George Washington University Athletics
Buff & Blue Forever Presented by Capgemini: Suzanne Dannheim
5/22/2020 12:00:00 PM | Women's Track/Cross Country, My GW: Celebrating our Stories
Thanks to extraordinary commitment, GW runner secured place in history
Before she ever set GW records, claimed Atlantic 10 titles and represented the Colonials on the national stage, Suzanne Dannheim needed a spark.
For most of her first three semesters in Foggy Bottom, Dannheim's collegiate resume was rather ordinary. A one-on-one chat with Director of Athletics Tanya Vogel in the fall of 2017 served to light the fuse on one of the most decorated cross country/track careers in Buff and Blue history.
The frank meeting came after Dannheim was disciplined by being held out of a cross country meet. Vogel told the sophomore runner she saw untapped potential, both within her sport and beyond. "Do you want to make an impact on this community?" she asked.
Looking back, Dannheim believes that simple question changed everything.
"I basically just looked at my life with a fresh set of eyes," Dannheim said. "It was like 'I can continue down this path and probably be really mediocre. Or I can set all that aside and go out and chase what I want to get out of this experience.'"
Over the past two-plus years, Dannheim left no doubt in offering her answer.
As a junior, the Jacksonville, Fla., native earned cross country All-Region honors for the first time and became the first Colonial woman to advance to the NCAA East Preliminary Round on the track.
This year, Dannheim took her distance running to the next level: She finished runner-up at the A-10 cross country meet and seventh at the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional before closing the fall with a trip to the national meet.
She followed that up by earning Track Athlete of the Meet honors at the A-10 indoor meet before the outdoor season was unfortunately canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
While putting in the time and effort to find improvement at every turn athletically, Dannheim was leaving her mark on campus with an infectious enthusiasm. She devoted herself to growing the cohesion and reach of GW SAAC on the way to becoming the organization's president, and she held down research and peer mentoring roles within the GW School of Business, as well.
Fittingly, Dannheim was honored last week with the athletic department's Senior Leadership Award in recognition of her efforts.
"The only reason I've been able to do any of it is because I'm able to think that I can," Dannheim said. "And the only reason I think that I can is because GW and GW Athletics have told me with a whole heart that they think that I can."
Dannheim's ascent is a testament to hard work, the power of positive thinking and so much more.
Days after accepting Vogel's 2017 challenge, Dannheim landed in 30th-place at the A-10 meet, a finish that was third among Colonials and 22 spots higher than the year before but far from satisfying.
By then, she had already begun to make small lifestyle changes to get where she wanted to go. With each tweak – eating better, getting more sleep, getting more involved – it became easier to make more.
"When you're waking up every day saying 'I'm going to be my best self today,' you start gravitating toward the people and things that allow you to be that and cut out the people who are forcing you down the opposite route," Dannheim said. "The whole time it was a battle, but every single day, every week, every month, I was looking myself in the mirror saying 'How are we going to do it better?'"
With that approach, Dannheim found ways to keep raising the bar. She scored for the first time at an A-10 outdoor track meet in steeplechase as a sophomore and then came back to qualify for NCAA Regionals as a junior. She improved her positioning at the conference cross country meet each season.
Along the way, Dannheim became a role model for an improving squad – and with her commitment to all-around excellence and an ever-present smile, the athletic department as a whole.
"It's a tough thing to balance, but I think she's done a great job," head coach Terry Weir said. "Because you have to live it. You can't just check the time card for practice and then check out. You have to do a lot of things in terms of recovery and eating well and taking care of your body 24/7, and she's done all that while doing all the other things on campus that she was so very good at."
Dannheim took that precision to a new level in her final season in Buff and Blue.
She went to a vegan diet, meditated daily, upped her practice load to 70-75 miles per week running alongside the men's team and put in extra work to build her speed and power in the Smith Center auxiliary gym nearly every morning.
