Alli Sibold’s Legendary SLU Career

Allison Sibold lost a grand total of two-mile races in the 2023-24 indoor season – one was against professionals and the best DI runners in the country, and the other was NCAA DIII nationals.  

Alli is perhaps the greatest middle-distance track runner to ever attend St. Lawrence University. Yet, those close to her rave about something apparently just as spectacular: her positivity and humility.  

Being a school record holder in two events (each by a large margin) and being the national runner-up in the mile as well as a Cross Country All-American should make anyone a little braggy. It really should. But ask anyone – coaches, friends, classmates – Alli wants no part of that. She is as supportive to those around her and as humble about her successes as the day she showed up her first year without any of her current accolades.  

Emma Rothe, her long-time roommate, best friend, and teammate, can attest to this.  

“She just makes running fun, and you can tell she really loves it, and wants to be there every day, and it really encourages everyone to find the reason they want to be there,” Rothe said. “She is great, and so humble about it too, and she works so hard for everything.”  

On March 9, Alli competed at the NCAA DIII indoor national championships in the mile and the 3000. She was the only St. Lawrence runner in attendance. The entire St. Lawrence men’s and women’s track teams, including myself, gathered in a room at SLU to watch her race on a projector and to cheer for her, even if she couldn’t hear us. Turns out it helped more than we thought – even though all the attention should have been on her in that moment, she was thinking about her teammates.  

“That’s something I was worried about at Nationals, I didn’t have my team(mates)… they make all the difference,” Alli said. “On the line on Friday and Saturday, I took a deep breath and was like, ‘ok, the team’s watching right now, they are with me.’”  

She told me about an interesting pre-race ritual she has.  

“I tie my spikes, especially my right spike, over and over again because it never feels right,” Alli said. “By the time I’m on the line, I’ve tied them at least 15 times, but it feels right.”  

It seems to work. Alli cruised through Friday’s prelims, finishing second in her heat and securing a spot in the final the next day, making it look easy all the way. She then executed an excellent tactical race to put herself in fourth and then third for most of the final, in striking distance of the second-place woman. Grace Hadley, the fastest woman in the nation, was well in the lead and out of reach, but Alli stormed down the final stretch to pull past Aubrie Fisher into second right at the line with a sprinter-esque lean. She beat Fisher by nine thousandths of a second, about as close as it can get in a mile race.  

Just over an hour later she also ran the 3000 meters, and despite being out of gas from a spectacular mile race, she managed to break 10 minutes, an impressive feat in any condition.  

These performances are not outliers either – she has been a top runner in division III for a while now – and it’s no mistake that she is as good as she is. She will have you believe that her teammates and coach deserve most of the credit, but any of them will tell you it comes from her true dedication to and love for running.  

“While she does make it look very easy… she’s worked really hard to get there,” Head Coach Mary-Kate Howard said. “I think it’s good for people to see all the hard work she’s put in, that there are hard days, that not every day is easy for her.” 

She certainly makes it look easy, and it can seem as if she loves every second. She is even more known for her endless optimism than for her running prowess, at least around our team.  

“She calls herself a serial optimist, which is definitely true,” Rothe said. Even Alli admits this is unique.  

“You’ve got to have some screws loose to run, but that’s what makes it so great,” Alli said. “I love running, I could talk about it all day.”  

It may be this positivity and love for the sport that brought her to where she is now. She described the first time she broke 5:00 in the 1500 as one of her favorite track memories ever.  

“I knew I really wanted to do it, but I had no idea if I was going to be able to, and I was just going for 4:59, but I ran 4:50, and I remember crossing the finish line smiling,” Alli said. “I just remember being like, ‘this is the best thing ever, I’m sub-5 (in the 1500),’ and who would have thought that three years later, I’d be running sub-5 in the mile.”  

But it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. She ran a 5:10 mile in her freshman year of high school, but then got injured. She had limited summer training, and struggled through sophomore year, only to find herself injured more or less continuously until her senior year.  

“I quit running for like three days going into my senior year, I was like ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ because I felt like I was getting injured again… three days later I was like… I can’t not run,” Alli said. “Knowing that I love running so much that I couldn’t quit, that helps me.”  

She actually tried to quit. She told her coach she was done. But she couldn’t make it even three days without running. It couldn’t be more clear that this was what she was meant to do, and her refocusing would pay off. The next time she ran as fast as 5:10 in the mile, it was at the same track six years later where she ran 5:02 to win her first regional championship.  

All that time being injured also gave her another perspective on running. She found that she loved not just participating in the sport, but also being around the running community.  

 “I volunteered at a track club for [children with] disabilities, because I wanted to be part of the community without actually running, because I couldn’t at the time,” Alli said.  

