Tipton's Miller, Iowa State's Uhl set to shine

DES MOINES - Ashley Miller faces a crossroads.

Lisa Uhl, she's in transition.

All of which makes the USATF Outdoor Track and Field Championships today through Sunday at Drake Stadium both exciting and pressure-packed for two of Iowa's best-ever female distance runners.

“My time's going to come,” said Miller, the former Tipton star who saw a painful muscle injury severely limit her track time in the indoor season. “I just have to have a positive outlook about it and not give up.”

Miller, who won a still-unmatched 15 state track titles as a Tiger, runs in today's 4:40 p.m. 1,500-meter preliminary.

Her top goals?

To PR and reach the final.

Miller's called this a rebuilding year and she's striving to peak at the right time.

As a senior at Nebraska last season, she swept Big Ten titles in the 800 and 1,500 - becoming just the sixth female athlete in conference history to do so.

Those were heady times.

“Last year for me, my senior year for me, was definitely a breakout year,” said Miller, who will run unattached at Drake. “Every single race was a great race and I ran a lot of races. Whereas this year, my racing's kind of been dialed back.”

The same situation applies, to a degree and on a relative scale, to Uhl - the former Fort Dodge star and three-time national champion at ISU.

“I want to get to a point where I feel like I'm beating people I've never beat before or I'm running faster than I've ever run before,” said Uhl, a 2012 Olympian in the 10k. “It's all about taking small steps and keep seeing yourself being better each year.”

After PR'ing with a 13th-place finish (31:12.80) at the London Olympics, she and her husband, Kiel, chose to move back to Des Moines from Eugene, Ore.

Uhl became a volunteer assistant coach for the Cyclones and began training part-time in Ames.

She continues to do most of her running on capital city-based routes, maintaining her strong ties with ISU while also keeping her distance as needed.

“You're not in college anymore and you don't want to be in college anymore,” Uhl said. “You have your own life and I have a husband (also a former Cyclone runner), and he has his own life, so it's just nice to have the separation but still be able to be involved with the team and the university; give back to something that gave me so much.”

Uhl plans to achieve a sweeping arc of progress similar to the one that punctuated her Cyclone career.

She's gold-starred the year 2016 on her long-term calendar, and is dabbling in more marathons, which broadens her prospects for another Olympic-sized accomplishment.

Big dream.

Measured steps.

Good combo.

“I think that's when you kind of build to those good moments and that's kind of what happened to me in college,” said Uhl, who will run in today's 8:20 p.m. 10k as well as Sunday's 3:22 p.m. 5k. “I wasn't setting the world on fire my freshman or sophomore years, but by the time I got to my fifth year I'd taken so many small steps I was able to do some great things. And I hope that's what I can do with my professional career.”

Miller's in the same boat, navigating a running life that doesn't include a formal team anymore.

Support's there, though - especially at Drake Stadium, the site of so many successes and, perhaps, more to come.

“I really appreciate running there because everyone appreciates me being there,” said Miller, who's pursuing her Master's degree in community nutrition at Nebraska. “It gives you an extra push. I remember looking up to a lot of runners when I was little and I just want to make people proud. That's what I hope to do.”