Defending Millrose Girls HS Mile champ Tauro has come a long way in a short time
Posted Thursday, 1 February, 2007
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- Danielle Tauro can't help but giggle when recalling her introduction to competitive running a little more than three years ago.
"I didn't have any idea what I was doing," she said. "I couldn't run a mile without stopping. I thought I was dying."
Since then, the senior at Southern Regional High School on the New Jersey shore has developed into the nation's fastest high school girls' miler. On Friday night, she'll defend her Millrose Games prep title at Madison Square Garden.
Last June at the outdoor national high school championships, Tauro won the mile in 4 minutes, 39 seconds, which put her in Track & Field News' all-time top 10 for high school runners alongside luminaries such as Kim Gallagher, Lynn Jennings and Mary Decker.
It has been a steady upward climb from the day Southern track coach Brian Zatorski saw Tauro, then an eighth grader, walking down the hall and decided to make her his next project.
"When I saw her forearms, they had veins that looked like drinking straws," Zatorski said. "You could tell she was already a big-time kid just walking the halls in eighth grade. Any coach worth his salt would have thought the same thing."
Up to that point, Tauro's passion was the theater, and she had been active in plays and musicals since she was 9. Her athletic pursuits extended mainly to a few recreation-league sports and the national physical fitness test given to all elementary school students.
Tauro's early performances didn't turn too many heads on the local high school running scene; in fact, her times as a freshman on the cross country team hovered in the 25- to 27-minute range for 5 kilometers, or between 8 and 9 minutes per mile.
Then, something clicked during the indoor track season. Her times began to drop steadily, until she was running miles at a pace closer to 5 minutes. Zatorski said the improvements continued during the outdoor season when she began to break the 5-minute barrier.
Zatorski describes Tauro as a perfectionist. She says she tries to keep her mind clear during a race, but credits part of her improvement to a mental adjustment.
"You have to learn when it's physical and you're stressing and when it's mental and you're telling yourself you can't do it," she said. "I think I learned that freshman year. One day I just really started thinking positive, telling myself I feel great, and in that race it worked."
It has continued to work, aided by a strategy that takes advantage of Tauro's blazing speed in the final lap of a race. She used her blistering kick to blow away the field last year at the high school championships, the U.S. junior nationals and the Millrose Games, and has continued to excel this year with wins indoors at major meets in New York and Boston.
"She can close like a college runner as far as the last 150 to 300 meters of a race," said Michigan assistant track coach Mike McGuire, who will coach Tauro for the Wolverines next fall. "It's extraordinary for a high school kid to have that kind of closing speed."
The biggest obstacle Tauro has had to overcome cropped up last fall when she was running in a cross country race to qualify for the national championships. She collapsed just short of the finish line and later was diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis, a condition in which muscle membranes begin to break down and leak potassium into the blood.
Tauro said she has fully recovered, and attributed the collapse to a combination of factors including a hectic schedule of competitions and college visits compounded by an illness in the days leading up to the race.
She'll be the clear favorite at this year's Millrose Games, in contrast to a year ago when she came from back in the pack to surprise a field that included defending champion Aislynn Ryan of Warwick Valley, N.Y.
McGuire feels Tauro has more room to improve and can excel at the collegiate level and beyond, possibly even on the world stage. Despite her numerous accomplishments, Tauro has retained a degree of humility that seems genuine.
"I watch those girls race and I'm like, 'Oh man, I wonder if I can run a race like that," Tauro said. "I think if I keep continuing to improve I can hopefully get to that level."
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