Photo by: Slippery Rock Sports Information
Forney running with something to prove
5/2/2019 5:00:00 PM | Women's Outdoor Track and Field, Features
MILLERSVILLE, Pa. - Clara Forney wanted to win. But not like this.
Forney, a senior with the Millersville track and field team, crossed the finish line of the PSAC Indoor Championships 400-meter dash final in 57.91--a full two seconds faster than her previous season best. She was satisfied with second place because it was her teammate and training partner Lenaiya Flowers who had edged her at the finish line by one hundredth of a second.
Moments later, however, it was determined that Flowers had cut out of her lane on a turn and was therefore disqualified. This made Forney Millersville's first-ever PSAC champ in the indoor 400 and only the fifth Marauder to win an indoor conference championship event. It was a heartbreaking moment for both Flowers and Forney. For Flowers, a misstep had possibly cost her a championship. For Forney, what should have been the crowning achievement of her four-year career could not be celebrated or enjoyed. Forney didn't think she had earned the right to stand on top of the podium with the championship plaque.
"Clara is a really good teammate and the type of person who understands her teammates and what they require based on their personality type," said Millersville sprints coach Akil Stokes. "She doesn't want people to feel bad, and she knew that in that moment the athlete disqualified was really hurt. So, Clara felt guilty about showing any kind of emotion. She didn't want to it seem as if she was celebrating while her teammate was feeling down. For the longest time she didn't feel like she deserved it."
"It was definitely mixed emotions," said Forney. "Lenaiya is the best training partner. We are always pushing each other. There were mixed emotions finishing the race. When I found out she was disqualified, I wasn't excited or happy. I felt like I didn't deserve it. I know how big it is to win, so I felt bad."
For Forney, it was an internal struggle to balance the pride of achievement with the concern for a teammate. Stokes, pondering the race, ran though the math in his head then pulled Forney aside.
"Akil told me to clap my hands," started Forney. "I did, and he said 'that's the time difference between the you and Lenaiya. Now clap your hands three times. That's the time you gain with a cut-in.'"
Stokes was demonstrating to Forney that she really did deserve to win the race. She had earned the right to be a PSAC champ with the race that she had run. It wasn't a consolation.
"It was still hard to realize that," said Forney.
Stokes believes Forney would have won had there not been the lane violation, but the win still felt tarnished to Forney. She admits that her lack of confidence has stood as a major hurdle to her running career, and the events that unfolded at indoor championships did little to help clear that hurdle. There is still doubt. But Stokes says that Forney, with her final PSAC Championships in eyeshot, is motivated to prove herself on the track. Or as Forney says: "Win it fair and square."
"I think she feels like she still has something to prove," said Stokes. "She is more motivated now. She has always struggled with confidence issues. This has been the first year where she has been very confident. She had a strong indoor season; she is healthy, and she is excited to show that 'I am one of the best runners in the PSAC and deserve to be mentioned as a favorite to win.'"
Forney has already been a member of three All-PSAC relay teams, the school record-holder in the indoor 400, and before winning the race in 2019, she finished third as a junior. She has produced a brilliant career, but it took some time before it all clicked. As a high school teammate of Sunflower Greene at nearby Conestoga Valley, Forney routinely ran a sub-60 second 400. Yet, when she got to Millersville and started training under the direction of Stokes and strength and conditioning coach Scott Weiser, her times slowed. That wasn't what she expected, and she lost faith in her abilities as a runner.
"She came in very talented," said Stokes. "The only thing that has hurt her was her confidence. A lot of athletes are number chasers. Our sport is a little bit different in that we don't expect to be at our best every single meet. We have meets that we prep for. The process with how we train is that we have some really tough training blocks and your body will feel [bad] but when it matters the most you are going to be good. In her mind, if she didn't go out and put up a better time each and every race, it is like a failure and she started doubting herself. When she starts doubting herself, you can see it mid-race. She will just clock out."
Stokes, a former United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Atlantic Region Assistant Coach of the Year, has a long track record of developing sprinters and hurdlers. There are All-Americans and PSAC champs like Kiara Allen and Erin Madison and All-PSAC performers like Arianna Camel, Courtney Ingold and Brittany Yanora. Every single one of them improved dramatically from their freshman to senior seasons. For Forney, though, it was one thing to look at record books and a resume, and another thing entirely to trust the process—especially when results weren't immediate.
"It was hard," said Forney. "My senior year of high school was very successful, and I had expectations for what times I should be running. I wasn't running those times. It was difficult. You are supposed to trust [the coaches] but you aren't seeing the results right away."
