Perhaps no school of any size—and certainly not one the size of the Bromfield School—can lay claim to having produced such an accomplished trio of female distance runners. Beginning in the mid-1970s, Harvard became the spawning ground for state and national champions, an Olympian—with perhaps two more to come—and arguably the greatest female cross-country runner in history.
Lynn Jennings didn’t start competitive running until she was a freshman at Bromfield in 1974. There was no girls cross country team at that time, so she joined the boys team.
Lynn Jennings. (Courtesy photo)
Lynn got off to a slow start, finishing last in all her races, but hit her stride during the spring track season. After finishing second in the mile at the state meet, she was recruited by John Babington (currently head coach of the Wellesley College cross-country team) for his Liberty Athletic Club, a Cambridge-based women’s running club. Under Babington’s tutelage, Jennings became Massachusetts cross-country champion in her sophomore, junior, and senior years.
While still in high school, Jennings twice finished third in the mile in the U.S. indoor championships, won the 1,500 meters at the U.S. juniors championship, and qualified for the 1976 Olympic trials.
Toward the end of her senior year, at the age of 17 and against Babington’s advice, Jennings ran in the Boston Marathon. She was too young to be an official entrant, but she was thrilled to be the third woman to cross the finish line.
Jennings is a fierce competitor: “I have the killer instinct,” she told the Boston Globe years ago. “I embrace a sense of superiority. I will not allow someone to be better than me.” And yet she has modest ways: Jennings wrote her undergraduate thesis at Princeton on the Shakers. “I like the simple way they did things,” she later told Sports Illustrated. “They lived for the purity of things. I try to do that too—to live as clean and pure a life as is possible.”
Jennings went on to become nine-time U.S. outdoor champion and three-time world cross-country champion. She also competed in three Olympic Games, winning a bronze medal in the 10,000 meters in 1992. Her success in cross country has made many of the sport’s experts call Jennings the greatest female competitor in history.
Jennings now lives in Portland, Ore., and is retired from competitive running. However, she still runs 50 miles per week, and has taken up competitive sculling and road biking.
Ari Lambie. (File photo)
As a Bromfield freshman in 1999, the only running Arianna (Ari) Lambie did was on the soccer field. She continued with soccer as a sophomore, and didn’t join the track team until the winter of that year. She didn’t begin cross country until her junior year.
But even with that late start, she helped the Trojan girls win three state championships in indoor and outdoor track, and two state cross-country titles.
Lambie was contacted by Jennings in her senior year. “I was awestruck by the fact that she wanted to talk to me,” Lambie said in a 2006 Elite Running interview. “I really enjoy keeping in touch with her, which we do pretty much by e-mail. Now she comes to some of my meets.”
Lambie outclassed the competition as a senior, running the nation’s fastest mile and two-mile. She also ran the fastest indoor 1,000 meters in girls high school history, and was a member of the U.S.’s record-holding 4 x 1,500-meter relay team.
Lambie continued her impressive running at Stanford. She was NCAA West Region and Pac-10 Cross Country Runner of the Year in 2006 and 2007, and was All-American in cross country and track 14 times. She is one of only four women in NCAA history to be on four Division 1 championship cross country teams.
Lambie was also a good student. She made five All-Academic cross country and track and field teams, and was the 2007 University Division Academic All-American of the Year. She graduated with a master’s degree in earth systems.
Lambie signed with Nike to become a professional runner in 2008, and made a bid for the Olympic team in the 5,000 meters. She placed sixth, but only the top three finishers were selected for the team.
She is now part of Nike’s Oregon project, where runners live and train in Beaverton, Ore., some in special houses where filters remove oxygen. This simulates living at high altitude, thus improving athletic performance. Lambie hopes to make the 2012 Olympic team.
Emily Jones. (File photo)
Reading about Lambie inspired just-graduated Emily Jones to join the Bromfield cross country team in seventh grade. Her goal in the first race, according to a June 2009 Worcester Telegram & Gazette interview, was “not to walk.” She succeeded, and later that year joined the indoor and outdoor track teams.
Since then, Jones has come a long way. She ran the fastest two-mile in the country (10:31.82) while competing in the indoor state championships in 2008. Jones later shaved a second off that time, and now has the fourth-fastest time in state history. Jennings has the fastest time at 10.10.5, and Lambie is second at 10:12.0.
Jones attributes much of her success to Bromfield’s great running legacy. In a 2008 Mile Split interview, she said, “To have Lynn Jennings and Ari Lambie as your predecessors makes anything seem possible … I’ve never been in their league, but it has been a lot of fun trying.”
When not running, Jones made good use of her time at Bromfield. She was a National Honor Society scholar and served on the Student Council. She also directed a summer running camp for elementary school children (where she coached Jennings’ niece, Patrice), and collected 300 pairs of sneakers from students and residents in a shoes4africa campaign.
Jones was an editor for the Bromfield Mirror, and covered track for the Harvard Press. She was frequently asked to write about her own great accomplishments, which she says was “a little awkward.” Jones tackled that role with great humility; at times, her name seemed to be an afterthought in her articles.
Cross country is Jones’ favorite sport, and it shows. Last year she won the Foot Locker Northeast Regional Championship, then placed 13th in the nation. Her accomplishments and character helped her become the Gatorade Massachusetts Cross-Country Runner of the Year in both her junior and senior years.
Jones will attend Georgetown University in the fall. She likes the coach there, and has been training for the upcoming cross-country season with a regimen he gave her. Jones has been running 60 miles per week (up from 40 last summer), and doing speed work and intervals on the track.
“Bromfield students have a good work ethic,” Jones says, “and Harvard is a great place to train, with lots of hills and trails.”
