After competing at the U20 World Championships, Laura Dickinson adjusts to collegiate running

At the Virginia Challenge last April, Laura Dickinson felt crowded as she approached an upcoming hurdle. She was in unfamiliar territory — caught in the middle of a pack with bodies all around her. She was closed-in. She felt off-balance. Dickinson lifted her leg to clear the steeple, tripped, and landed in a face-plant.

At the time, Dickinson was relatively new to Syracuse. It was just her second collegiate race after competing internationally for Canada, and she was still adjusting to college life, a new training routine, and a new setting.

Five months later, Dickinson looked back on her fall and laughed. She isn’t embarrassed about it. She just won’t forget it.

“With every race that you run, you learn a little bit about yourself,” Dickinson said. “Each experience is another way to learn how to be good.”

The gap between NCAA running and international running has exposed a tough transition for the redshirt freshman: running as part of a team instead of running as an individual. For the first time, she’s training with 18 other teammates instead of training by herself. She feels less confident when she’s in the middle of a pack, even when surrounded by teammates. Since she arrived at SU in January 2018, Dickinson has had to adapt and evolve.

“She’s a perfectionist,” said Peter Stuart, her current and longtime coach in Canada. “And so with any sizeable change, she can adapt to it, but it takes her a little bit of time.”

Stuart first trained with Dickinson when she was 13 years old. He marveled at her natural abilities as soon as he saw her run. She was light on her feet. Her technique was sound. Stuart saw the same endurance that made her soccer and basketball coaches keep her in for entire games.

What impressed Stuart the most, however, was how she handled her training independently. Dickinson couldn’t make all of the scheduled practices because she lived 90 minutes away from where Stuart trained. So at 14 years old, she took it upon herself to keep up with her training.

“I really loved it,” Dickinson said. “I loved the idea of being able to push yourself and seeing the direct results from the effort that you put in.”

What was a chore for most teenagers became Dickinson’s release. She relished running. She loved the outdoors. After a long day of school, she would look forward to stepping outside and de-stressing with a run.

But when she first came to Syracuse in the dead of winter, she completed hour-long runs indoors. She was the only freshman to enroll in January, and she had never been away from her parents for long periods of time.

“It was like having a new girl but there was no one around her that was also going through it for the first time,” teammate Rachel Bonner said. “She handled it like a champ and is running really well.”

When Dickinson runs alone, she’s in charge of her pace, her training and her individual goals. She’s still the same runner who adjusted to race in the stark conditions of El Salvador and Finland in the IAAF U20 World Championships, less than 24 hours after her plane landed. All her life she had been used to running alone in front of other packs. She was confident. She was in control.

But at the Virginia Challenge, she lost it. She feels nervous when not in front. Every day, when she trains with her teammates, she learns to trust herself more when arms and legs surround her.

“Being able to work with my teammates every day has been a big thing,” Dickinson said. “I’ve learned to love the process of training with a group.”

This year, SU will rely on its depth for results. SU’s top 10 runners all have potential to crack into the top five, Bonner said. They will increasingly rely on different runners stepping up when they’re needed the most.

Head coach Brien Bell remains uncertain on how successful this team can be, but sees potential heading into his first season as full-time head coach. He has high expectations for Dickinson’s redshirt freshman season.

Dickinson still wants success for herself. Last year, she made the ACC championships for the steeplechase in track and field. She wants to find her ceiling, something she believes she’s yet to reach.

Unlike her years competing for Canada, it’s with the team success as her priority.

“All of the girls on the team have the goal of team success this year,” Dickinson said. “We all know that we’re going to surprise people and do big things.”