Leiher continues to refine competitive nature at end of races

Sydney Leiher cried like crazy.

She was a junior in high school at the time and had just run a personal-best time in a cross-country race.

But her personal record was only good enough for third place. She still remembers what went wrong.

“I was really mad at myself for getting passed at the end,” Leiher said. “I never wanted that to happen again.”

Leiher had kicked way too early then faded hard in the last few meters of that race, something she still struggles with as a sophomore at Syracuse. She won the Harry Groves Spiked Shoe Invitational on Sept. 13 at Penn State, but her 31st-place finish at the Coast-to-Coast Battle in Beantown in Boston on Sept. 26 points to that same problem.

Cross-country runners are taught to save energy for the end of the race and then “kick” into a higher gear and Leiher finds that her deep-rooted competitive nature has her doing it too soon.

“(Leiher) tends to go out a little too hard,” SU head coach Chris Fox said, “And that’ll catch up to you in a race.”

Leiher’s mother, Loretta, who left the military to raise her children, remembers the childhood competitions between Leiher and her brother Cody, who is 18 months older.

With Loretta’s husband in the Air Force, Leiher’s family moved multiple times while she was growing up. She was born in Louisiana, moved to Colorado for kindergarten, but began first grade in North Dakota, which is where she and Cody started playing hockey together.

Leiher fostered her competitive spirit on the ice. As much as the siblings were teammates, they were also rivals.

“Growing up with my older brother, we competed in everything,” Leiher said. “I want to win at everything I do.”

She continued playing hockey and soccer through the family’s move to Virginia, and then to their final stop in Beavercreek, Ohio.

As a seventh-grader, Leiher joined the cross-country team to stay in shape, but quickly found she loved running.

“I like racing,” she said. “I like beating people.”

Leiher liked hockey and running, but a dislocated rib, fractured elbow and two concerned parents helped her make the decision to pursue cross-country instead of Division I hockey.

After doubling down on running, Leiher methodically improved, achieving goals as quickly as she set them.

“I can’t pinpoint one particular race or event,” Amy Harshbarger, her track coach at Beavercreek High School, said. “But her (times) continuously dropped week after week.”

As she climbed the ladder, Leiher received offers from Oklahoma State, Washington and Wisconsin.

But she chose Syracuse because there was an emphasis on substance over shine.

And while winning the race is the ultimate goal, she’s working on the approach to do so while looking for a balance between competitiveness and good decision making.

“I am so competitive it’s kind of scary,” Leiher said. “I hate losing more than I even like winning.”