"We really doubled down on everything," Dannheim said. "I seriously made sure I was holding all the cards when it came to my physical capabilities and fitness."
The measures felt necessary after a whirlwind summer. Working 80-hour weeks as an analyst at Goldman Sachs in New York City, Dannheim woke up at 4 a.m. to squeeze in early morning sessions on the treadmill, but with Weir's insistence that she focus on her dream internship, she was far from her usual mileage.
By the time she arrived in Foggy Bottom for the fall, Dannheim was sure she was in trouble. How could she catch up with top-flight competitors who'd devoted their summers to getting ready?
Then, Vogel put Dannheim on the spot at the Fall Kick-Off Dinner, introducing the SAAC President's remarks by cheerfully adding "And Suze just told me she's going to win an A-10 title." It was a daunting goal given how unprepared she felt – and yet totally empowering.
"Of course," Dannheim said with a laugh. "It comes back to Tanya every time."
Dannheim raced against the clock with her newfound training regimen to make Vogel's prediction a reality. It turned out her urgency helped her peak at the right time.
Coming down the stretch last fall, she put together her best 6K time of the season (20:20.8) vs. a decorated field at Lehigh's Paul Short Run, won her second 5K race of the fall at the Princeton Invitational and then battled for the top spot at the A-10 meet before landing runner-up.
"Timing is everything in our sport," Weir said. "Every week, she just got better and better and fitter and fitter."
Throughout her senior season, Dannheim leaned heavily on visualization. Each morning, she'd write "I will win the Atlantic 10 Championship" or another lofty goal in her notebook. Then, she'd lace up her sneakers and pretend she was on the starting line at regionals.
Dannheim delivered by finishing 6K in 20:24.6 to take seventh at the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional, a 101-spot improvement over her first trip there in 2016. She became just the second Colonial to qualify for the national meet, joining GW Athletic Hall of Fame harrier Megan Hogan.
"By the time I got there, I was like 'There is absolutely no way in hell I don't qualify for Nationals,'" said Dannheim, who ran for a national title a week later in Terre Haute, Ind., with Vogel there supporting. "That all came down to the mornings that I spent saying, 'I'm going to be at the national championship.' I was doing that for so many days it was like I brainwashed it into myself."
Dannheim made more history three months later when she finally became an A-10 champion. She won the indoor 5K on Feb. 28 in Kingston, R.I., with a conference-record time of 16:20.52 to take down a mark that had stood since 2014, and then she came back less than 24 hours later to take the 3K in 9:32.20.
It was the sort of special effort that's necessary to win Track Athlete of the Meet honors.
"I hope it just serves the team and the department as a little bit of inspiration," Dannheim said. "I shouldn't be Track Athlete of the Meet, right? Based on where I came from as a recruit and the size of the programs that we're competing against, I should not win that award. I have to give all the credit to my coach and my teammates because they are truly the ones who enabled me to do it."
That turned out to be Dannheim's last race in Buff and Blue with sports worldwide paused by the pandemic just before the outdoor opener. It was an understandably tough blow for a student-athlete who had come so far to chase realistic dreams of becoming a steeplechase All-American and qualifying for the U.S. Olympic Trials.
Looking ahead, Dannheim must soon make a tough decision between exciting options, either starting full-time at Goldman Sachs or heading to grad school to use her final outdoor season of eligibility at a Power Five program. Either way, she plans to continue training with hopes of earning her shot at Olympic qualifying next summer.
Dannheim has carved out a bright future with her impressive personal growth over the past four years. The Finance major joined her fellow classmates across the department virtually last week to celebrate that journey in spite of its unexpected ending.
One more time, Vogel introduced Dannheim to begin the Senior Class Toast and let the SAAC President have the spotlight from her home in Florida. Clad in cap and gown, she savored the well-earned moment, truly appreciative of all the support along the way.
