It boils down to two foods — if you can call them that — that George Mason sprinter Murielle Ahoure is no longer allowed to eat.
“Cheetos and gummi bears,” said Ahoure. “Those are the two things.”
She never expected to sacrifice the little indulgences when she began running track for fun as a junior at Hayfield High. But Ahoure’s career has exploded in the four years since, and now a sophomore and national contender in a sport where the margin between winning and losing is measured in hundredths of a second, she’s beginning to understand that every ounce makes a difference.
George Mason assistant T.D. Holsclaw was Ahoure’s head coach at Hayfield and very nervous the first time she took to the track.
“She was in a relay, and she was turning around in circles waiting for the baton,” said Holsclaw. “But she just took off, and still to this day I don’t think she’s ever slowed down. Almost every race she’s improved her time.”
A two-time Northern Region champion in the 55, 100 and 200 meters in high school, last year she was one of only three freshman to compete in the U.S. junior nationals in the 100 and the lone freshman in the 200.
Last month, she earned All-American honors after finishing 12th in the 60 at the NCAA indoor championships. She’s a top qualifier this spring for NCAA regionals in the 100 and 200.
“Because her track and field career was not a long one, you knew that the sky was the limit for her potential,” said Patriots coach Angie Taylor. “A lot of things have changed overall from her strength training and her working on her technique. That’s progressed very well. Her technique is almost like night and day when compared to her freshman year.”
More than ever before, Ahoure is taking seriously both lifting weights and eating right, and her dedication has helped get over the one thing that’s threatened to hold her back: nerves.
“She used to get very intimidated,” said Holsclaw. “This year at Virginia Tech she ran the 55-meter dash where six of the girls in the finals were from Virginia and all of them used to beat her.”
Ahoure tied a school record and set a facility record of 6.84 seconds in the event at Tech’s Rector Field House.
“I was exposed to a lot of new things last year,” said Ahoure. “Now that I’ve been through a whole year, it’s a lot easier to go through the process.”
