DENVER – A national-team level triathlete and a Division I springboard diver, Breanna Hemming had been told that running wasn't really her strong suit – certainly she was better in biking and swimming in the triathlon.
Then she ran her first race as a member of the MSU Denver track & field program.
"We really didn't know what event I should do, and we decided on the mile," Hemming said. "And in that race I ran a time that put me in the top-five nationally. So from that day I thought I could do well running."
No doubt about that.
Hemming merely became arguably the best athlete in the history of the MSU Denver women's track & field and cross country programs, with a list of honors and awards from 2013 through 2015 almost too lengthy to put into perspective in a single story.
Hemming's status will be confirmed on Oct. 1, when she is inducted into the MSU Denver Athletics Hall of Fame, along with women's soccer star and Team USA Paralympian Courtney Ryan, men's basketball standout Jonathan Morse, and men's soccer great Phillip Owen.
Tickets to the ceremony at the SpringHill Suites Denver Downtown on the MSU Denver campus are $50 for adults and $25 for children 12 and under.
Hemming was a six-time track All-American (three events indoors, three outdoors) as well as an All-American in cross country. Among her individual national finishes was third in the outdoor 1500 in 2013, sixth in the indoor mile in 2014, eighth in the indoor mile in 2015 and seventh at cross country nationals in 2013.
During the 2013 outdoor season, she was the RMAC's Freshman of the Year, the RMAC Championships' Athlete of the Meet and RMAC champion in the 800 meters and 1500. She won the mile at the RMAC Championships in 2015, and was the RMAC's Academic Athlete of the Year, both indoors and outdoors, in 2015. She was a two-time Academic All-American. And she's still the school record holder in the indoor 800 and mile as well as the outdoor 800 meters and 1500.
The story of her first race is one of several that stand out to Hemming from her time at MSU Denver.
Another is how she, Janelle Lincks, Belle Kiper and Judith Chavez came together to earn a fifth-place finish at indoor nationals in the distance medley relay in 2014.
"It's not a race where you really have a team atmosphere, because it's two sprinters, a middle-distance runner and a distance runner, and you don't work on it together like you would in a (sprint) relay to get better at it," Hemming said. "No one expected us to come together and really perform on a national stage, but we did."
Hemming's other most memorable moment is one that many consider tragic, but for her it only leads to strength.
Heading into the national championship final in the indoor mile in 2014, she had a race strategy. Since her finishing kick wasn't as strong as other runners in the field, the decision made was to run away from the field, rather than the traditional way of waiting to the end and then kicking to the finish.
It worked brilliantly. Hemming had a huge lead and was on her way to a national championship.
But, inexplicably, one of her spikes caught in the track with 10 meters to go and she fell. She got up but finished only sixth.
"Everyone was upset for me, but what I realized was that even though something like that doesn't seem like the norm, we ran the right race and we didn't win because of happenstance not because what we did didn't work," she said. "That showed me the power of convincing yourself that you can do something, that mental strength leads to physical performance.
"I have faith that, for whatever reason, I wasn't supposed to win that day, and I'm perfectly fine and satisfied with that. What happened taught me a lot about myself."
It's the kind of lesson that can serve Hemming well professionally, as she has just become vice principal at a charter school in Parker, Colo.
She has a 2 1/2 -year old daughter, Eliana, and a 1-year-old son, Zeke, and she's been married to high-school sweetheart Michael Warburton for seven years.
In fact it was Warburton, himself a national qualifier in track for MSU Denver, that played a part in Hemming becoming a Roadrunners star.
Besides being a triathlete, Hemming starred in diving and competed in that sport at Boise State for a year. Though she loved that experience, she took the opportunity to join USA Triathlon's Elite Academy at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., in the fall of 2012.
"I struggled through some adverse situations there," Hemming said. "The program wasn't working well. There were some difficult coaches and there was a time that six of the eight I was training with were injured. So it wasn't the healthiest situation mentally or physically.
"Michael was on the track team and he reached out to (coach) John Supsic and let him know I was interested. It was really quite a blessing that he brought me in – even though I had run four years of cross country I only had one season of track under my belt. To bring me onto a competitive team with almost track experience was quite a risk on his part."
Supsic, though, must have had a pretty good idea what he was doing.
"I was so obsessed over times and numbers, that kind of thing, that the first day he took my watch, threw it in his car, and locked it," Hemming said.
Once records started to fall, Supsic told Hemming: "I knew you could run. I just didn't know if you could run in a circle."
