Janelle Noe doesn’t usually run well in the heat. That’s because the scars she bears—from burns she suffered over half of her body in 2016—affect her temperature regulation.

So when she arrived at the NCAA East Preliminary Championships in Tampa, Florida, two weeks ago, the heat and humidity worried her. Things got worse when her first-round 1500-meter race, originally scheduled for the evening, was moved to 2 p.m. to avoid approaching storms. Temperatures peaked in the high 80s. Noe wore bags of ice around her neck as she warmed up and waited in the University of Toledo tent under a misting fan.

That day, however, Noe was able to run 4:17.20 to advance to the next round, before quickly seeking shade. Two days later, on May 26—in rainy weather for which she was grateful—she finished ninth in the quarterfinals in a personal best 4:16.34, which qualified her for the NCAA championships this week in Eugene, Oregon.

“I never thought I’d be able to do that in the 1500; it’s such a competitive race and you have to really be on your game,” Noe, 23, said in a phone call with Runner’s World. “When I crossed the finish line, I was so happy. I couldn’t stop saying, ‘I made it, I made it,’ because I couldn’t believe it.”

You can forgive Noe some incredulity, and not just because her best time heading into this season was 4:29. In January 2016—not even two and a half years ago—she was in the intensive care unit, covered in gauze, with life-threatening burns from her neck to her knees. The most dangerous were those on her chest, which threatened her vital organs.

Noe, who wasn’t racing because she was recovering from a stress fracture, had gone to an off-campus house that night. A former student athlete, Christopher Housel, poured Everclear onto an open flame near her. The next thing Noe knew, she told WTOL-TV, her clothes were in flames. (Housel was sentenced to four months in jail and 800 hours of community service, half of which he must spend in a burn unit.)

Toledo head coach Linh Nguyen was at a meet when he got a call about the incident. He and an assistant coach arrived at Mercy St. Vincent Medical Center in Toledo late, after midnight. Noe was in and out of consciousness, they were told, but she wanted to see them.

When they entered the room, they could see only her eyes. “We walked up to her and we say hi to her and she says something that I couldn’t quite hear,” Nguyen said. He leaned in and asked her to repeat it. “She’s like, ‘How did the meet go?’”

The incident deepened the bonds between Noe and her teammates. The number of visitors she could have in the burn unit was limited, so the other Toledo runners set up rotating shifts. They made T-shirts and sold them to raise money for her medical expenses.

When the team was at practice, Noe kept in touch, sending them Snapchats. As soon as she could, she came back—at first, to go to physical therapy in the athletic training room and watch her friends run their workouts. Slowly but steadily, she worked her way back to running.

First, it was two-minute walks in Wildwood Park, where the team often trains. By March, Noe was jogging around her parents’ front yard in nearby Sylvania, Ohio, a minute on, a minute off. Throughout summer, she steadily logged about 45 minutes a day. In the fall, nine months later, she returned to compete with the team for cross-country season.

Though she was grateful to be running at all, her performances disappointed her. “It basically put me back to below square one,” she said. “It was really frustrating for me. I would cry and get down on myself about it and I had to just get past that.”

Her coaches remained encouraging: “After almost every race, I feel like we had the talk where I would tell her, ‘You know, Janelle, this is a process, you just have to give yourself time, you have to give yourself training consistency, to get where you want to be,’” Nguyen said.

Slowly, her conditioning came back. In 2017, she ran within half a second of her personal best in the 1500 meters from before the burns. During indoor track season this year, she had a breakthrough. In January, she ran a mile in 4:42.80. Then Noe ran 4:18 in the 1500 at the Raleigh Relays in March. “That kind of just started the ball rolling for outdoor,” Nguyen said. “She’s just crushed it the whole outdoor season.”

Her path to NCAAs included winning the 1500 in 4:17.01—a new conference record—at the Mid-American Conference Championships in Buffalo, New York, on May 12. She also kept up with her coursework and just completed her exercise science degree.

“I have had to probably work twice as hard to get to where I was or where I am.”

Noe still faces limitations. She has to be careful running in the heat and shield her skin from the sun. Her scars make her self-conscious. They’re still new, and in extreme temperatures, some turn dark red or purple. Noe covers the worst on her face and neck with makeup designed for scarring that also contains sunscreen, critical to protect her skin from further damage.

After setting a conference record in the 1500, Janelle Noe poses with teammates and her coaches Samantha Bluske (left) and Linh Nguyen (second from right). Will Edmonds

But she can’t change her appearance, she said, and she won’t let it keep her from what she loves. When she starts to have doubts—whether the obstacles are too great, if she’s missed too much training—she heeds her coaches’ reminders of how tough she’s become.

“It gives me a mindset that I have had to probably work twice as hard to get to where I was or where I am,” Noe said. “I kind of say it as a mantra to myself.”

It’s one she’ll no doubt employ Thursday where the forecast looks much more hospitable, with predicted highs of 74 degrees. “I’m just going to try to hold as long as I can to the fastest girls in the heat,” she said. “If I make it to the finals, that’ll be great. And if I don’t, honestly, making it to nationals was just overall an amazing thing for me.”

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Janelle Noe’s journey to the @NCAATrackField Championships has been a special one.



2013-- HS Mile PR of 5:22

2014-- 4:29.74

2015-- Didn’t run

2016-- Didn’t run

2017-- 4:30.11

2018 -- 4:16.34 pic.twitter.com/Wo5mUfls3Z — Toledo XC/Track (@ToledoXCTF) May 29, 2018

Nguyen’s optimistic about her prospects: “I think she’s got a little bit more in her, if she feels good and the conditions are right,” he said.

Noe has already started graduate physical therapy courses at the University of Toledo, and because of the time she missed due to the burn injury and stress fracture, the NCAA granted her an additional year to complete her eligibility. So she’ll run with the Rockets during indoor and outdoor track season next year.

“I don’t go to meets anymore and think, oh this is the Janelle who came back from this horrible accident,” Nguyen said. “I think, this is Janelle who’s a bad-ass runner. And that’s it.”

None of this has been easy, Noe says. But she hopes others take from her story a sense of possibility, even in the face of injuries or obstacles that seem insurmountable. “If you put your mind and heart into what you want to do, you’ll be able to do more than you think is possible and you can really surprise yourself,” she said. “I surprised myself.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that Christopher Housel was not Noe’s teammate at the time of the accident. Housel left the Toledo cross-country team after the 2014 season.

Cindy Kuzma Contributing Writer Cindy is a freelance health and fitness writer, author, and podcaster who’s contributed regularly to Runner’s World since 2013.

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