TACOMA, Wash. – It's not all that unusual to hear someone say that he was born to be a runner.
 
Cian Monaghan takes that notion a stride further.
 
That's because the University of Puget Sound senior was sometimes actually going out for a run …
 
… before he was born.
 
"My mom was running when she was pregnant with me," Cian said of Sandy Monaghan, herself a Puget Sound graduate in the early 1990s. "She has been a high school track and cross country coach (at nearby Puyallup High) for a long time. During high school, I was trained by her."
 
"Throughout all of my life, if I couldn't run up with her people or with the team, I was riding a bike with them. If I couldn't ride a bike yet, I was in a stroller and Mom was pushing me along. And she did that with all of my siblings."
 
These days, Cian (pronounced KEY-in) is running very well – and very fast – on his own two feet. Come Saturday morning, he'll have the chance to go for the most important long run of his life at the NCAA Division III Cross Country Championships.
 
Monaghan will step to the starting line on the 8000-meter Milliken Research Park course in Spartanburg, South Carolina, at 8:00 a.m. Pacific time.
 
This will be Monaghan's first NCAAs in either cross country or track.
 
"I'm just trying to mentally prepare myself getting into the race and getting into nationals," he said. "It's going to be a lot of competition and a lot of time (two flights, totaling about eight hours) to get there."
 
Once he arrives, the 21-year-old Monaghan will be the only Logger there. But he'll still have plenty of company, with potentially as many as 294 total competitors in the meet: 32 teams with up to seven runners each, plus 70 individual qualifiers, including him.


"I've been talking with my brothers Colin and Liam (Colin ran in the 2018, 2019, and 2021 nationals), and they're both saying, 'Cian, you're going to walk up to that start line and you're not going to think there's that many people. Then you're going to look around and there's so many people."
NAILING IT IN NOVEMBER
Monaghan already has had a monster of a month. On Nov. 1, he won the Northwest Conference title at Pacific Lutheran. Then last Saturday, he took sixth place at the NCAA West Regionals in Claremont, California – high enough to give him an automatic qualifying spot for this week's nationals.
 
"My goals in-season were mainly to get to postseason and do amazingly well in postseason, which I feel I have done," Monaghan said. "Pretty much my top three goals were I wanted to win conference, I wanted to get top 10 at Regionals, and I want to be All-American." (A top-40 finish on Saturday will take care of that third one.)
 
Loggers head coach Lisa Kushiyama and distance coach Sam Ring both believe this is a natural final stop for the cross country portion of Monagham's Puget Sound career before he heads into the winter indoor and spring outdoor track seasons.
 
"He has had that potential the last four years. It has been nice to see him grow with his confidence and realize that he has the potential to do really well," Kushiyama said. "He really ramped up his training over the summer. He really just bought into (distance coach) Sam Ring's training and was able to up his mileage. The athletes we've had who have made it to nationals are those who have been in the upper end of mileage."
 
As Ring sees it, Monaghan's mindset is every bit as important as his mileage
 
"One good thing about the Monaghans is they all have a great work ethic and stick-to-it-iveness – they never give up no matter how dire the circumstances," he said. "He's the hardest worker on our team. He follows directions to a T."
 
"And he can follow through with a workout," Ring added. "A lot of guys might drift toward the end and say, 'Can I not do this last one?' But he never does that. He makes a real attempt to hit the times he needs to hit. To follow things through to the end is his forte':
 
Monaghan saw an early payoff for all of that work on Aug. 30 in the season-opening Puget Sound Invitational at Fort Steilacoom Park. He was the clear front-runner in the shortened 5-kilometer "rust-buster" event, completing the course in 15 minutes, 20.3 seconds That was a 26-second margin ahead of second-place teammate Emerson Ingraham. Monaghan was subsequently named the Northwest Conference Runner of the Week.
 
On subsequent Saturdays throughout the fall, he was 13th at the PLU Open, 18th at the Whitman Open, and 15th at the Linfield George Oja Invitational. His time of 24:14.1 on the fast Linfield course was a personal best for 8 kilometers, his first sub-25. In each of those races, he was well in front of the Puget Sound pack.
 
"Last year, Ben Kerr was a senior and he was kind our top dog," Kashiyama said. (Kerr went on to run at nationals for the second year in a row.) "Knowing that going into this season that Cian was going to be on top and have to take over that role and fill that position, we talked to him about that and what we as the coaching staff expected of him – not only as an athlete, but as a leader of the team. He was able to step into that role."

RACES AND A (FRIENDLY) RIVALRY
November began on a rain-soaked Saturday morning as the nine Northwest Conference schools gathered on the Pacific Lutheran course for their championship race. A Halloween downpour the day before left it muddy in spots and slippery just about everywhere.
 
For Monaghan and his NWC counterparts, this was a rematch of sorts. All nine teams had been here on Sept 20 for the PLU Invitational, Monaghan wasn't feeling particularly well that day, but raced anyway and finished 13th in 26:13.1 for 8 kilometers. He was the 10th conference runner across the line, 78 seconds behind winner London Haley of Whitworth.
 
Entering the third of four loops at NWCs, things were already destined for a different – and much better – finish for Monaghan. He and Haley were separating themselves from the rest of the pack. By the time they started the final 2K loop, it clearly was going to be one of those two who was first to the finish line.
 
Coming down the home stretch, Monaghan was in command. He wound up winning by five full seconds, 25:16.2 to Haley's 25:21.2. It was the fourth time this fall those two had matched up, and the first time Monaghan had prevailed.
 
"It was muddy and I almost fell a couple times, The wind and rain were a bit rough, but we got it done," Monaghan said after the race. "We were just dancing between us – it was like war out there in the mud. I just started going and I didn't want him to pass me. I just tried to hammer."
 
