There was never much question of Lilian Koech's talent.
The sophomore distance and middle distance runner on the UTEP track team won her collegiate debut, indeed her personal indoor debut, in 2015 and eventually won a silver medal at the Conference USA championships that year. She won gold indoors in the mile at last year's C-USAs.
The issue has been keeping her healthy. Koech missed last year's outdoor campaign with a stress fracture, ran cross country this fall, then missed indoors with that same stress fracture that reacted better to grass than boards.
That's meant a bit of a waiting game for the woman from Iten, Kenya, and now she's making up for that time.