It was a simple game of tag during a middle school gym class in Maryland. You know, “Tag, you’re it!”
But Lucia Garcia-Beltran was never “it.” No one could catch her to tag her.
She was a member of the school band, and her band director happened to notice this. He pulled her aside with the gym teacher for a life-changing conversation.
“They had a lecture with me and said, ‘We need you to promise you’re going to join track in high school.’ So I joined it,” Lucia said. “Also, in middle school, we had this field day where we did different events. I always won the 40 meters, so it gave me the assurance to try out.”
She needed that assurance, for this was a girl who never knew what track was.
Garcia-Beltran lived in Spain until age 9, when her dad’s pharmaceutical job moved the family to America. She painted, sketched, knitted, danced and baked. Anything that sparked creativity. But she had never done a sport.
Unfortunately for her would-be Maryland high school, it never got her services as the family moved to Hopewell her freshman year.
She still listened to her former band director and gave running a shot at Hopewell Valley Central High School. Four years later, she is a top sprinter for the Bulldogs, and will run Division I track at Rutgers next year.
That’s something 9-year-old Lucia would have never expected.
“I didn’t even know track existed until I was a lot older,” she said, still with a trace of Spanish in her accent. “I was never really exposed to that in Spain. We don’t have a lot of sports complexes or facilities there.”
In fact, when she went back to visit family recently, Garcia-Beltran had to pay a fee to run on one of the few public tracks available.
Not that it slowed her down.
In the 55-meter sprint this past winter, she took gold in the Mercer County, Central Jersey Group III and NJSIAA Group III championships. She claimed fifth in the Meet of Champions, 13th in the Nike Nationals and 22nd in the New Balance Nationals.
But the result that made her happiest was a fifth-place finish in the U.S. Army Eastern States at the Armory in New York, when she ran a personal record of 7.17 (she finished eighth in the finals). It was the fourth best indoor time in New Jersey this year.
In Garcia-Beltran’s world, places don’t matter. The only person she is running against on earth is herself.
“Yeah, pretty much,” she said with a laugh. “I compete against myself instead of other athletes. I could be number one or number five, as long as I do better than I did last time I’m happy. If I place it’s a bonus but it’s more about getting my times better.”
Other runners have that same mindset, of course. It’s what keeps them improving. But some get satisfaction from placing in the MOC, even if they don’t get a career best time.
Not Lucia.
“Actually I wasn’t too happy with what I did at the Meet of Champs because my PR (personal record) is a little faster than that,” she said. “If I don’t PR in a meet I’m not usually content with it. I loved the result, placing was nice, but I wasn’t really satisfied.”
That is something Bulldogs sprints coach Rick Smith is trying to change. He loves that she is always striving to be better, and doesn’t want to tamper with that mindset. But he would like to see her enjoy the rewards her desire provides.
“She’s personally accountable instead of trying to pick up wins and medals,” Smith said. “She’s never happy. She’s always got her eye on the next goal, so I’m trying to bring some positivity. Sometimes you have to accept, maybe not the result you were looking for, but if you win. . . She won a lot of different championships this year so you gotta accept the positives when you’re unhappy about your times. But she’s always looking for that next best time.”
Which is the mark of a great runner and a hungry runner. Lucia is both.
Her natural skills were evident to the band director; but once she started track Garcia-Beltran knew that raw skill would only go so far.
“It’s natural speed but also a lot of form over the years,” she said. “Once you get to the point where your natural speed is at its height, you need to start relying on your form. I’m still learning a lot.”
She’s had some good teachers over the years, including former Hopewell coach Danny Johnson along with the Trenton Track Club’s Curtis Whittle, who helped turn his son and Nottingham senior Shamali into a national champion. Smith worked with sprinters at three previous schools before coming to Hopewell.
“She’s worked hard for a long time with a lot of different coaches and this is my first season working directly with her; so it was nice to have a leader on the team that’s accountable,” Smith said. “You always trust that she’s gonna do what she needs to do. She never cuts corners. She does everything the right way.”
Garcia-Beltran enters the spring with PRs of 12.49 in the 100 and 25.98 in the 200. Her goal is to break the decade-old school records of 12.22 and 24.89; but she wants to go even lower than that.
“My goal for the 100 is to go anywhere from 11.7 to 12.1,” she said. “And in the 200 I’d like to go low 24s.”
Smith may also put her in the long jump, saying “With all that speed and power, as long as she can get up in the air a little bit I think she can be a pretty good jumper too.”
As far as sprints go, Smith and his runner are working to improve her starts.
“She gets out of the blocks well, but she’ll tell you that’s an area she can improve,” the coach said. “But her explosion or power is what sets her apart. She’s got excellent footspeed.”
Lucia confirmed Smith’s comments, saying “the hardest thing has been my start, that’s the one thing I’m still trying to perfect. I don’t have it down yet.”
With her work ethic, she will likely get it down.
As for life outside of track, Garcia-Barnes is currently a permanent United States resident but is in the process of becoming naturalized. She still considers herself more Spanish than American, saying “I think I’m both, but I like to think I’m more Spanish.”
She admitted there was a culture shock upon arriving in America; but has adapted nicely.
“The values in the two countries are really different,” Lucia said. “The American culture is very unique. It’s not negative or positive, it’s just unique. I find positives in both places.”
With the biggest positive of all being a game of tag in eighth grade.
Hopewell Valley senior sprinter Lucia Garcia-Beltran will run track at Rutgers university starting next school year. (Photo by Rich Fisher.),