Times initially slip because Stokes and Weiser break down runners in order to make them better versions of themselves in the long run. For freshmen unaccustomed to that level of training, they feel sore, slow and like there is never a chance to recover.
"The training was completely different," said Forney. "They destroy your body in your first year and you have to trust the process because you aren't seeing results."
"Typically the first thing we do is look for technical deficiencies, break old habits and install good habits right away," explained Stokes. "When you do that the athlete is going to get slower because they are thinking about what they are doing. The other issue is getting them stronger. We have a weight-lifting program here that is unlike anything else in our conference. We have an Olympic-style program to get you stronger. The issue is that most are not used to doing that for an entire season. Usually it takes a good part of the freshman season to adjust, and we don't see a boost or return on that investment until mid-way through their sophomore or into their junior year. Once you have that strength level and are running the correct way you see massive improvements, but it is hard the first year or so because you feel tired all the time. You just have to trust that in the big picture it's going to pay off. Maybe not right now."
The mind affected the body for Forney. She did not qualify for the PSAC Championships in the 400 in either of her first two seasons. She didn't qualify for any individual event in her freshman indoor season. She improved to a sixth-place finish in the indoor 200 as a sophomore but placed 16th in her lone individual race at the outdoor championships her sophomore season.
"I would wonder, 'Do I actually belong here? Can I actually compete?'" said Forney. "I would look around at the other girls in my heat and think, 'there is no way I can run against them.' I had to overcome myself. I was in my own way."
Fortunately, Stokes understood and was always there with an encouraging word.
"We would talk about it," said Forney. "For me it was hard because you lose confidence in yourself when you don't see the results you want to see. Akil would always remind me that I can compete--that I do belong here. It took me a while to realize that I can compete at that level. Once I started believing it, things started to take off."
Forney's aha moment came at the 2018 PSAC Indoor Championships. She entered the meet seeded sixth in the 400 but then ripped off a school-record 57.82--far better than her 58.62 seed time—and placed third.
"Last year at the indoor championships, I thought to myself, 'What do I have to lose? Who cares who is in your heat. Just go run and have fun.' It was about running because I wanted to run. Then I started seeing results. I was worrying about myself and not about others."
Stokes thinks another key moment came three months later at the 2018 PSAC Outdoor Championships.
"A game-changing moment was at the outdoor championships," said Stokes. "Clara was in lane one and had run a great race to get to the finals. She had been injured the entire outdoor season and had trained only one or two times. She was stuck in lane one which is historically a bad lane. Before the race I talked to her and said, 'at the start, everyone is going to look like they are way out ahead of you but don't clock out. It will make itself up as soon as you get around that second curve.' Exactly what I didn't want to happen happened. She was running fine, doing everything she was supposed to do but she started seeing all the athletes ahead of her and thought to herself 'wow, I shouldn't be here,' and she checked out."
Forney ran a 1:01.61 in the finals after posting a 57.79 in the prelims. It was a disappointing finish, but the team still needed Forney for the championship-closing 4x400-meter relay. The Marauders were tied for second place and needed a career performance in the relay. A top finish would mean the program's best finish at the PSAC Championships since 1996. (Watch the championship race here)
"After that [400] I talked to her," said Stokes. "At this point, she was mature enough to know what she did. She said 'Coach, yes, it got to me.' I reminded her that we had a relay to win and to come back strong. She came back and ran her best race ever."
With Forney running the third leg, the relay team broke the school record by more than three seconds with a 3:49.19 and won the race by nearly two seconds over host Slippery Rock. Forney took the baton at almost the same moment that Slippery Rock exchanged, but she built a three-second lead for the Marauders in one lap before handing it to anchor Aniya Gibbs.
"She watched herself run that race on video and there was a switched that flipped," said Stokes. "That was the moment when she started believing in herself so much more."
"Last year's performance definitely fueled me," said Forney. "That was when I finally realized what I could do. And this being my last year, I want to lay it all out on the line."
Forney, the sixth of seven children, started racing when her grandfather would time her and her siblings running through the house. Now, a confident Forney hopes to end her career on top of the PSAC podium again. This time, leaving no room for doubt.
"That would mean a lot," said Forney. "The past four years, the ups and downs, the hard work, the days when you don't feel like coming, it all meant something. It all wasn't for nothing. It would be a great accomplishment."
Forney, a senior with the Millersville track and field team, crossed the finish line of the PSAC Indoor Championships 400-meter dash final in 57.91--a full two seconds faster than her previous season best. She was satisfied with second place because it was her teammate and training partner Lenaiya Flowers who had edged her at the finish line by one hundredth of a second.
