Mikayla Florez battles back from injury to have early-season success

It had been bothering her for a little while. She had thought it was a minor injury but before the start of the 2016 track and field season, Long Beach State redshirt junior Mikalya Florez went to a doctor, got an MRI and found out she needed ACL surgery. Florez was forced to miss both the track and cross country seasons. It was a tough break for Florez but she knew she could battle back.

“I was planning on trying to come back for cross country,” Florez said. “Once I started training in the fall, it was a pretty tough experience.”

In her first cross country race in more than a year on Sept. 1 at the Pepperdine Invitational, Florez ran a time of 14:41:96 in the 4,000-meter race and defeated 44 others to win her first career race. She was named the Big West Cross Country Athlete of the Week and became the first 49er to win a race since Rosa Del Toro won the Aztec Invitational in 2010.

“It was a really good feeling,” Florez said. “I worked really hard in the summer.”

“I was very proud of her,” LBSU cross country coach Shawn Winget said.

The second-place finisher was seven seconds behind Florez, who wasn’t “as nervous as I usually am” before the race.

“I felt really confident,” Florez said. “I was more relaxed and (now) am more eager to run and see what I can do.”

The race was a completely different feeling for Florez, who didn’t run the times she wanted during the handful of races she ran in the 2017 track season as she eased back from her injury.

“She kind of had a rough spring and had to get used to running again,” Winget said.

Florez and the rest of the 49er cross country team will run in the UC Riverside Invitational on Saturday, the same course where the Big West Championships will be held on Oct. 28.

Even after winning her first career race, Florez believes she can do more.

“I just know that I feel like I can be faster and I can improve still from that race,” Florez said.

“She just walks around like a different person,” Winget said. “She has a lot of confidence in herself and she is not going to accept anyone that beats her by outworking her.”

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Florez, a healthcare administration major who wants to go to grad school one day, has goals of finishing in the top 10 at the conference meet and helping her team finish in the top three as a team.