<p>Lauren Klem tried her hand at running cross country on a whim. To say it’s worked out well would be an understatement.</p><p>Klem, an eighth-grader at Franklin Community Middle School, placed 25 out of 318 runners in the 13-14 age division at the USATF Junior Olympic National Cross Country Championship in Madison, Wisconsin last month. The finish earned Klem All-America distinction, an honor she’s now attained in each of her three years competing.</p><p>"One of my friends was doing it, and her mom, she saw me running at basketball one day and she thought that it would be a nice idea if I tried it out," Klem recalled. "So in sixth grade, I just went out for the tryouts."</p><p>In 35 career cross country meets for Franklin, Klem has finished first 26 times and second on seven other occasions (she had two sixth-place showings as a sixth-grader). She’s a three-time Johnson County and two-time Mid-State Conference champion.</p><p>Her performances locally were good enough to qualify her for nationals in her age group, and she’s stood out among her peers each time. As a sixth-grader, she was 25th of 393 runners in the 11-12 division, and she followed up by placing eighth out of 332 competitors in that class last year. She was named Indiana’s Youth Cross Country Runner of the Year in the 11-12 age group by USA Track &amp; Field.</p><p>In December, she ran the 4-kilometer course at nationals in 14 minutes, 49.6 seconds. As a frame of reference, that’s three and a half seconds faster than Franklin’s high school record at that distance, held by former All-State runner Ali Tranter.</p><p>Klem is clearly ready to excel at the high school level the moment she arrives as a freshman next fall, but she’s trying not to place outsize expectations on herself too soon. Instead, she places her focus on the Grizzly Cubs’ potential team success.</p><p>"I’m excited to come with the really good runners that are already here," Klem said, "because I think we can make it to state as a team and stuff like that, win sectionals."</p><p>What’s scary about Klem’s consistent success on the cross country course is that it might not even be her best sport. On the track, she holds Franklin’s middle school records at 400, 800, 1,600 and 2,400 meters as well as the 4×400 relay — and her times in both the 400 and 800 would have placed first at the Johnson County high school meet last spring.</p><p>She won USATF state and regional titles in the 1,500 meters in the spring of 2018 before finishing 22nd at the national meet.</p><p>But the 4-foot-10 Klem prefers to spend most of her time on the basketball court, where she hopes to one day play at Purdue. She’s been an integral part of a dominating team that has never, from second grade on, lost a game in the state at its grade level. Franklin’s eighth-grade squad opened its season earlier this month by winning its first three games by margins of 39, 59 and 59 points.</p><p>"She’s been lucky to have a group of kids in her grade, in cross country and in basketball, that have just been amazing to practice with," said Brian Klem, Lauren’s father. "It’s just a different group of kids in both of those sports."</p>
