After finishing her undergrad program at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., Guelph born and raised Tiana LoStracco was looking for somewhere to continue her schooling and her track and field training.
LoStracco decided on the warmer climes of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Ark.
“Honestly, that was definitely a factor,” the 22-year-old said in a virtual interview. “I wanted to go somewhere a bit warmer because I just don't handle the winter very well. And Arkansas has just consistently been such a top program (in NCAA track and field) and just the access to the resources they have here, the facilities, along with the knowledgeable coaches and just the support staff that they have.
"And the girls on the team are all super high-performing athletes and it just seemed like a really good program to jump into and get new training partners that were really high calibre just to be able to train with and get better.”
LoStracco is one of the top-rated middle-distance runners in the country. Earlier this month she set a time in the women’s 800 metres indoor event that was exactly one second off the world indoor championship standard. It was also the fifth fastest time recorded by a Canadian in 2024.
She had the seventh-fastest outdoor 800m time last year with her performance in Royal City Athletics’ Inferno at the University of Guelph. That time was the fastest in the country by a women’s under-23 competitor. She also had the fastest outdoor 1,500m time for a Canadian women’s U23 competitor in the outdoor 1,500m, a time that was almost two seconds faster than the next fastest time that was set by Royal City Athletics’ Cameron Ormond at the Inferno.
“It was really exciting,” LoStracco said of competing in the Inferno. “I was getting nostalgic for high school because I'd trained on that track all the time and raced there quite a few times as well. It's always such a good environment at the Inferno. There's something about coming home that just makes me really motivated and excited. I had my family and friends there, some of them from back home watching and cheering. The other girls in the race were just so talented and it was motivation to just try to stick with them as best I could and run a fast time.”
A champion in local District 4/10 and CWOSSA meets during her time at St. James Catholic High School in both track and cross-country, LoStracco has her sights set high and she looks to the quality of her teammates at Arkansas to help her improve.
“There's only so many people across any sport at a certain level,” she said. “Arkansas seems to be kind of a breeding ground for that. There's just constantly people who are achieving.”
Having a group of high-level teammates to train with makes you work just as hard as them and that leads to improvement.
“I'm just really trying to put in the work,” LoStracco said. “I came back here on the 27th of December (after a six-day visit home for Christmas) so I've been here for a while just trying to train and shape up for the indoors so that I can just transition into outdoors and be ready to go right off the bat for outdoors, trying to get in some times and get into the right races just so I can peak at the right times.”
While she was a cross-country champion in high school, her participation in it now is pretty minimal.
“I didn't compete a whole lot just because cross-country is not my main thing and we have athletes on the team who are a higher level than me in that. I only did three races, but I raced at the SEC (Southeastern Conference) meet which was definitely the biggest meet I raced,” she said. “Training throughout cross-country went well. I felt really fit and I was building my endurance a lot. The races I had were OK, but it's kind of something I do to build strength and endurance for the track season.
“I do enjoy the cross-country. I like the team aspect of it and everything, but running 6K versus running the 800m or 1,500m on track, it's just a big jump for me to run that distance.”
Things have been going well in the classroom, too, as she’s doing a Master’s in Education: Recreation and Sport Management.
“I've been really enjoying it. It's different from my undergrad a lot because my undergrad was elementary education,” she said. “The classes I'm taking, the courses are very diverse. I had a law class, a marketing class and a leadership class last semester. I feel like they are three very different things. It's a very well-rounded program and it's been going well.”
It’s almost like cross-training.
“It keeps me on my toes.”
Although LoStracco was a member of the Guelph Minor Track and Field Club prior to high school, it was in her Grade 9 year at St. James when she got serious about her running.
Her whole approach to the sport has changed since then. In high school it was basically about just getting on the track and running.
“I'd like to think I've learned quite a bit along the way – just about even myself and how I am as a runner,” LoStracco said. “Knowledge is power and the more I know how my body works with running and reacts to certain stressors and stuff, the more I know how to prevent anything that could potentially get me injured or hurt or whatever. I also know how far I can push to make myself better.”
Now she’s reaching the end of the NCAA indoor season. The national championships are March 8 and 9 in Boston and then the NCAA outdoor season starts a little under three weeks after that.
Moving outdoors this year should be a lot easier than her time at Bradley.
“In the past few years, it's just been difficult because of the cold and icy weather,” she said. “When we transition to outdoors, it wasn’t always weather wise, where I was in Illinois, ready to be outdoors. It could be really hard because you're trying to do faster workouts and the cold weather's not conducive to that at all. Just trying to get in high-quality work is a lot harder.”
That shouldn’t be a problem this year as she takes aim at accomplishing her goals.
“To compete at the NCAA championships and make the finals,” she said. “My goal is always going to be an NCAA champion. That's a big, big goal, much like the Olympics.”
And if she doesn’t make the Canadian team for this year’s Summer Olympics, LoStracco will shift her Olympic dream to 2024 in Los Angeles.
“One hundred per cent,” she said.