"Despite everything, we wanted to come together as a community and we wanted to celebrate and remember what we did and remember how wonderful it was," Dannheim said. "For me, that's overwhelmingly emotional. Because that's the kind of thing that you could look at and say it stinks, but here at GW and in this athletic department, we say we're better than that and we are so grateful for the opportunities that we did have more than anything else."
For most of her first three semesters in Foggy Bottom, Dannheim's collegiate resume was rather ordinary. A one-on-one chat with Director of Athletics Tanya Vogel in the fall of 2017 served to light the fuse on one of the most decorated cross country/track careers in Buff and Blue history.
The frank meeting came after Dannheim was disciplined by being held out of a cross country meet. Vogel told the sophomore runner she saw untapped potential, both within her sport and beyond. "Do you want to make an impact on this community?" she asked.
Looking back, Dannheim believes that simple question changed everything.
"I basically just looked at my life with a fresh set of eyes," Dannheim said. "It was like 'I can continue down this path and probably be really mediocre. Or I can set all that aside and go out and chase what I want to get out of this experience.'"
Over the past two-plus years, Dannheim left no doubt in offering her answer.
As a junior, the Jacksonville, Fla., native earned cross country All-Region honors for the first time and became the first Colonial woman to advance to the NCAA East Preliminary Round on the track.
This year, Dannheim took her distance running to the next level: She finished runner-up at the A-10 cross country meet and seventh at the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional before closing the fall with a trip to the national meet.
She followed that up by earning Track Athlete of the Meet honors at the A-10 indoor meet before the outdoor season was unfortunately canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
While putting in the time and effort to find improvement at every turn athletically, Dannheim was leaving her mark on campus with an infectious enthusiasm. She devoted herself to growing the cohesion and reach of GW SAAC on the way to becoming the organization's president, and she held down research and peer mentoring roles within the GW School of Business, as well.
Fittingly, Dannheim was honored last week with the athletic department's Senior Leadership Award in recognition of her efforts.
"The only reason I've been able to do any of it is because I'm able to think that I can," Dannheim said. "And the only reason I think that I can is because GW and GW Athletics have told me with a whole heart that they think that I can."
Dannheim's ascent is a testament to hard work, the power of positive thinking and so much more.
Days after accepting Vogel's 2017 challenge, Dannheim landed in 30th-place at the A-10 meet, a finish that was third among Colonials and 22 spots higher than the year before but far from satisfying.
By then, she had already begun to make small lifestyle changes to get where she wanted to go. With each tweak – eating better, getting more sleep, getting more involved – it became easier to make more.
"When you're waking up every day saying 'I'm going to be my best self today,' you start gravitating toward the people and things that allow you to be that and cut out the people who are forcing you down the opposite route," Dannheim said. "The whole time it was a battle, but every single day, every week, every month, I was looking myself in the mirror saying 'How are we going to do it better?'"
With that approach, Dannheim found ways to keep raising the bar. She scored for the first time at an A-10 outdoor track meet in steeplechase as a sophomore and then came back to qualify for NCAA Regionals as a junior. She improved her positioning at the conference cross country meet each season.
Along the way, Dannheim became a role model for an improving squad – and with her commitment to all-around excellence and an ever-present smile, the athletic department as a whole.
"It's a tough thing to balance, but I think she's done a great job," head coach Terry Weir said. "Because you have to live it. You can't just check the time card for practice and then check out. You have to do a lot of things in terms of recovery and eating well and taking care of your body 24/7, and she's done all that while doing all the other things on campus that she was so very good at."
Dannheim took that precision to a new level in her final season in Buff and Blue.
She went to a vegan diet, meditated daily, upped her practice load to 70-75 miles per week running alongside the men's team and put in extra work to build her speed and power in the Smith Center auxiliary gym nearly every morning.
"We really doubled down on everything," Dannheim said. "I seriously made sure I was holding all the cards when it came to my physical capabilities and fitness."
