Zariel Macchia

William Floyd HS, Shirley, NY, c/o 2025
AthleticNET Bio

It seems from a very young age, Peter and Alex Macchia’s eldest daughter, Zariel, was always wanting to run. Peter and Alex had running backgrounds. Both went to Columbia and her mom(nee Guerrero) was 2nd team All-Ivy League in 2003. 

Zariel remembers when she was younger they would have field day and she would always be first beating the boys and girls in her class in the running races. At recess, people would challenge her and she would beat them. In gym class, she would run the furthest by far of anyone in her class.

“I definitely always excelled in running compared to my classmates,”  says Zariel modestly.

But when “Z”, as her parents and now teammates call her, asked to run a 5k road race in the 5th grade, they said no to her disappointment. By the sixth grade, she was able to convince them and she was given instructions to run behind the high school cross country team who was also running the race. But after the first mile, she was ahead of the team and smiling as she went by her parents. She finished third overall and beat her mom’s time “by a lot.” After the race, the high school coach, John Ryan, asked if she wanted to attend practices a few times a week. Z took him up on the offer and since then, Z has run almost every day, always looking at her running as fun and exciting and something she looks forward to each day.

Z was quick and as a seventh grader, she most often won her cross country races. Cross country wins out over track races as her preferred surface, but she was equally successful on both surfaces. She was eligible to run for the high school cross country team her seventh grade year, but her parents felt that was too long a season for her to run so she stopped competing at the county level where she finished second in 19:41.7. They did let her run the first mile of the Eastbay NE qualifier that year to get the experience of running in a high caliber race. 

The family made plans to visit her grandparents in California that year too and decided to go and watch the Eastbay National Cross Country finals in San Diego and then drive to Portland for the NXN Championships.  Z thought it was a good idea and one of her immediate goals at that time was to one day compete in those championships by her senior year in high school.

“My dad said he had never seen me so excited to watch races before,” says Z who took everything in, including talking to the athletes in the races. “That definitely drew me in and after that trip, I knew I really wanted to make it to Footlocker and I was going to make that my big goal for my senior year in high school. If I train hard enough, I could make it and that would be the most amazing thing ever.”

Eighth grade was the COVID year so she didn’t get to race as much. She recorded bests of 2:20.10 for 800m, 4:43.37 for 1,500m, 10:09.64 for 3k on the track and 19:18.2 for the cross country 5k.

In ninth grade, she continued to improve.She finished ninth in the NY State Cross Country Championships in 18:15.30 and looked forward to the Eastbay NE Regional two weeks later. There she would surprise everyone including herself.

Her plan for  Eastbay NE Regionalwas to stay in the top 10 and possibly the top eight just in case someone who had a kick couldn’t catch her at the end and she would qualify. Her plan was working to perfection and as she headed into the wooded area, she saw a pack of seven girls( places 2-9) running together assured that they had a qualifying position. Z decided to catch up to them and then on a downhill she passed them all. She was now in second and that  left her wondering.

“I'm pretty good on the downhill so on one of the downhills I passed all of them. I asked myself, What? How did I just get in front of all of these people? All of them are better than me,” she recounts. “ Then I was so excited that I just kept going.”

Z was now ahead of the NE stars she had never beaten before.

“On the last straight into the finish, I heard people yelling for Julia Whitakker. I thought she was going to catch me so I just started kicking as hard as I could from over 100 meters out. It was the most exciting race I had been in at that point. I was just so happy and so excited to make it and to be second in that race[17:42.7], because that was beyond what I had imagined that I could do at that point.

With her dream realized earlier than expected, Z finished 12th at the At Eastbay Nationals in 17:43.3 and was the first ninth grader to finish. Behind her was this past year’s top distance runner, Irene Riggs who finished 14th in 17:48.5  and another ninth grader, Sadie Englehardt of Ventura who finished 15th in 17:51.5.

Z built off that race and decided to run the 2022 USATF National Junior Championships on January 8, 2022 in San Diego. She had her eye on gaining some experience for the following year when the team would be selected to compete for the World Athletics Cross Country Championships in Bathurst, Australia. She won that handily over Colleen Stegmann- 22:50-23:39.

Her new found national prominence took a foothold at the Nike Indoor Nationals where she won the two mile in a new personal best of 10:17.09 and also finished seventh in the mile at the New Balance Nationals Indoors  with a 4:48.64. Outdoors she finished seventh in the 800m(2:12.54) and sixth in the 1,500m (4:31.97) at the New York State Championships. At the New Balance Nationals Outdoors, she lowered her two mile personal best to 10:08.50 finishing second to Angelina Perez’s 10:03.18.

This past cross country season, Z claimed the New York State championship with a 18:02.6. She then looked to the postseason and qualified for the Champs National Cross Country meet for the second time by finishing third at the NE Regional in 17:47.9.

With an eye towards the USATF National Cross Country championships on January 21, 2023 in Richmond, VA, Z finished second at the Garmin RunningLane XC Championships in 17:34.2 and sixth at the Champs National Cross Country Championships in 17:33.9.

“So I was definitely thinking about that offseason that I wanted to do it [the USATF National Cross Country Championships,” she says. “ Once we finally decided I wanted to do it, I was focused on having a good race at Running Lane and Champs so I was trying to heal myself. I wasn't thinking about having a great race.”

With those races behind her, she then turned to the USATF National Cross Country Championships in Richmond, VA. There she left it all on the course and took third in 20:05 to earn a spot on the team.

“In the under 20 qualifier, Iput everything I had into that race and just raced it the whole time and wasn't worried about getting  tired later on and falling off the pace. I was just all in the whole time. That's how I wanted to race especially after having held myself back a little bit more than I should have at  the other championship races. I was very happy with that performance.”

The World Athletics Cross Country Championships provided more of a challenge in all aspects. The course had obstacles, mud and sand. The temperatures were hot and the trip to get there was a long one. But Z handled it with aplomb, downing as much fluids leading up to the race start and taking a positive mental approach.

“Once I stopped  worrying about the  course being difficult, I also thought that the course looks really fun to race. The reason I like racing is because I love running. Most of us entered with a mindset that this course is really fun to run and we would want to run it for fun anyway, so that was cool.”

Besides downing the most Gatorade and water she had ever drank to prepare for race day, the team had an air conditioned “garage", ice water and towels to soak themselves prior to the race start.

Z was fourth Team USA member across the line in 23:05 which was good enough for 19th place. Ellie Shea(10), Irene Riggs(12) and Karrie Baloga(13) rounded out the scoring for the bronze medal winning team who scored 54 points. Ethiopia(15) and Kenya(22) finished ahead of them with Uganda fourth with 75 points.

Z has fond memories of the trip and the entire experience. She enjoyed the camaraderie of the men’s and women’s team and the opportunity to meet athletes from other countries. They made friends with the Austrailians by teaching them how to play “ Go Fish” with the cards that they had brought. They traded pins with the Japanese using charades and hand motions to communicate that they wanted to trade pins.

Z’s track season went very well and she continues to strive to compete in as many national competitions as she can. She represented Team USA once again at the recently completed Pan American U20 Track and Field Championships in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, earning a bronze medal in the 3,000m in 9:52.40. 

In the future, she hopes to go to college to run and compete for Team USA in other competitions.

“I would love to train to make the trials and maybe even have a chance to qualify for the 2028 LA Olympics,” she says. “Of course this is still a decent amount of time into the future and an ambitious goal, so it's something I have in mind that would be great, but I'm not set on it yet and would like to focus on goals like competing well at NCAAs or whatever collegiate meets I end up being a part of first.”