Cross Country News
Concordia's record-setting Andria Castillo (Sheese) is on the run, all the time
By Ken Goe, The Oregonian
March 02, 2010, 5:49PM
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| Concordia University distance runners, Andria Castillo, 32, left, and Lauren Moran workout at Fernhill Park in Northeast Portland Wednesday 2/17/10. |
Someday, when Andria Castillo is a hospital CEO or running an entire health system, trying to cram 25 hours into a 24-hour day, maybe she will remember the spring of 2010, when her life was really difficult.
Castillo, who turns 33 this month, is working for Medical Staffing Network, raising three children, taking a full load of classes and beating athletes a decade her junior in distance races as a member of the Concordia University track team.
"She is like Wonder Woman," Concordia teammate Jenna Olson says.
Castillo holds school records in the 1,500 and 5,000 meters, and she placed third in the 1,500 at the 2009 NAIA outdoor championships.
All with a schedule that would bring mere mortals to their knees.
Then again, most mortals don't have Castillo's determination.
"If I set a goal, I don't want to just meet the goal," she says. "I want to go past it."
The NAIA took notice, recently honoring Castillo with the Citizenship Through Sports Alliance's "All That's Right in Sports" award.
The award is given to an athlete who contributes at a high level in and out of the arena.
Forgive Castillo if she puts the celebration on hold.
The NAIA indoor championships begin Thursday in Johnson City, Tenn. Castillo, who is separated from her husband and sometimes listed in meet results as Andria Scheese, will run the mile and, probably, a leg of the distance medley relay for the Northeast Portland university.
She is coming off a broken left foot that cost her most of the cross country season and much of her training base. That could be a problem this week against national-championship competition.
But don't underestimate her. Castillo plays to win.
"When you think about where she has come from and the obstacles she has overcome, the fact she is developing into a national-class runner is icing on the cake," says Concordia track and field coach Randy Dalzell.
While a teen, Castillo quit the Oregon City High School track team, partly because she wasn't getting along with her coach and partly because her extended family needed her to contribute to the household income.
She went to work at McDonald's at 16. A little more than a year later, she was managing the restaurant.
"They had to get corporate approval for that," Castillo says. "They're, like, 'We've never done anything like this before.' That was exciting for me."
She got married at 19 and her first child followed. But after eight years at McDonald's, Castillo began to wonder if there wasn't more to life,
Her marriage broke up and she began working for Kaiser Permanente, rising from a packaging clerk position in the pharmacy to a job scheduling nurses.
At this point, she was nearing 30, had two more children and had hit the employment ceiling at Kaiser for a person without a college degree.
Her younger sister talked her into a running a road race. Castillo clicked off a series of seven-minute miles and began to think that, maybe, running might help pay for a college education.
Which is how she found herself in a meeting with Clackamas Community College track coach Keoni McHone, trying to talk her way onto the team.
"She had no race experience and very little running experience," McHone says. "I said, 'We'll try it out and see how it goes.'"
By the spring, McHone's aging freshman, with a half-year of training, had clocked a 5,000 time of 18 minutes, 46 seconds.
"She really blossomed," he says.
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