Moments later, however, it was determined that Flowers had cut out of her lane on a turn and was therefore disqualified. This made Forney Millersville's first-ever PSAC champ in the indoor 400 and only the fifth Marauder to win an indoor conference championship event. It was a heartbreaking moment for both Flowers and Forney. For Flowers, a misstep had possibly cost her a championship. For Forney, what should have been the crowning achievement of her four-year career could not be celebrated or enjoyed. Forney didn't think she had earned the right to stand on top of the podium with the championship plaque.
"Clara is a really good teammate and the type of person who understands her teammates and what they require based on their personality type," said Millersville sprints coach Akil Stokes. "She doesn't want people to feel bad, and she knew that in that moment the athlete disqualified was really hurt. So, Clara felt guilty about showing any kind of emotion. She didn't want to it seem as if she was celebrating while her teammate was feeling down. For the longest time she didn't feel like she deserved it." "It was definitely mixed emotions," said Forney. "Lenaiya is the best training partner. We are always pushing each other. There were mixed emotions finishing the race. When I found out she was disqualified, I wasn't excited or happy. I felt like I didn't deserve it. I know how big it is to win, so I felt bad."
For Forney, it was an internal struggle to balance the pride of achievement with the concern for a teammate. Stokes, pondering the race, ran though the math in his head then pulled Forney aside.
"Akil told me to clap my hands," started Forney. "I did, and he said 'that's the time difference between the you and Lenaiya. Now clap your hands three times. That's the time you gain with a cut-in.'"
Stokes was demonstrating to Forney that she really did deserve to win the race. She had earned the right to be a PSAC champ with the race that she had run. It wasn't a consolation.
"It was still hard to realize that," said Forney.
Stokes believes Forney would have won had there not been the lane violation, but the win still felt tarnished to Forney. She admits that her lack of confidence has stood as a major hurdle to her running career, and the events that unfolded at indoor championships did little to help clear that hurdle. There is still doubt. But Stokes says that Forney, with her final PSAC Championships in eyeshot, is motivated to prove herself on the track. Or as Forney says: "Win it fair and square."
"I think she feels like she still has something to prove," said Stokes. "She is more motivated now. She has always struggled with confidence issues. This has been the first year where she has been very confident. She had a strong indoor season; she is healthy, and she is excited to show that 'I am one of the best runners in the PSAC and deserve to be mentioned as a favorite to win.'"
Forney has already been a member of three All-PSAC relay teams, the school record-holder in the indoor 400, and before winning the race in 2019, she finished third as a junior. She has produced a brilliant career, but it took some time before it all clicked. As a high school teammate of Sunflower Greene at nearby Conestoga Valley, Forney routinely ran a sub-60 second 400. Yet, when she got to Millersville and started training under the direction of Stokes and strength and conditioning coach Scott Weiser, her times slowed. That wasn't what she expected, and she lost faith in her abilities as a runner.
"She came in very talented," said Stokes. "The only thing that has hurt her was her confidence. A lot of athletes are number chasers. Our sport is a little bit different in that we don't expect to be at our best every single meet. We have meets that we prep for. The process with how we train is that we have some really tough training blocks and your body will feel [bad] but when it matters the most you are going to be good. In her mind, if she didn't go out and put up a better time each and every race, it is like a failure and she started doubting herself. When she starts doubting herself, you can see it mid-race. She will just clock out."
Stokes, a former United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Atlantic Region Assistant Coach of the Year, has a long track record of developing sprinters and hurdlers. There are All-Americans and PSAC champs like Kiara Allen and Erin Madison and All-PSAC performers like Arianna Camel, Courtney Ingold and Brittany Yanora. Every single one of them improved dramatically from their freshman to senior seasons. For Forney, though, it was one thing to look at record books and a resume, and another thing entirely to trust the process—especially when results weren't immediate. "It was hard," said Forney. "My senior year of high school was very successful, and I had expectations for what times I should be running. I wasn't running those times. It was difficult. You are supposed to trust [the coaches] but you aren't seeing the results right away."
Times initially slip because Stokes and Weiser break down runners in order to make them better versions of themselves in the long run. For freshmen unaccustomed to that level of training, they feel sore, slow and like there is never a chance to recover.
"The training was completely different," said Forney. "They destroy your body in your first year and you have to trust the process because you aren't seeing results."
