As a freshman, Donn Cabral wasn’t the slowest runner on his soccer team.
He was the second-slowest.
So he went out for track to improve his speed. At first glance, then-Glastonbury track coach Peter Oviatt didn’t think much of him. He wasn’t very big. He ran the 400 meters in 68 seconds, no indication that he would run the fastest high school mile in the country this spring, or break a 25-year-old record at last fall’s Foot Locker Northeast Regional cross country meet at Van Cortlandt Park.
Cabral wore a cast on one arm that first day. Oviatt couldn’t remember if it was broken or what, but he remembered thinking of Cabral as a small, easily injured, not very fast soccer player.
But as the track season progressed, Oviatt noticed Cabral’s determination and work ethic. He got faster. By the time he broke 10 minutes in the 2-mile by the end of the spring, they were talking about him joining the cross country team in the fall.
When Cabral decided to drop soccer in favor of running, his father John, who had coached him in soccer, was stunned.
“I wasn’t going to stand in his way,” John said. “I sort of didn’t believe it. I didn’t think I’d ever enjoy watching a cross country meet. I had never been to one.
“I got into it quite a bit. I was slow to learn the sport. But it was probably good, because I didn’t have too many opinions.”
ANOTHER SOCCER PLAYER
Anna Shields tried soccer, too. Unlike Cabral, she wasn’t very good at it.
But she was fast, so she joined her middle school track team in seventh grade when her family moved to Harwinton.
The first time she ran a mile, she finished last, but she wasn’t discouraged.
“I was proud of myself for finishing the race,” Shields said. “I wanted to do it again. I liked improving.”
The next year, her goal was to break the school record in the 1,600 (5:52). She did that in her first meet. By the end of the 2005 season, she had set a 13-14 age group record (5:18.86) that still stands at the state Hershey Track meet.
As a freshman at Lewis Mills-Burlington, she finished sixth in the State Open in cross country and won the 3,200 at the State Open track meet. She was on her way to becoming the one of the best female distance runners in the state.
Shields and Cabral are The Courant’s 2008 Outdoor Track Athletes of the Year.
AUSPICIOUS START
Cabral, now a senior, burst onto the cross country scene as a sophomore with his former soccer teammate Robbie Duggan, finishing behind two of the state’s best distance runners, Tradelle Ward and Chris Croff of Griswold, at the first meet of the season, the Windham Invitational.
At the time, Ward had no idea who Cabral was, but he said that day that he wanted to find out.
He would, and so would everybody else in the sport. Cabral won his first of three Class LL championships that fall. As a junior, he won the State Open and the New England titles and qualified for the regional Foot Locker championships at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.
He finished seventh. Despite his other accomplishments, that remains the race he is most proud of.
“That kind of solidified it, for me, that I could run with the best runners in the country,” Cabral said.
Last fall, he won everything again, setting a record (15:09) at the Foot Locker regional meet. He was only disappointed at the end, in the Foot Locker national race in San Diego, where he went all out and tried to win, but ended up finishing eighth.
OVERCOMING ADVERSITY
Shields likes cross country as much as Cabral does. She just wasn’t having as much luck with it.
After her sixth-place finish in the Open as a freshman, she dropped to 63rd the next year. Maybe, she thought, she would be one of those girls who peaks as a freshman, then goes downhill as she grows and develops.
It turned out that she was anemic.
Injuries have dogged Shields, a junior, throughout high school. Last summer, she sprained a foot and for a while, she thought it was a stress fracture. She trained gingerly and finished second in Class SS and 19th at the State Open last fall.
“I was pretty disappointed,” she said. “So I started training really hard for indoor track.”
She won the 1,000 and the 1,600 at the State Open and the 1,000 at the New Englands, then capped off her indoor season with a victory in the 5,000 (17:38.57) at the Nike Indoor national championships.
“All throughout the season, I had been focusing on the 1,000 and the mile,” she said. “I was trying to get a time for the 5,000. I wasn’t expecting to win at all. I went out really hard from the gun. I had a lot of adrenaline and I kept the lead the whole way.
“I had a really big lead 2 miles in. I split a very fast 2 miles [10:59]. I was dying after that, and [the others] were getting closer, but I held them off.”
She followed that up with her personal best in the mile at the Penn Relays, where she finished fourth in 4:48.52, a state record for the girls mile, and the fourth fastest time in the country.
It was the first time she had ever run at Franklin Field.
“There were a couple other Connecticut girls there and we were kind of intimidated,” Shields said. “I was prepared for the race to go out fast. There were a couple girls ahead of me the whole way and I was determined not to lose contact with them.
“They had a huge kick at the end and left me behind. I managed not to die completely. I was really happy.”
Shields kept on going, setting records in the 1,600 at the Class M meet (5:00.03) and the State Open (4:55.22).
WHAT’S NEXT
This spring, Cabral ran what was then the fastest high school mile in the country (4:09.80) at the Hartford Public Invitational. He also set state records in the 5,000 (14:32.60) and the 2-mile (8:56.35).
His left foot started to bother him toward the end of the season and he was diagnosed with a slight tear in his plantar fascia last week.
This fall, he will run at Princeton. But first, he will compete in the 10,000 meters at the IAAF World Junior Championships in Poland July 8-13. Cabral qualified by finishing second (30:50.28) at the USA Junior Track & Field championships.
“I probably won’t start running again until a week before the race,” he said last week. “I’m doing a lot of cross training now.”
Next year, as a senior, Shields would like to make it to Foot Locker Nationals in cross country, a goal that has eluded her.
Her ultimate goal is to represent her country in the Olympics.
When Cabral was 7, he remembered watching the 1996 Summer Olympics, and waving a little American flag. That year, when he went to swimming lessons, he gave the flag to his dad and instructed him to wave it. John obliged.
“Now he wants to go to Poland and wave the flag,” Donn said.
DONN CABRAL
Glastonbury senior
Holds state two-mile (8:56.35) and 5,000 meter (14:32.60) records
State Open 3,200 meter champion
Member, State Open 4×800 relay champion
Class LL 3,200 meter champion
Won the Hartford Public Invitational mile (4:09.80), fastest high school mile in the country at the time
Second, 10,000 meters, USATF Junior Outdoor Track national championships (30:50.28), 2008, qualified for IAAF world championships in Poland, July 8-13.
ANNA SHIELDS
Lewis Mills-Burlington junior
State mile record (4:48.52), Penn Relays
State Open 1,600 record (4:55.22)
Class M 1,600 record (5:00.03)
State Open 3,200 champion
Class M 800, 3,200 champion
lriley@courant.com.
