Annabella Tomasic, a 12 year old sixth grader from Orlando, recorded an incredible performance for her age or any age for that matter on Saturday in the 5,000 meter run at the flrunners.com PR Festival on the Track held at Viera High School in Brevard County.
Tomasic, a two-time FLYRA Middle School state cross country champion, had already broken 18 minutes for a road 5K before, but lowered that time down even considerably more with her 17:27.33 performance for her first 5K race on the track in a co-ed field of primarily high school runners as the top female finisher in the race.
Joining her under 18 minutes in the race and the first time ever were two high school All-State cross country runners in Evangelical Christian senior Ava Povich in second place with a time of 17:38.89 and Bishop Verot sophomore Mackenzie De Lisle in third place with a time of 17:51. Povich and De Lisle had previous 5K bests of 18:16 and 18:01 respectively from the cross country season.
The promise of Tomasic is great as she is certainly a youth running prodigy that is rarely seen in the state of Florida and anywhere for that matter. She had broken and reset the FLYRA Middle School State Championships 3K meet and course record at Holloway Park last month with her 10:19 effort.
She really caught our attention in her first FLYRA middle school state race victory in 2021 when she decisively defeated and pulled away from Eliana Black of Cambridge Christian, who ended up being one of the best high school runners in the state of Florida this fall as a freshman.
Tomasic still has over two more years to go until she truly breaks onto the high school scene as a ninth grader in the fall of 2024, but we will just have to wait to see which high school that she ends up running for by then.
Her 5K performance would have ranked behind only state champion elites Eliana Black at 17:15 and Jillian Candelino at 17:16 as the fastest 5K times this fall in Florida.
It was a rare treat though to see how she already stacks up well or in fact ahead of the high school competition. At this rate of time drops, no high school runner in Florida may be able to keep up with her upon her freshman year arrival.