The measures felt necessary after a whirlwind summer. Working 80-hour weeks as an analyst at Goldman Sachs in New York City, Dannheim woke up at 4 a.m. to squeeze in early morning sessions on the treadmill, but with Weir's insistence that she focus on her dream internship, she was far from her usual mileage.
By the time she arrived in Foggy Bottom for the fall, Dannheim was sure she was in trouble. How could she catch up with top-flight competitors who'd devoted their summers to getting ready?
Then, Vogel put Dannheim on the spot at the Fall Kick-Off Dinner, introducing the SAAC President's remarks by cheerfully adding "And Suze just told me she's going to win an A-10 title." It was a daunting goal given how unprepared she felt – and yet totally empowering.
"Of course," Dannheim said with a laugh. "It comes back to Tanya every time."
Dannheim raced against the clock with her newfound training regimen to make Vogel's prediction a reality. It turned out her urgency helped her peak at the right time.
Coming down the stretch last fall, she put together her best 6K time of the season (20:20.8) vs. a decorated field at Lehigh's Paul Short Run, won her second 5K race of the fall at the Princeton Invitational and then battled for the top spot at the A-10 meet before landing runner-up.
"Timing is everything in our sport," Weir said. "Every week, she just got better and better and fitter and fitter."
Throughout her senior season, Dannheim leaned heavily on visualization. Each morning, she'd write "I will win the Atlantic 10 Championship" or another lofty goal in her notebook. Then, she'd lace up her sneakers and pretend she was on the starting line at regionals.
Dannheim delivered by finishing 6K in 20:24.6 to take seventh at the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional, a 101-spot improvement over her first trip there in 2016. She became just the second Colonial to qualify for the national meet, joining GW Athletic Hall of Fame harrier Megan Hogan.
"By the time I got there, I was like 'There is absolutely no way in hell I don't qualify for Nationals,'" said Dannheim, who ran for a national title a week later in Terre Haute, Ind., with Vogel there supporting. "That all came down to the mornings that I spent saying, 'I'm going to be at the national championship.' I was doing that for so many days it was like I brainwashed it into myself."
Dannheim made more history three months later when she finally became an A-10 champion. She won the indoor 5K on Feb. 28 in Kingston, R.I., with a conference-record time of 16:20.52 to take down a mark that had stood since 2014, and then she came back less than 24 hours later to take the 3K in 9:32.20.
It was the sort of special effort that's necessary to win Track Athlete of the Meet honors.
"I hope it just serves the team and the department as a little bit of inspiration," Dannheim said. "I shouldn't be Track Athlete of the Meet, right? Based on where I came from as a recruit and the size of the programs that we're competing against, I should not win that award. I have to give all the credit to my coach and my teammates because they are truly the ones who enabled me to do it."
That turned out to be Dannheim's last race in Buff and Blue with sports worldwide paused by the pandemic just before the outdoor opener. It was an understandably tough blow for a student-athlete who had come so far to chase realistic dreams of becoming a steeplechase All-American and qualifying for the U.S. Olympic Trials.
Looking ahead, Dannheim must soon make a tough decision between exciting options, either starting full-time at Goldman Sachs or heading to grad school to use her final outdoor season of eligibility at a Power Five program. Either way, she plans to continue training with hopes of earning her shot at Olympic qualifying next summer.
Dannheim has carved out a bright future with her impressive personal growth over the past four years. The Finance major joined her fellow classmates across the department virtually last week to celebrate that journey in spite of its unexpected ending.
One more time, Vogel introduced Dannheim to begin the Senior Class Toast and let the SAAC President have the spotlight from her home in Florida. Clad in cap and gown, she savored the well-earned moment, truly appreciative of all the support along the way.
"Despite everything, we wanted to come together as a community and we wanted to celebrate and remember what we did and remember how wonderful it was," Dannheim said. "For me, that's overwhelmingly emotional. Because that's the kind of thing that you could look at and say it stinks, but here at GW and in this athletic department, we say we're better than that and we are so grateful for the opportunities that we did have more than anything else."
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