SEATTLE - Athletes push their bodies to the limit every day. They commit to their sport physically and mentally in a way most can't even imagine. Coming from Adelaide, Australia, Izzi Batt-Doyle is no stranger to the will it takes to succeed. Now a junior on the cross country and track teams, her lengthy path to UW is highlighted by her desire to compete at the highest level.
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Growing up, Batt-Doyle took it upon herself to excel. Rather than depending on school programs to play a sport like in the U.S., kids compete on club teams. Her parents ran marathons to set the tone and her older sister joined a running club when she was younger. Not wanting to be left out, Batt-Doyle joined a club when she was eight years old and never looked back.
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"I started making cross country nationals when I was 10 or 11," said Batt-Doyle. "Then I just ended up running through high school and running my way to America."
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When she was in her last year at Seymour College, she started receiving Facebook messages from college coaches in the U.S. She reached out to friends who had also left Australia to compete in various sports, and quickly made the decision that it was something she wanted to do as well. Just as she committed to running when she was younger, she now was set on going to the U.S. to train competitively.
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At this point in her running career, she was winning almost every race she competed in, and was only challenged at the Junior Cross Country or Track Championships once a year. To really get to where she wanted to be as an athlete, she chose to attend St. John's University in New York City. A school of about 20,000 students in the Big East Conference, it was exactly what she needed when she first arrived in the U.S.
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"I think coming straight to UW for me would have been probably a shock," reflected Batt-Doyle. "So going through a school where I had the opportunity to be challenged a little bit but also find success and establish myself as a runner and a person helped me make that transition."
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At St. John's she quickly proved that her success in Australia translated internationally. As a freshman, she was the Big East Champion in the steeplechase, broke two school records and qualified for NCAA East Prelims. Running cross-country in the fall of her second year, she consistently led the team with top finishes. It was at this point she realized she wanted to make another change.
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"I knew that the Pac-12 was a competitive conference so when I looked at the schools, Washington stuck out to me as something that looked great," said Batt-Doyle, explaining her decision to move across the country. "I knew before I came out for a visit that I wanted to go here."
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In her first track season at UW, Batt-Doyle made an impact right away, running the third best steeplechase time in school history and qualifying for the NCAA West Prelims. However, the intensity of a new program and the competition she faced at NCAA's tested her. The experience of her first season at Washington was a wake-up call that she was going to have to train harder than ever.
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"Last year, I expected to make it to Nationals," said Batt-Doyle. "Even though I had a little injury mid-season, I still expected I was going to make it and not making it was one of the hardest things ever."
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Proving to herself that she could endure such a challenge was important then, but even more essential when she learned she was suffering from chronic posterior tibial tendonitis after the 2016 cross country season. She was forced to redshirt the indoor track season and didn't run consistently for four months.
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Just two months ago, she still wasn't running. However, with a lot of focused rehab exercises and careful management of her training, she worked her way back to compete in the Stanford Invitational on April 1. Since then she won the 3,000-meters at the UW-WSU Dual with nearly a meet record time of 9:25, and ran a new career-best in the 1,500m of 4:21.30.
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"I made the decision that I was going to try my hardest and I was just smashing the cross training," said Batt-Doyle. "Just in terms of getting back and being on the track, I'm really excited."
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Although the injury didn't sideline her, it did force her to move out of her comfort zone. Normally right now she would be preparing for the steeplechase. However, the jumping impact that the event requires could counteract the recovery of her lower leg injury. Instead, this year at the Pac-12 Championships, Batt-Doyle will run the 10,000-meters for the first time in her career.
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"I'm really excited because I've always wanted to run a 10k," said Batt-Doyle. "I don't feel like maybe I've had as much preparation in terms of mileage that I would do it if was a perfect world, but no season's perfect and if I can get those good efforts in then that's what's really going to pay off."
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Izzi Batt-Doyle was the No. 3 finisher for the Huskies at the NCAA Cross Country Championships this past fall.
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Going the longest distance on the track is nothing compared to how far Batt-Doyle has traveled the past three years. Before leaving Adelaide, she wondered about the differences in American culture and worried about being an ocean away from her life's support system. But Batt-Doyle came to realize "America is more similar to Australia than maybe I would have thought. I think you have a depiction of what America is like from American movies and that kind of thing. A lot of that is true, but living in America sometimes I could close my eyes and I could be in Australia, it's not very different in terms of food, people, values, culture in general."
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Like most freshmen, she dealt with expected homesickness, "but I think as time goes on that becomes less of an issue as you become more independent," she says. "There are definitely times when it's harder, when I'm having a hard day at school or having a hard workout or race and you just want your mom there, but even so, I realized that distance is kind of irrelevant past a certain point. Me being from Australia and how many thousands of miles away that is can really feel the same as someone living an hour out of Seattle. Even if you have the option there, it's not going to happen probably with everything we have going on."
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Batt-Doyle noticed differences in the "vibe" between the East and West Coasts and prefers the West, thinking it is a bit more similar to America. The U.S. does have a few advantages as well, including, much to Batt-Doyle's delight, cheap avocados, which she says might cost over five dollars back home.
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"There are still some expressions that I find confusing, or things that I say; 'jumper' is probably the most common one that I say to people, and they look at me and I say 'oh, sweatshirt.'"
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Preparing for a new event while rallying back from an injury, Batt-Doyle has drawn on the self-determination she used when she was just beginning her running career. Having qualified for NCAA Prelims twice already, she is hoping her new mindset will take her to the NCAA Outdoor Championships for the first time. Although she doesn't know what event she will be running yet, she's motivated to succeed and enjoying the process.
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"I think just this season I am grateful for every day that I am running," said Batt-Doyle. "I'm just really excited every time I step on the track and I'm not necessarily expecting anything but just giving everything."
Leaving one continent behind and going from one end of America to the other, Batt-Doyle has made a new home for herself at Washington.
