
TURNS OUT THAT fighting to the line to win three national titles in meet records and making the all-time prep top 10 in each event is all an athlete needs to do to get the phone ringing off the hook.
Natalie Dumas is still reeling from all the attention her New Balance triple has brought her: “It’s been a lot.” And as mind-blowing as her performances were — 55.99 in the 400H, 51.14 in the 400, 2:00.11 in the 800 — she admits that she’s just as shocked as anyone.
“I just went out there and I kind of just played it event by event,” she says, “and just was trying to see what I could do. And I didn’t expect any of this, honestly.”
It’s not like the junior at Eastern High (Voorhees, New Jersey) wasn’t on the radar at all. She won the New Balance hurdles last year in 58.32. And coming into this year’s nationals, she had bests of 57.30, 51.87 and 2:02.75 and was undefeated in all her key events. Yet last year, as a soph, her 400 best was just 54.74, and her 800 was 2:14.30. Clearly, she’s at a new level now.
The biggest change in her training since then? “The one thing I picked up was cross country. It’s been a lot, and I’ve been doing longer distances. And I think it kind of started there because I would do my workouts, and then for the last rep, I would go extremely fast because I wanted to get it done and over with.
“I had the right people there, and honestly, it was fun for me. It was a little harder when the weather got warmer, but overall it was fun. And I was sick for a lot of the season, so I ended up not being able to make it to the Meet of Champs, which is our final meet, which was unfortunate. But I overall had a good time doing it.”
She ended up with a 5K best of 18:49.9. Then she soon transitioned into the indoor season, where she won her State title in 53.55 and finished 7th in the New Balance Indoor Nationals (54.85) and 5th in the 800 (2:07.68). A week later she won the adidas Indoor 400 in 53.66.
A relative latecomer to track, Dumas hails from a track family. Her parents were both Div. III relay All-Americans for TCNJ (The College of New Jersey) and their names are still on the school recordboards. Her older sister, Kadence, runs for Delaware; she placed 3rd in the Coastal AA conference 800 this spring. Her little sister, Brynn, just had her frosh year for Eastern. Natalie herself never did youth track, opting instead for soccer and a little bit of basketball.
She says, “I did winter track my freshman year only because my sister was a senior, and I wasn’t going to get to do it with her again. And the reason why I worked so hard and tried to run good times was because I had to be on the relay to run with my sister.”
That frosh year she clocked 56.53 for the 400 and ran 62.49 in the hurdles. She ran just a few 800s, with a 2:27.28 best.
Her coach, Eastern’s Mike Tangeman, says that the younger Dumas was a great add to his team, but he adds, “I don’t think anyone could have imagined the kind of career she would have. That competitiveness that you see started to emerge toward the end of her sophomore year.”
He says after last fall’s cross country season, “She came out like gangbusters for indoor track.” She would regularly volunteer to do more to help her Viking teammates. “She is the ultimate team player. That’s why I was glad to see her get the chance to focus on individual events at Nationals.”
About that amazing weekend in Philadelphia: in the hurdles, she sliced 1.31 off her best in that 55.99. “I had no idea how fast I was running. I was in shock because I knew my form got a little bit lazy at the end, but overall, it was a pretty good race. When I saw 55, I was pretty surprised.” She followed up with a 2:03.90 relay leg that night.
The next day, it took everything for her to win the 400, diving across the line (and under the finish banner) to win in 51.14. “That was the most shocked I was of the three races. I was so close to running a 50-point, and I didn’t even think that was possible for me.” It was a PR by 0.73. She adds, “It was one heck of a dive. I never planned on doing that. My legs were just kind of tired from the race and I ended up just falling over.”
Then with Sunday’s 800, she admits, “I was trying to go out there and run a 1:59, but I just missed the mark.” Her 2:00.11, a PR by 2.64, makes her No. 5 prep ever.
Her winning margins: 0.05, 0.09 and 0.14 tell another story — she hates to lose. “I’m out here to run for myself, to run for better times. And these girls are just here to push me. And I mean, if I get 2nd place, I’m not mad at it, but I’m also thinking, well, I should have pushed myself harder. I just have that extra finish at the end. I’m not sure where my body gets it from, but I have that last little kick to end off the race.”
Having made the standards to run in the USATF Championships, Dumas switched up her summer schedule so that she could have the experience of racing alongside Olympians. “I just want to go out there, run for the experience. I know I’m going to have more meets like this with a higher stress level, so I want to kind of learn how to deal with them.”
Says Tangeman, “She will be doing some combination of those events at Hayward Field. It will be an awesome experience for her to be around the best track & field athletes in the world.”
Right now, the phone is still ringing off the hook. It’s not just journalists; it seems that every college in the country wants to make a pitch. Small wonder: all three of her winning times in Philadelphia were all fast enough to score in NCAA Div. I this year. Of her college leanings, she just says, “I couldn’t even say. I’ve only talked to people on the phone.”
The story of this 16-year-old is a young one, but one with so much promise. She already leads the world U18 crowd in all three of her events. Yet she admits she doesn’t want to be characterized by those performances.
She explains, “A lot of people assume the times that I’ve ran this weekend are my real times. But the thing is, with me, I feel like I can go out there and run faster than I already have. For the 800 especially, everyone’s saying that that’s an extremely good time. But I haven’t run an 800 where I could actually put my full potential into it. So it would be nice to go out and run, and focus on, one race only.”
Per Tangeman’s assessment, “She’s a competitor. She’ll run her best when there’s other great competition in the race.”
There’s undoubtedly more of that to come. For now, there’s just incessant phone calls and media requests, far more than the typical teenager ever needs to deal with. Dumas is learning to balance it all.
Says Tangeman, “An hour or so after her 800 at Nationals, she’s lying back in the stands with her friends, eating a snow cone like a regular kid. She’s a very grounded person. Her family has helped her do a great job of taking this one day at a time.”