It takes a little crazy — plus skill, toughness — to run steeplechase

RIO DE JANEIRO — Like an arena transitioning from a basketball game to a rock concert, the track at Olympic Stadium needed a quick makeover on Sunday in advance of the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase, with volunteers preparing water hazard and hauling out the hurdles to create a course totally unique in track and field.

The water hazard, an aquatic chasm runners must traverse seven times in the course of a single race. At best, competitors leave with wet shoes; at worst, they get soaked.

And these are not your normal hurdles: The barriers in place have no give, unlike those in the shorter distances, leading many a runner to clip a foot and hurtle to the ground, or into the water, causing a midrace pileup.

“It wasn’t too scary,” said the USA’s Colleen Quigley of her first steeplechase, before quickly backtracking: “Well, it was a little scary.”

The race is part hurdles, part middle-distance race, part slip-and-slide and part obstacle course — a child’s backyard game, essentially, and totally ... well, unlike anything else you’ll find on the track at these Rio Games.

“I think it just takes a lot of hard work. It takes a lot of guts,” said Emma Coburn, the top American women in the event. “I think all track and field events do, but there’s something about the steeplechase. There’s just a lot of problems where some drama might occur. If you aren’t a calm person, it might really upset you.”

It also doesn’t hurt to be a little crazy, Quigley said.

“It’s a crazy event. You kind of need nerves of steel to be jumping over this thing that doesn’t move if you hit it.”

It demands a certain type of runner, one with the stamina to deal with distances and the agility to manage the hurdles, along with the sort of mental fortitude needed to the handle the race’s eccentricities. A little speed doesn't hurt, in the race to the finish line.

Such as, for example, barriers and hazards that are often not seen but sensed, by gauging the bobbing heads and bodies of runners at the head of the pack. Or the pandemonium that ensues when a racer stumbles and falls, forcing upright competitors to tap dance their way through chaos.

“You can’t shut the brain off like you can in some of the other distance events and just follow,” said the USA’s Courtney Frerichs, who finished second in the event at July’s team trials. “You’ve got to be engaged and focused the whole time or else you’re going to risk falling on one of those barriers.”

On Monday, Coburn, Quigley and Frerichs will race in the final — the first time the USA has had three in an Olympic final — and the men's competition — featuring American recordholder Evan Jager — run their first-round heats.

The steeplechase appeals to the runner in Quigley, who was recruited into the event as a freshman at Florida State. The longer distances are “just boring to me,” she said, as her times suggest: Quigley has run a 9:18 in the straightforward 3,000 meters, but twice finished at 9:21 in a 3,000 steeplechase.

“I kind of prefer jumping over stuff instead of just running in circles for what seems like forever,” she said. “It’s just boring to me. I think I have a weak mind, and I don’t like just grinding it out. I just can’t absolutely can’t stand it.”

But the events aren’t composed of castoffs from other disciplines — runners too slow for the hurdles, for example, or not strong enough for longer distances — but rather an athlete able to combine the assets needed in track’s many disciplines.

Take the focus of middle-distance races. Mix the technique of the hurdles. Blend the rhythm of the longer runs. Just add water — and hurdles — to get the steeplechase.

“It’s not just running,” said Germany’s Gesa Felicitas Krause. “It’s different, but it’s special.”

TRACK AND FIELD AT THE RIO OLYMPICS