Samford's Ansley Bos -- Driven By Passion

By Sam Chandler, Samford Athletics Communication

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- Ansley Bos rounded the final corner of the 2014 Southern Conference Cross Country Championships in disbelief.

"Are you kidding me?" Bos muttered to herself, as she sprinted down the final homestretch. "This isn't real."

The time on the clock 100 meters ahead of her read 17 minutes, 45 seconds. A mere 23 seconds later, Bos crossed the finish line in 18:08, an 18-second 5K personal best.

"I didn't expect to run low 18s that day," Bos said. "It was a huge encouragement."

Bos' unexpected performance in the conference championship race was no fluke. Since walking onto Samford's cross-country and track teams just over a year ago, she has displayed a knack for surpassing expectations.

One in a million. According to Samford head cross-country coach Lori Strand, those are the odds of finding an athlete like Ansley Bos.

"She's a rare find for sure," Strand said. "Physically, she's just very talented. She's got great form, and she's very athletic. Mentally, she's just a tough girl. She competes with herself."

What makes Bos such a rare athlete isn't just her innate physical ability and mental toughness, but rather the rapid rate of her dramatic improvement.

As a prep runner at Circle Christian School in Orlando, Fla., Bos competed in only one season of cross-country and two seasons of track. She began track in the spring of her junior year, and then ran both cross-country and track during her senior year.

Although she ran respectable personal best times of 21:04 in the 5K, 2:25 in the 800 meters and 60 seconds in the 400 meters, Bos originally decided to not pursue running on the collegiate level.

"I knew I had some ability," Bos said, "but I thought with my times I wasn't fast enough to be running in college."

Bos, who has family in the Birmingham area, initially chose to attend Samford for its renowned academics, size and location.

"I like the Birmingham area, and I just wanted to be close to family," Bos said. "I liked how small it was."

Throughout her freshman year at Samford (the 2012-13 academic year), Bos continued to run recreationally a few times per week. During that time, however, she came to realize how much she missed competing.

"I tried to run three times a week just because I liked it," Bos said. "And I think that's one of the things I needed, knowing that I wanted to run more. That I missed the competitive part of running."

Timing is critical in distance running, lying at the very core of the sport. The duration of an interval, workout, or race gives meaning to one's perceived level of effort. One day at the beginning of the 2013 fall semester, timing proved to be fateful.

As Bos went out for one of her thrice weekly up-tempo runs on the nearby Lakeshore Trail, she crossed paths with two members of the women's cross-country team, Frances Bernard and Marie Demedicis, along with former assistant coach Pat McGregor.

"We saw her looking darn good, so we approached her," Demedicis said.

The three spoke with Bos, discussing her personal best times and asking about her potential interest in joining the team. Following their discussion, Bos was put in contact with coach Strand, who invited her to participate in a tryout period.

The tryout period went exceptionally well, as Bos was able to build relationships with team members while discovering how team practices would fit into her academic schedule.

Perhaps most importantly, the period confirmed her desire to return to competition.

"After going through the tryout period, I knew that I loved it," Bos said. "I wanted to keep doing it."
As a result, she gladly accepted an invitation to become a member of the team.

"Even when I first got here my freshman year, it was a dream to run competitively on the collegiate level," Bos said.

On the morning of Oct. 5, 2013, Bos turned that dream into reality, nervously toeing the starting line at the Greater Louisville Classic. Facing a competitive field of 118 runners in her first race as a Bulldog, she felt uncertain of what lay ahead.

"I remember being super nervous because I hadn't raced in over a year," Bos said. "I think I had maybe two or three weeks of training and I wasn't really confident in my fitness level."

Nevertheless, the gun sounded and the race began.

"I remember it hurting like crazy. It was one of the worst pains in racing I've ever felt."

After enduring the arduous pain for 3.1 miles, Bos crossed the line 23^rd overall, finishing third for the Samford women. Remarkably, she shattered her previous personal best time by one minute, 44 seconds, clocking in at 19:20.

"I was super surprised because I didn't think I was going to break 20 minutes. From that point on, I knew this was where I'm supposed to be."

Bos continued to excel throughout the remainder of the season, steadily improving her times at each meet. By the time the 2013 SoCon Cross Country Championships rolled around in early November, Bos unleashed a huge performance, finishing second on the women's team in a personal best time of 19:08.

