This was part of my “History of girls Redwood Empire 1600m” but if your reading about the 3200 history first I wanted to add this in to give you a memory I had about her.
Before I get into the storybook career of Sara Bei I want to share one of my favorite memories of her running.
It was April 5th 1998 and I was working with Sara’s older sister Amy in the pole vault. Larry Meredith was Sara’s coach.
We were at the Oakland Relays, freshman Sara had already won the the 1600 in a school record 5:00.9.
Now came the Distance Medley. I’ve seen hundreds of high school relay races were a prep overcame a team having a huge lead on them.
Never though have I seen one like the maturity Bei showed in this one. It was driving me crazy watching it.
This race had a lot of talent in it and Sara got the baton about 150 meters down.
Any other runner would have gone out hard to start chipping away at the huge lead they were trying to overcome.
I was already to see her start closing the gap but as the first lap went she wasn’t closing even a little.
Lap two went by and I don’t think she had made up a foot on the other runner.
Third lap she she closed the gap but was still so far behind I was bummed because I thought there was no way she could pull this off.
But this was just the first of many comebacks that the whole nation would witness over the next four years.
200 meters to go and she was turning on the speed but it still seemed to much distance to over come.
Just so you know the other girl was not having one of those track dying moments but was running well. But Sara just kept coming and coming and only past her in the very last stride. The Viking 12:26.0 time was another school record and second All-Time in the Empire at the time.
(Sarah Bashel 3:56.8, Devorah Harris 60.3, Diana Rancourt 2:23.0, Sara Bei 5:05.9)
I always loved the difference between Stamps and Bei. Stamps would put the pedal to the medal from the start of a race and dare the others to try and keep up with her. Bei ran with a confidence never seeming to worry if she was in last place early on believing she could find the strength to overcome.