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It isn’t a surprise to find Kaylie Dameron, a sophomore who competes on the cross country team, running alongside Grand Lake St. Marys with the sun rising over her shoulder before classes begin.

“Oh, I love it,” said Dameron, who majors in graphic and multimedia design. “I try to get out here as much as I can.”

This early-bird runner has definitely caught the worm. Dameron recently won the women’s 6K race in the United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA) National Championship with a time of 23:03. The next closest competitor was 51 seconds behind.

“This was a very large accomplishment,” said Ben Slaton, the .

The national championship took place on Nov. 10 in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. The early portions of the course were challenging for Dameron, but Slaton said, she never quit.

“When they came around the first corner she was in sixth or seventh, but then they went back into the woods and by the time they got out of the woods she was 30 feet in front of the next closest person,” said Slaton.

“I just had to get through it,” said Dameron. “It was pretty exhilarating.”

Dameron was a three-time Western Buckeye League Champion runner at Celina High School and enrolled at the Lake Campus so she could compete close to home and study graphic design. She hopes to work as a professional photographer after graduation, but for now, she’s hitting her stride in cross-country.

During the 2024 season, Dameron was named the USCAA National Female Runner of the Week three times and broke her own school record in the 5K at the Jenna Strong Invitational in Wilmington with a time of 18:56.

Dameron credits her diet, a new running plan and faith for her record-breaking results.

“It was fun being able to compete and break the school record a couple of times,” she said. “When I run it’s my way of thanking God for creating me the way he did.”