"Typically the first thing we do is look for technical deficiencies, break old habits and install good habits right away," explained Stokes. "When you do that the athlete is going to get slower because they are thinking about what they are doing. The other issue is getting them stronger. We have a weight-lifting program here that is unlike anything else in our conference. We have an Olympic-style program to get you stronger. The issue is that most are not used to doing that for an entire season. Usually it takes a good part of the freshman season to adjust, and we don't see a boost or return on that investment until mid-way through their sophomore or into their junior year. Once you have that strength level and are running the correct way you see massive improvements, but it is hard the first year or so because you feel tired all the time. You just have to trust that in the big picture it's going to pay off. Maybe not right now."
The mind affected the body for Forney. She did not qualify for the PSAC Championships in the 400 in either of her first two seasons. She didn't qualify for any individual event in her freshman indoor season. She improved to a sixth-place finish in the indoor 200 as a sophomore but placed 16th in her lone individual race at the outdoor championships her sophomore season.
"I would wonder, 'Do I actually belong here? Can I actually compete?'" said Forney. "I would look around at the other girls in my heat and think, 'there is no way I can run against them.' I had to overcome myself. I was in my own way."
Fortunately, Stokes understood and was always there with an encouraging word.
"We would talk about it," said Forney. "For me it was hard because you lose confidence in yourself when you don't see the results you want to see. Akil would always remind me that I can compete--that I do belong here. It took me a while to realize that I can compete at that level. Once I started believing it, things started to take off." Forney's aha moment came at the 2018 PSAC Indoor Championships. She entered the meet seeded sixth in the 400 but then ripped off a school-record 57.82--far better than her 58.62 seed time—and placed third.
"Last year at the indoor championships, I thought to myself, 'What do I have to lose? Who cares who is in your heat. Just go run and have fun.' It was about running because I wanted to run. Then I started seeing results. I was worrying about myself and not about others."
Stokes thinks another key moment came three months later at the 2018 PSAC Outdoor Championships.
"A game-changing moment was at the outdoor championships," said Stokes. "Clara was in lane one and had run a great race to get to the finals. She had been injured the entire outdoor season and had trained only one or two times. She was stuck in lane one which is historically a bad lane. Before the race I talked to her and said, 'at the start, everyone is going to look like they are way out ahead of you but don't clock out. It will make itself up as soon as you get around that second curve.' Exactly what I didn't want to happen happened. She was running fine, doing everything she was supposed to do but she started seeing all the athletes ahead of her and thought to herself 'wow, I shouldn't be here,' and she checked out."
Forney ran a 1:01.61 in the finals after posting a 57.79 in the prelims. It was a disappointing finish, but the team still needed Forney for the championship-closing 4x400-meter relay. The Marauders were tied for second place and needed a career performance in the relay. A top finish would mean the program's best finish at the PSAC Championships since 1996. (Watch the championship race here)
"After that [400] I talked to her," said Stokes. "At this point, she was mature enough to know what she did. She said 'Coach, yes, it got to me.' I reminded her that we had a relay to win and to come back strong. She came back and ran her best race ever."
With Forney running the third leg, the relay team broke the school record by more than three seconds with a 3:49.19 and won the race by nearly two seconds over host Slippery Rock. Forney took the baton at almost the same moment that Slippery Rock exchanged, but she built a three-second lead for the Marauders in one lap before handing it to anchor Aniya Gibbs.
"She watched herself run that race on video and there was a switched that flipped," said Stokes. "That was the moment when she started believing in herself so much more."
"Last year's performance definitely fueled me," said Forney. "That was when I finally realized what I could do. And this being my last year, I want to lay it all out on the line."
Forney, the sixth of seven children, started racing when her grandfather would time her and her siblings running through the house. Now, a confident Forney hopes to end her career on top of the PSAC podium again. This time, leaving no room for doubt.
"That would mean a lot," said Forney. "The past four years, the ups and downs, the hard work, the days when you don't feel like coming, it all meant something. It all wasn't for nothing. It would be a great accomplishment."
Players Mentioned
Sprints
/ Women's Outdoor Track and Field
Sprints
/ Women's Outdoor Track and Field
Mid-Distance
/ Women's Outdoor Track and Field
Throws
/ Women's Outdoor Track and Field
Sprints
/ Women's Outdoor Track and Fieldvs. Millersville Metrics
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3x PSAC Champ Hannah Woelfling and Coach B talk about the record-setting performance
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PSAC Track & Field Championships Preview with Coach Andy Young
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Highlights: 40th Millersville Metrics
Tuesday, April 04