She continues to volunteer at track camps and such, and Howard said that just before the DIII national meet, the biggest of her career, “she was at the elementary school working with kindergarteners.” 

A more unique way she has pursued this in college is through the KDS sorority which she joined midway through her collegiate career.  

“I was really nervous about it, because I [thought], ‘is this going to be a huge commitment?’ but it has actually helped me in so many ways,” Alli said. “I felt like I wanted to be more involved in the community.”   

She described the many volunteer opportunities and community outreach programs they have worked on, well in line with her excitement about serving the running community.  

“We go to the Bittersweet Farm… I’m not a huge farm person, but it was funny going… we were helping brush cows, and I am so far from someone who would do that,” Alli joked. “It was fun to go do that, and laugh at each other, but still also help.”  

To add to the list of people/groups that Alli gives credit to, she said KDS has actually helped her improve her running as it has offered her a form of balance between social life, off-the-team friends, and track that she has never had before.  

“I feel like I have a way better mindset about running because of it, because… it offers me so much balance,” Alli said. “I am so thankful to be part of KDS and part of the track team.”  

It is clear how Alli’s mentality and love for running helps her succeed. Less obvious, however, is the effect it has on those around her.  

Hannah Bennett, a freshman and the team’s second-fastest runner behind Alli in cross country this year, said that Alli’s leadership extends far beyond just being the fastest around.  

“She wants to include people, and wants to bring people into something that she really loves,” Bennett said. “It’s inspiring to watch her run… watching her do her thing makes you want to emulate it. She’s a good reminder that it can be fun.”  

Bennett said that in workouts, Alli will turn back to her and say things such as, ‘Take up your space here, you’re supposed to be here, we want you here.’ 

Sure enough, those around her thrive. Emma Palumbo, a junior and a captain along with Alli, has had a stellar last few seasons racing alongside her and has qualified for NCAA nationals three times, and Alli lead a DMR team to a regional championship in indoor that included another first-year, Charlotte Blake, and sophomore sprinter Maggie McNally.  

“She is always trying to see the positive, even if everything isn’t going her way, which has helped me also try to see the positive,” Rothe said. Rothe struggled with injury nearly her entire career, but with Alli as a best friend, managed to stick with it for four full years and ran her first collegiate cross country race this past season.  

“One thing I would say that is really similar between Alli and some of our great past runners is that Alli likes to be with the team,” Howard said. “She wants to do as much of her training with the team as possible.”  

Alli echoes her inclusive attitude outside of running as well.  

She listed off favorite team memories like she had hundreds stored up, including ones not focused on running at all.  

“We were all really into “Pitch Perfect” this fall, and the team all came over and we watched “Pitch Perfect” one, two and three, and it was so fun because we all sang along. It was so cliché, but it was so funny,” Alli said. “We’ve also had a lot of impromptu dance parties in the locker room, and they are hilarious, and that is also something I’ll never forget.”  

She also talked about the feeling of returning to campus after Cross Country Nationals.  

“Having dinner together, we are all just super excited at the end of the season, and how proud we are of the season. We are all buzzing with excitement and laughing, and we aren’t even talking about running, but it’s just the best feeling,” Alli said. “I feel like this team has never been closer.”  

Running consumes much of Alli’s life, but she is no slacker in the classroom either. She was an academic All-American in cross-country, meaning she had one of the best GPA’s of any top runner in the country.  

“She balances her academics and her athletics very well,” Howard said.  

  She also majors in Math at SLU, about which she has mixed feelings.  

“I have no regrets. Actually, no, math is really hard,” Alli joked. “I feel like I’ve gained a lot of problem-solving skills from math, but don’t think I’m going to go into it.”  

She wants to work in a sports setting of some kind, so she is pursuing a master’s degree in sports leadership and administration at Michigan State University.  

After the coming outdoor season, she will also get to compete for a fifth year at Michigan State. She will enter the program as only the sixth fastest miler there, and have a chance to race with a much higher level of competition.  

“It’s been my dream to run DI my entire life,” Alli said.  

“Her career has been a lot of fun, and we are excited to see what happens next,” Howard said. “We want running to be something that folks in our program can do forever. This is one part of that journey, so hopefully this has been a really positive part of her running journey.”  

I asked Alli if she had any final thoughts. Her immediate response was:  

“People say your last runner is as important as your first runner, and that’s so true.” She cites her sophomore cross country season, when Haylei Coolican, their fifth runner, outperformed expectations to secure a conference title for the team.  

“Haylei Coolican, she was the reason why we won,” Alli said. Alli was their first runner by some margin, but still denied credit for the championship win. “The team is what motivates me, I owe a lot of my success to the team.”  

If you learn nothing else about Alli, know that the first and last thoughts on her mind are of her teammates and friends (and I suppose she’s pretty fast too).