BRIAN SPURLOCK

University of Virginia UVa's Catherine White finishes fourth out of 254 competitors at the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships on Monday.

Catherine White knew what was going to happen when the starting gun fired Monday at the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships.

The pace was going to be vicious, the victims plenty.

White, a former Northside High star who is a junior at Virginia, hoped to start strong but smart and to keep it rolling.

"I had a really good start," said White. "I got in with a good group of girls and tried to hold on to a pretty hot pace."

She did more than hold on.

White finished fourth in the 254-runner field at Indiana State in Terre Haute, Ind., easily earning All-America honors.

"I surprised myself," a giddy White said by phone during a brief layover at the Atlanta airport during the trip home Monday evening. "My goal coming in was to finish in the top 15."

White covered the 6-kilometer course in 19 minutes, 59.5 seconds, about 13 seconds behind winner Angela Bizzarri of Illinois.

Liberty's Sam Chelanga, runner-up last year, won the 10-kilometer men's race in a course-record 28:41.3.

The Cavaliers finished 15th in both the women's and men's team competition.

Villanova won the women's team championship, while Oklahoma State was the men's champion.

William and Mary was fifth in the men's race.

White, who transferred to UVa from Arkansas over the summer, said her previous two trips to the cross country national championship helped prepare her for the race, which was held in sunny-but-cool weather over a relatively flat course made somewhat spongy by recent rains.

"My experience at nationals helped," said White, who won multiple state titles in cross country and track at Northside.

But during those previous national championship races she ran well back in the pack, finishing 199th as a freshman and 52nd last year.

This year White was near the front the entire race, which was televised live on Versus.

White, who won the NCAA Southeast Regional cross country championships on Nov. 14, hit the first mile in about 5:02 -- fast but not too fast.

"Our coaches told us, 'It's going to zap your legs,' " she said of the combination of soggy course and blazing pace.

As other runners dropped off, the mentally prepared White stayed with a small pack including Bizzarri that chased early race leaders Susan Kuijken of Florida State and Jenny Barringer of Colorado.

Barringer, among the pre-race favorites, slowed noticeably about halfway through the race, and briefly collapsed before finishing 163rd.

Bizzarri and Kendra Schaaf eventually accelerated to reel in Kuijken, who held on for third just ahead of White.

White said she didn't make any major modifications to her training program since transferring to UVa, attributing the improvement to her maturation as an athlete and "everything just clicking really well."

White will be home for the Thanksgiving weekend and said she may enter the Drumstick Dash 5K run Thursday morning.

But White said she has no intentions of dashing through downtown Roanoke.

"I'll probably just run with my dad," she said, laughing.

Which may present some local runners with a rare opportunity to not only run with an All-American, but an even rarer chance to run faster than one.