From recreational runner to star athlete over the course of just two months, Bos' unforeseen success would prove to be just a small sample of what was come.

Fifteen hundred meters equates to three and three-quarter laps around an outdoor oval track. Over the course of those three and three-quarter laps, the legs of a mid-distance athlete churn rapidly, constantly accelerating the runner closer and closer towards the finish.

It is an unforgiving race, quickly leaving behind any athletes who don't hang with the pace from the outset. It is also an exhilarating race, often coming down to the final meters before a winner emerges victorious. To Bos, all of these elements combine to create her niche race.

Over the course of her first collegiate outdoor track season, Bos quickly and unexpectedly emerged as one of the SoCon's elite 1,500 meter runners. Just as she had done in cross-country, Bos continually shaved multiple seconds off her time in every race, which stands a tall task in mid-distance events.

In her first 1,500 meter race at the Raleigh Relays last spring, Bos clocked a time of four minutes, 38 seconds, roughly equivalent to a 4:59 mile. Subsequently, her performance earned her a spot in the invitational section of the women's 1,500 at the Auburn Invite. Refusing to shy away from the talented field, Bos rose to the competition level, placing fifth overall in 4:34.

Bos' best and most crucial performance of the outdoor season, however, came exactly when the team needed it most. Dropping five seconds off her previous best, Bos ran 4:29 in the event at the 2014 SoCon Outdoor Track and Field Championships. By placing third overall, she played a key role in propelling the Samford women to the team championship.

Bos' time of 4:29 in the 1,500 meters roughly equates to a time of 4:48 in the full mile, which is unbelievably fast for a female athlete who had never competed in the event just a few months prior.

"I didn't ever the run mile in high school," Bos said.

How did Bos improve so much in so little time? That's a question even her coach has to pause and think about.

"I thought that she would improve, but I had no idea she would improve this much," Strand said. "I knew she could potentially help us in the future, but I thought it would take a little longer than it did."

According to Strand, one potential reason for Bos' rapid improvement lies in her sheer passion for the sport.

"I think she's really made jumps in running because it means a lot to her, and competing is fun for her," Strand said. "She definitely loves the sport."

Though she undoubtedly embodies a love for running, Bos credits her steady progression to her coach and teammates.

"The coaching is incredible, and I'm just pushed to a level that I've never reached before," Bos said. "There's no way I can go out and do a workout and enjoy it as much as I do if I were doing it by myself."

The immense strides Bos has made over the past year have provided her with the confidence and   tenacity required of an elite college distance runner. Entering the quickly approaching indoor and outdoor track seasons, Bos intends to transfer those two critical characteristics into her racing strategy on the oval.

"I'm really excited about the mile and the 1,500," Bos said. "I feel a lot more confident in myself this year. I want to take control of races and not sit in the back and wait to kick, or let somebody else do it for me. I want to go out and do it myself."

Poised for yet another season of surpassing expectations, Strand believes Bos has what it takes to make a name for herself on the regional and national levels.

"She's kind of like the perfect athlete," Strand said. "She does everything you tell her to, and you see improvements quickly. I think she's very capable of getting a regional qualifying time. To be honest, the sky's the limit with her."

Players Mentioned

Frances Bernard

Ansley Bos

Marie Demedicis

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Upcoming Events

Upcoming Event: Cross Country versus Crimson Classic on Oct 16, 2026 at TBD

Upcoming Event: Cross Country versus Southern Conference Championships on Oct 31, 2026 at TBD

Upcoming Event: Cross Country versus NCAA South Regional on Nov 13, 2026 at TBD

Results

Completed Event: Cross Country versus Southern Showcase on September 18, 2026 , , W-16th/M-25th

Completed Event: Cross Country versus Foothills Invitational on September 4, 2026 , , M-3rd/W-4th

Completed Event: Cross Country versus NCAA South Regional on November 14, 2025 , , M-23rd

Completed Event: Cross Country versus Southern Conference Championship on November 1, 2025 , , M-5th/W-5th

Completed Event: Cross Country at Crimson Classic on October 17, 2025 , , M-17th/W-15th

Completed Event: Cross Country at FSU XC Invite on September 26, 2025 , , M-9th/W-9th

Completed Event: Cross Country at Foothills Invitational on August 29, 2025 , , M-3rd/W-4th

Completed Event: Cross Country versus NCAA South Regional on November 15, 2024 , , W-11th/M-18th