This girl from Poland may be the greatest Michigan cross-country athlete ever – Detroit Free Press

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A couple of boys from the Tecumseh cross-country team stood near the finish line of the SEC Red girls championship meet at Hudson Mills and watched in amazement as Zofia Dudek sprinted across the finish line — and the second-place finisher wasn’t in sight.

An official announced Dudek’s winning time of 17 minutes, 9.4 seconds and one of the Tecumseh runners looked at the other and said: “Well, she just beat my PR.”

Dudek has beaten a lot of runners’ personal records.

A senior at Ann Arbor Pioneer, Dudek has easily posted the best time in the state this year when she won a meet at Ypsilanti in an incredible 16:46.9, which is also the sixth-best time in the country this fall.

That is why Dudek will be the center of attention Saturday at the cross-country state championship meet at Michigan International Speedway.

Only two girls have ever broken 17 minutes at the state meet – Lansing Catholic’s Olivia Theis (16:52.1) in 2017 and Rochester’s Megan Goethals (16:54.8) in 2009 – and Dudek is hoping to be No. 3 and in the process hopes to set a state record.

But it wasn’t that long ago that the idea of running for a state championship seemed so foreign to Dudek because, well, there are no state championship meets in  … Poland.

Dudek grew up in Warsaw and is in Michigan only because her father, Maciej, is a visiting professor of economics at the University of Michigan.

The family has spent a lot of time in the United States. She was in the fourth and fifth grades in Tampa, Florida, when her father taught at the University of South Florida and her seventh grade year was spent in West Lafayette, Indiana, when he taught at Purdue.

She began her running career in the sixth grade, running once a week for a school club in Warsaw.

“Those first two years were actually more playing than running,” Dudek said. “It was when I got to high school that actually started competing a lot.”

Nancy Boudreau is Pioneer’s cross-country coach and she had no idea Dudek was a runner of consequence until the first practice two years ago when she and her sister, Ania, now a junior, were at the track.

“They just showed up; I had no idea they were coming,” Boudreau said. “After that first year we didn’t expect them to be back. Somehow they got a second year. They came back last year, which was a big surprise. Again, we never thought they’d be back this year so was a very, very pleasant surprise.”

Because of their father’s position at U-M, the Dudeks didn’t know they would return until late summer.

Zofia said she misses her extended family, but she would have really missed being a part of the Pioneer program had they not returned to Ann Arbor these last two years.

Like most countries outside of the United States, Poland has nothing similar to this country’s high school athletic programs.

“In Poland, you run for a club and it’s a lot different,” she said. “My sister and I are pretty much the only long distance runners so we have to run all the workouts alone and race alone.”

Now Dudek never has to do anything alone. She is part of the Pioneer program and she has embraced the experience of being part of a team.

“Here, I just really love my team,” she gushed. “I love how we’re a big family and support each other and that makes me want to race even more.”

Dudek is also a terrific student. She has a perfect 4.0 grade-point average and scored a 35 on the ACT (36 is perfect), making her the recruiting target of the best academic schools in the country.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t get 36,” she said. “I’ve always paid attention to my academics. It’s been pretty important to me.”

As a sophomore, Dudek was 20th at the state meet (18:13) and was happy to make all-state.

“I was surprised at first because that year was my first time running a 5K,” she said. “Before, I only ran short things so it was a big difference. But I really liked it and enjoyed racing.”

She competed in track that spring, but was slowed by what she thought were shin splints. That summer in Poland, it was diagnosed as a stress fracture so she didn’t run again until October.

She improved to a third-place finish at the state meet (17:59.9) and was thrilled to break 18-minutes.

Last spring she was second at the state meet in the 1,600 and 3,200 meters, and was on the cusp of a breakthrough in her running career.

She went to Seattle and won the mile in the Brooks PR Invitational in 4:41.34.

“I was trying to stick with the front pack,” she said. “At first, I was just hoping to get a medal. When I was in second place I thought: ‘If I just push a little harder I can actually win.’ In the last straightaway, I took over.”

When the family returned to Warsaw last summer, Dudek made Poland’s U-20 national team and qualified for the U-20 European Championships in Boras, Sweden.

She qualified in the 3,000 meters and thought of herself as more of a tourist than a serious competitor.

“I was, honestly, just happy to be there,” she said. “I was trying to figure out what it would be like and just super happy to represent my country. I was excited for all of the competition, but knew it would be really hard.”

Dudek’s goal was to qualify for the finals, which she did when she won her heat. But she tempered that victory with the understanding that some of the runners didn’t give it their best effort because they would have to race again two days later.

The finals certainly did not go according to plan. She was boxed in after 800 meters and tried getting to the inside and then the outside to get around some of the congestion so she could make her move with 800 meters remaining.

By then she was playing with house money.

“Going into the race I did not expect to win,” she said. “I was second on the curve and I tried to go for it. On the straightaway, I passed the first girl.

“It was insane. I was super proud.”

So were her family members, who were also caught off guard by her victory they watched from their home in Poland.

“We had our friends over and we were expecting to watch her race and be happy with whatever she ran,” said Ania. “And then she actually won and that was actually amazing.

“My mom was yelling so loud. She was so happy.”

Boudreau and some of Dudek’s teammates watched the race on the internet. They thought Dudek was capable of doing well in the race even if few others agreed.

“She wasn’t on anybody’s radar,” Boudreau said. “Even the commentators said that was the biggest surprise of the entire meet. Because nobody had heard of her because she was running over here.”

Her victories at the Brooks Invitational and then at the European championships were a wake-up call for Dudek.

Suddenly she realized she had a finishing kick that she had never needed before.

“Normally she has gone out hard from the get-go so she hasn’t had to rely on a kick,” said Boudreau. “However, at the European championships she did not lead that race until the last 50 yards. She did have a really good kick there. So she has developed that.”

This has been a gratifying fall for Dudek, who worked hard to bring her cross-country times to the same level as her track times.

She accomplished that when she ran her 16:46.9 race in Ypsilanti.

“I didn’t think that I could go under 17,” she said, “especially on my own because I was running by myself.”

Dudek is running by herself, but then again not really. She is also running with her Pioneer teammates, which has been the best part of her coming to America.

“Every day at school we see each other,” she said. “And we also have a lot of fun activities that we do besides running. The other day we had our annual cider run where we just run to a cider mill where we go to get cider and donuts. It’s a fun time.

“For us, it’s definitely about the team and the workouts.”

Mick McCabe is a former longtime columnist for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at mick.mccabe11@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @mickmccabe1.

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