Jana Soethout only recalls a couple races that would flood her thoughts days and weeks before the event. The 2013 NCAA Track and Field National Championship was one of those races.
Soethout, in her first season at the University of San Francisco, had qualified to compete in the 10,000 meters against the best track athletes from schools around the country. From the moment she decided to leave Germany, where she was born and raised, and travel half a world away, Soethout knew this was the pinnacle of success for all collegiate track athletes.
The event, the competition, the venue were as good as it gets.
Soethout left home with this goal in mind.
But when the dream became reality, Soethout felt out of place and in over her head for the first time since she stepped foot on a track.
"The first season, at some point everything was just too much for me," Soethout says. "I'm like, I'm in the national finals. That's so stupid. Mentally, I was not at that point."
The nerves weren't first crippling at the starting line. They appeared and reappeared at practice, in her apartment, in the airport, surrounded by her coaches, as she prepared to fly to the race.
And on race day, anxiety didn't subside.
With thousands of onlookers, Soethout looked comfortable with each lap. She ran right with the pack. But her mind was muddled.
Four miles into the race, while in 14th place, she shocked everyone. Soethout stepped off the track.
"I regretted that decision right after," Soethout says. "It happened in a split second. Who is so stupid and qualifies for the nationals and then doesn't finish the race. I wasn't even dying and would have probably finished in the middle of the field."
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Jana Soethout grew up in Cologne, Germany's fourth-largest city, and located not far from the Belgium-Germany boarder. Her father, Guido Soethout, is the head of a financial department for a company in Cologne. Her mother, Mali Kaiser-Soethout, is a social worker. And her 22-year-old sister, Maya Soethout, is pursuing her law degree in Cologne.
Soethout comes from a family full of motivation.
"One of the most important things is that my family never put pressure on me or forced me to do anything," Soethout says. "They were always supportive but were never hard with anything, they didn't require me to get a certain GPA or study for hours or train. My sister and I could pretty much decide what we want to do, and this is why we are so ambitious with what we do, because we developed it out of our own will."
As a child, Soethout took an interest in swimming and soccer. But it was her father who sparked her interest in running.
"He does community runs all the time, and when I was in elementary school I asked him whether I could do that as well. I did my first 1K and then moved up pretty fast to 5K and 10K."
Throughout high school and as an undergraduate at the University of Cologne, Soethout ran competitively, amassing an impressive resume, which included a third place finish in the German Championships in the 10,000 meters and is a member of the 2012 team champion in a 10,000-meter road race.
After graduating from University of Colonge, Soethout had dreams of pursuing her master's degree and competing overseas. So she researched universities with affluent track and cross country programs in the States and eventually stumbled upon University of San Francisco.
At the time, its women's cross country team was fresh off its fourth consecutive West Coast Conference title and the track program was on the up.
In addition, Soethout had built a friendship with
Eva Krchova, a steeplechaser at USF who Soethout met at previous meets.
Krchova, too, was a foreign exchange student from Brno, Czech Republic, and spoke highly of the large international community USF had to offer.
The track program consisted of many runners from around the world. And the head coach,
Helen Lehman-Winters, helped her foreign runners feel at home.
"She told me about Helen as a coach, that Helen really cares about the athletes," Soethout says. "She cares about the person and not only about the sport. I had so many positive reasons to do it, so I was pretty committed."
Without hesitation Soethout signed with the Dons.
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Soethout had faced obstacles throughout her running career, but nothing like her first year at USF.
In January, just as she prepared to leave Cologne, Soethout found out there were problems with her paperwork. She had to cancel her flight. As classes began and track season got underway, Soethout sat at home wondering how long it'd be before she could join her new team.
Three weeks of the spring semester passed before she arrived in San Francisco.
Once on the track, Soethout quickly learned how deep Division 1 competition would be. In Germany, times of the best runners — amateur and professional — in the 10,000 meters — Soethout's event — were only above average compared to the NCAA.
She started to doubt herself.
"I was under immense pressure during that season," she says. "I didn't feel comfortable with my whole surrounding in the first semester. Everything was different in school and training and I didn't have the supporting people from home around me."
Then came the injuries.
Two weeks before the Stanford Invitational — her opportunity to qualify for nationals — she rolled her ankle. Still, she competed, and with her ankle swollen and wrapped, Soethout qualified.
A few more meets passed before nationals, and again, they were often marred by injuries — Soethout rolled her ankle four times that season — and crippling anxiety before and during races.
"In my first semester everything that could go wrong did," she says.
While she reached nationals, Soethout says she rarely performed at a level she'd come to expect from herself.
"Given the lack of consistency she had in training and racing, it was certainly not conducive to performing at her best at the 2013 NCAA Championship final," Lehman-Winters says. "She was overwhelmed and over-stressed, and you can't expect anyone to perform effectively at a high level in that state."
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After nationals and a summer back home, Soethout returned to USF, prepared to conquer the new year. But while recovering from an injury she suffered over the summer, Soethout was limited to two races in the 2013 cross country season. Soethout still managed to help lead the Dons to a fifth-consecutive WCC title. Her real test, though, would come in the spring.
Soethout returned to the track with a clean bill of health, and again, qualified for nationals.
Even though she didn't complete the race, having already been to Eugene helped ease her nerves this time around.
"I was excited to go there, but also scared because of the year before," Soethout says. "I was in the same situation. Again, I'm the only qualifier. I'm traveling with my coaches, alone. But that year I wanted to do better, and I knew I could do better."
During a training session, three weeks before the race, Lehman-Winters told Soethout she had the potential to run a 32:59 at nationals — more than a full minute better than her personal record in the 10,000 meters. Never had Soethout shaved that many seconds in such a short amount of time.
"I knew Jana was capable of running 33:00 or below based on her training sessions," Lehman-Winters says. "She has an incredible aerobic capacity, and she was building and gaining momentum with both her training and racing all spring."
Says Soethout, "I was like, 'yeah, sure.' I knew I was fit and I wanted to run a PR, but maybe in like 33:30, or something."
On race day, Soethout described herself as "totally nervous," but unlike the previous year, not totally overwhelmed.
Despite the stage, despite the crowd, despite the competition, this time she could race.
Soethout crossed the finish line in eighth place, with a time of 33:02.02 — a school record and almost exactly what Lehman-Winters predicted — making her the first first-team All-American in USF track and field history.
"That was not the goal," Soethout says. "The goal was to race as well as you can and see what happens. I was shocked."
Says Lehman-Winters, "Her performance was a surprise to her but certainly not to me, She was able to deliver at this level because she was fit, relaxed and focused on the process rather than the outcome."
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This Saturday, Soethout and the Dons' women's cross country team officially begin their pursuit of a sixth-consecutive WCC title in the Stanford Invitational at the Stanford Golf Course in Palo Alto.
But this year's road to the title might prove to be more difficult than the rest.
After graduating four key seniors, the Dons are largely composed of underclassmen playing larger roles than anticipated. That puts the onus on veteran runners, like Soethout, to help their younger teammates acclimate to Division 1 competition.
"I'm not the born leader," says Soethout, who is in her last season at USF and will soon graduate with a master's in sports management. "But I would say, through what I do in practice and how I behave, I show people how to do it."
Soethout has been showing how to do it since she stepped foot on the Hilltop, and now, with her collegiate career soon coming to a close, Soethout is looking toward her next goal — running marathons professionally.
As for this season, Lehman-Winters says younger runners can learn lessons from Soethout's career.
"As I look back on her first year, it really makes me appreciate how she persevered and came back to be an All-American on the track this past spring," Lehman-Winters says. "This really is a testament to her character."