Those two were among the leaders battling again at West Regionals last week in California. They were practically side by side and stride for stride for much of the race before Monaghan surged ahead to place sixth while Haley checked in 10th. This time, the difference was seven-plus seconds, 25:25.0 for Monaghan, 25:32.7 for Haley.
 
As is often the case in cross country (and track, too), a couple of guys out there giving everything they have trying to beat each other to the wire will be seen chatting afterward, congratulating each other on a job well done and a race well run.
 
"Both at conference and regionals, I took him aside and patted him on the back," Monaghan said. "I told him at regionals, 'You and I are going to be top 10, and once we get that, we're going to be All-Americans together.' It's really great that two guys from the same conference, instead of treating each other as vile enemies, we're going to unite to conquer these bigger threats.
 
"At nationals, I want to finish in front of London, and at regionals, I didn't want him to beat me," he added. "But he's a great guy. And if he beats me, he deserves it. We've been talking about hopefully over winter break, we can get in some runs together."
 
LOVIN' IT AS A LOGGER
Just as Monaghan was destined to be a runner, he was destined to do his running at Puget Sound.
 
Along with mom Sandy, dad Paul is also a Puget Sound grad and works at the school in the Educational Technology office. Older brothers Liam and Colin both raced for the Loggers, "and maybe even some extended family way, way back who went here as well," Cian said.
 
"This is the only school I applied to," he said. "(Growing up), I've been around Puget Sound a ton. A lot of times, I would go over to Dad's office, hang out, play video games, and he has a lot of Star Wars toys up there that I loved playing with. I love the culture here, I love being a Logger, I love running under Coach Sam and Coach Lisa and just being able to be in this space and be with all these great people and great coaches and great trainers."
 
The family bond plays a big role in Monaghan's drive to be the best he can be.
 
Oldest brother Liam ran here from 2016-19. In addition to the standard distance races, he was a steeplechaser all four years. Colin wore Puget Sound colors from 2018-22. Along with his three trips to cross country nationals (he finished an All-American 34th place in his 2021 senior season), he won two conference crowns in cross and three conference outdoor titles in the 10,000 meters.
 
While filled with respect for what his siblings did, Cian remains determined to put his own productive touches on his personal chapter as a Logger.
 
"I knew coming into the season that I want to be All-American. I'm probably influenced by the fact that Colin is All-American in cross," he said. "A lot of times growing up, I felt like I was in the shadows as Colin's little brother instead of, 'Hey, that's Cian.' Part of me getting all these achievements and running so well is not only to better myself because I want these goals. But it also helps me feel better about myself and differentiate from my brothers.
 
"I want to be good in my own right."
 
That big-brotherly influence even carries over the classroom, where Cian is following Colin's path as a math and computer science double major.
 
"It was what Colin did and I was like, 'Let's do it!'" Cian said. "Computer Science is more challenging because it's a lot more required courses. Originally, I (said) I will do it just because Colin did it. Then I started doing it and I actually want to do this. I can see myself getting a future in this."
 
READY TO GO
Race day is almost here. After battling rain and wind at conference, and slick, sometimes-muddy courses in both Tacoma three weeks ago and California last week, Saturday's Spartanburg forecast calls for temperatures in the mid-70s, humidity in the low 80s, and the possibility of showers and/or a thunderstorm.
 
Not exactly your typical cross country weather – especially not on the fourth Saturday of November.
 
"Conditions play into it when it comes to cross country," Loggers coach Kushiyama said. "He's definitely someone who is Pacific Northwest-born and raised. The rainy, muddy conditions at conference and then also going into California last weekend in the monsoon weather, that kind of gave him a little bit of confidence."
 
Not that Monaghan will object to running on a course that isn't muddy or slick. He's going to be much more focused on controlling the controllables.
 
"I'm going to have to mentally prepare and comprehend running against all of these great individuals and all of these teams," he said. "I just need to get out fast because I'm trying to get in the top 40 and be All-American."
 
The course is primarily grass and grass/dirt trails. There's a long straightaway at the start, another long straightaway on the back side, with multiple U-turns and curves in between.
 
"I've seen the course map. It's going to be an interesting course," said Monaghan, who will have an opportunity to run through it on Friday. "It's definitely one of those maps where you look at it and you think, 'Oh, it's not that big.' But once you get to the race, it's like, 'Oh, this is a stretch.'"
 
Monaghan credits both mom Sandy and Puget Sound distance coach Ring with helping bring this NCAA day from dream to reality.
 
"My mom took me from nothing and made me a good runner at Puyallup and a half-decent runner overall, from my point of view," he said. (Indeed, Monaghan was 51st at the South Puget Sound League as a freshman, 14th, as a sophomore, 13th as a junior, and fourth as a senior; he made state as a sophomore and placed 96th, then returned as a senior and was 29th.)
 
"Coach Sam took this half-decent runner and is making a conference champion out of me and maybe All-American. He has done it before; he did it with Colin. Sam is out there with me, telling me how to run, how to do things and he tells me stories about how it was back in his day."
 
Kushiyama, who will be on site with Monaghan this weekend, has no doubt that he is as ready as he can be.
 
"I always tell the athletes, when you're at the race, there's no more we can do to prepare. He knows he has done the work through the entire season to get to this point. He went to the West Regionals with a lot of confidence, and that's just something we need to continue with.
 
"Only 294 make it to nationals, which is a really elite group," she added. "We just need to remind him, "You deserve to be here; you've done all the things up to this point to get you here.'
 
"We want to make sure he lives in the moment while he's here."
 
That concept should be one that Cian Monaghan definitely can grasp. After all, this is one guy who definitely was born to be a runner …
 
… sometimes even going out for a run before he was born.