It's tough to tell if long-distance running trains Chantelle Laan for college life or college life trains her for long-distance running. You would have to catch her to ask. It's not easy.

Going into tomorrow's WAC Cross Country Championship in Fresno, Calif., the junior has won three meets for the University of Hawai'i this season and four in her career. She has been the top UH finisher at every meet this year including the last, where every Rainbow Wahine ran a personal best.

Laan does not only leave her skid marks on the track. The business management major, whose aspirations include sports administration, has a 3.5 grade point average. She is also chair of the UH Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and on the board of Koa Anuenue, athletics' fundraising arm.

SAAC was created to bring the 'Bows into the community, foster a positive image, promote communication with coaches, faculty and administrators and deal with issues as disparate as nutritional and psychological health and student attendance at athletic events.

"You'd never think our campus is 20,000-plus," said Laan, a two-time WAC Runner of the Week this season. "Thank God the community makes up for it."

SAAC members include volleyball players Cayley Thurlby and Tara Hittle, basketball players Bobby Nash and Brittany Grice and football player Ian Sample. They helped raise $50,000 for the American Cancer Society last year. Laan characterizes their mission as "enriching the life of a student-athlete" by helping them achieve their goals athletically and academically, and keeping them healthy in every aspect of their life.

The Canadian — she was top five at the Ontario Championships in the 800 and 1,500 her senior year in high school — represented Manoa at the 2005 NCAA Leadership Conference. Like Allie Rowe, the SAAC chair before her, Laan called it a life-changing experience with some 300 elite student-athletes all as dedicated to a college athlete's health and welfare as Laan.

The conference gave her the inspiration she would need for this semester, where the 13-hour days that define her as student and athlete are often followed by meetings or events, and always by homework.

Most of the week she wakes at 5:30 a.m. and runs 2 miles to 6:15 a.m. conditioning, joking that her "personal bests" have always come the days she gets up late. By the time she is done with classes, interning for Senior Woman Administrator Marilyn Moniz-Kaho'ohanohano) and afternoon practice, it is dark.

Laan red-shirted last year after surgery for shin splints. She trained in the pool so much before she was allowed to pound the ground she learned the flip turn. She graduates this spring and will use her final year of eligibility to start graduate school.

Somehow she finds the time now, with 16 credits in the midst of one of her three seasons (along with indoor and outdoor track), to get it all done — well.

"It's been the craziest two months, but I've never been so focused in my life, in school, work, track, and SAAC is a huge, huge time commitment," Laan said. "The first week of school I said I'm cutting some things, something needs to be cut for me to do well at every one of these areas of my life.

"After talking to my parents and boyfriend tons I didn't cut anything. There's nothing I'm willing to give up. So I sleep 5 1/2 hours a night. I know that's not enough, but I say a little prayer before I go to bed and say, 'God, let this feel like 8 hours.' "

The saving grace is that during training runs, particularly when she is alone, Laan can plan out priorities and figure a way to make every second count. "If speed isn't the goal, my mind definitely runs," Laan said. "Over and over and over."

Distance running coach Gerry Lindgren tells her he knows when she is "thinking — and when you're thinking you're not running well." But usually Laan can turn all the distractions off in a race. She knows that when she is at her best, she is "lost, not thinking about anything." It is a neat trick for someone involved in seemingly everything.

"She seems to be very, very organized," track and field coach Carmyn James said. "She is a great student, definitely one of our top scholar-athletes, and when it comes to practice she leaves whatever else is going on in her life outside the gate. She's focused. ... She's basically able to leave all distractions behind."

Laan's focus this season was simple: Be competitive. After years of worrying about numbers, she realized that if she wins, time takes care of itself.

This weekend, there are two more goals. Laan is looking for an all-WAC finish — top 14 — and wants all the Rainbows "to have the best meet of their life ... feel good about their race."

The conference's mountain schools, particularly Idaho, usually dominate. Laan holds out hope that Hawai'i can place, but said "it will take a lot of guts."

Guts they have. It's time that is at a premium.

NOTES

Chantelle Laan was 19th at her last WAC Championship, in 2004. UH finished fifth that year and was eighth last year, when Idaho had four of the top five runners. Hawai'i's best finish is fourth, in 2000 and 2001. Cheryl Smith is the only Rainbow Wahine to win the WAC, in 2001 at Kane'ohe Klipper.

Laan ran her 5-kilometer personal best — 18:08 — at the last meet. So did UH senior (and Kapa'a graduate) Sharlene Carillo (18:58), freshman Tava Tedesco (19:06), senior Michel Wilson (20:32) and sophomore Mckenzie Wallace (21:03).

All but Wallace, who suffered an ankle sprain, will be in the NCAA West Regional Nov. 11 in Portland. Freshman Megan Chock, out of 'Iolani, will go in Wallace's place.

Laan's brother, Brandon, runs for Hawai'i Pacific. Their last name is Dutch. Their mother is Italian.

Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com.