distance runner. Across both indoor and outdoor seasons, she was the only all-conference award winner on the MSUB women’s track team.

“I think she’s a unique athlete,” Woehl said. “Some athletes perform really well when they don’t have any expectations, then when they do have those expectations, they crumble. Or other athletes need those expectations put on them to do well, or else nothing happens. She’s unique because she excelled both with and without expectations. I think it’s harder once you have expectations to do well and deliver on those. She did a really good job of managing the stress and she made it happen.”

Next year, however, Woehl and Bjerke believe that Stoppel’s GNAC meets won’t be as jam-packed. A solid group of incoming freshman sprinters combined with another year of high-volume training under Stoppel’s belt will give her not only the endurance to run multiple events at the conference meet well, but also put less pressure on her to run in the relays.

“I like her options for her senior year,” Woehl said. “Because we have more sprinters and middle-distance runners on the team, it allows us to have the flexibility to do what’s going to be best for our athletes, versus trying to force an event that maybe isn’t quite there yet. The most natural double for her to do would be the steeplechase and the 5K because they’re about as far away from each other in the meet as they can get. Although she has come back and run the 4x400 relay after doing the 5K before, I hope that with the freshman we’re bringing in, she won’t have to run the 4x400 relay.”

“I was a little disappointed in myself this year for not making nationals because it ended up being not as attainable as it actually was,” Stoppel said. “I’m trying not to set too many expectations because I am terrified of failing. Last year went so well for me and I don’t want it to be the year that I peaked. It’s hard to think about.”

For now, Stoppel has no expectations for how she’ll run the Montana Mile. In fact, she said the race was mostly for enjoyment, although her competitive nature could still take over during her race preparation. Stoppel wants to feel part of the close-knit Montana running community by taking part in the race.

“I feel like this is the race everyone does,” Stoppel said. “Watching Ase, Ivan [Colmenero], Logan [Straus] and Carson [Jessop] run it in the past dials it all back to just Montana kids. Altogether, it’s mostly just for fun. I’m a very competitive person and I also love all the girls I get to compete against.”

Sometimes when she doesn’t overthink races, her natural racing instincts take over and she can run relaxed, loose and free from the pressure she puts on herself. Those moments are few and far between for someone as cognizant as Stoppel, but when they have happened, she’s been successful.

Consider her 1,500 meter race on the final day of the Bryan Clay Invitational this past April. While warming up for the race as the clock ticked closer to midnight, Stoppel told herself that as long as she toed the line and raced, there were no consequences if she raced poorly. Sure, she had already ran the best steeplechase of her life 48 hours prior, and she ran a 2:20 in the 800 meters a day prior, yet something told her she’d regret scratching her final race in California.

As she watched Ackerman run his lifetime-best in the 1,500 meters during her warmup, she was finally sold on running the race.

“I wasn’t expecting to run, but I kept telling myself that I was probably going to run the race,” Stoppel said. “But that was the best thing that I could’ve done for myself, not thinking about it.”

When the gun went off, Stoppel cut towards the rail in the back of the pack. She hung with the group as runner after runner tried swinging into lane three and making moves towards Biola’s Britta Holmberg, who took a commanding lead from the gun. The pack held formation as the bouncy bass, jangly guitars and persistent organ blasts of Parliament’s “Flashlight” wobbled out of the PA speakers and into the night. Running on little sleep and tired legs, the conservative approach was advantageous to Stoppel.

“The way that 1,500 meters went — how it was packed up and the pacing on that race — went really well for how her legs felt,” Bjerke said. “If she’s in the right type of race, her mindset will come together with it. And it’s fun to see that when it happens.”

With 500 meters to go, the chase pack overtook Holmberg. Coming down the home stretch, Colorado’s Bailey Nock decided she had enough: The junior cut Stoppel off as she moved out into lane three and uncorked a big surge to take the lead with one lap to go. This snapped Stoppel back into the race. If she made a move, what’s the worst that could happen?

The pace quickened at the bell. On the livestream of the race, a FloTrack broadcaster marveled at Nock’s surge and Colorado’s team culture, just as Stoppel picked off three runners on the curve and pulled into fourth place. Up in third place, UC Davis’ Emma Arriaga was trudging through quicksand along the backstretch. She, too, was no match for Stoppel.

Stoppel flung around the final curve and surprised frontrunners Nock and Costa Rica’s Andrea Calvo Castillo, who up until that point had a sizable lead. Unbelievably, Stoppel clawed her way back into the race after holding up the back of the pack for 1,200 meters.

She showed no signs of letting up. Stoppel barreled down the homestretch in lane two, looking unstoppable with her arms pumping, knees driving and her white Nike spikes ablur under the stadium lights. 

Stoppel lunged at the line, but the race wasn’t that close. Her winning time of 4:45.13 — an 11-second personal best — flashed on the infield videoboard. In that moment, she didn’t think to check the time, nor did she know that she was the 12th fastest runner out of the 86 women that ran the event that night. She already felt on top of the world.

The 22nd Annual Montana Mile is set to begin at 7:45 p.m. on Friday at Daylis Stadium. Kailee Stoppel will be the lone MSUB women’s runner, while Ase Ackerman will be the only current runner in the men’s race. MSUB track alums Ivan Colmenero, Jorey Egeland, Carson Jessop, and Mary (Owen) Felig will also compete.