Lexington Catholic’s Caroline Beiting takes flight on land, sea and air

Lexington Catholic’s Caroline Beiting can fly.

And that’s not just a cliché regarding the high school track and swim athlete’s remarkable athleticism.

Because for about as long as she’s been running and swimming competitively, she’s also been taking flying lessons from her aunt, a certified flight instructor.

“My aunt is a pilot for American Airlines, so she has been teaching me to fly since I was pretty little,” said Beiting, a junior, who thinks she started flying in her aunt’s small plane when she was about 10 years old.”

But make no mistake, Beiting can fly on land and water, too.

She holds the Class 2A state record in the 800-meter run — a record she beat by more than 1.5 seconds in winning Saturday’s Class 2A, Region 4 race at Henry Clay High School. She said running for LexCath’s loaded defending region and state championship team helped spur her to finish Saturday’s 800 in 2:13.02.

“I just came out here to run and have fun with my teammates,” Beiting said. “And I know that my teammate Abigail Turner is very talented, too. So I just wanted us to push each other during that race. I heard her behind me after the first lap, so I was like, ‘all right, let’s go.’”

Beiting finished ahead of Turner by more than four seconds with the third-place finisher more than seven seconds back.

In addition to the 800 on Saturday, Beiting won the 1,600 with a time of 5:01.08 and was part of LexCath’s winning 4-by-800 relay with teammates Anna Dawahare, Cate Conklin and Turner and 4-by-400 relay with Turner, Joanna Bryant and Taylor Riordan.

Lexington Catholic’s girls team had eight first-place finishes and a number of other automatic qualifiers for the state meet later this month. Last year, Beiting’s 4-by-800 relay team broke the Class 2A state record in that event by more than 12 seconds.

“It’s insane. I don’t even know what to think that I get to be a part of this team,” Beiting said. “All I can be is grateful. I love all the girls. It couldn’t be better.”

The high school swimming season takes place over the winter in between her fall cross country and spring track seasons. In February, Beiting set a region record in the 50-meter freestyle with a preliminaries time of 23.47. She’s been a regular region and state swimming medalist her entire high school career.

“I’ve been swimming since, I think, fourth or fifth grade, competitively, and I just can’t drop it,” Beiting said. “I just want to keep continuing through my senior year before I go off to run in college. I just enjoy both.”

Beiting played a number of different sports growing up. She can’t explain why running and swimming are the ones that stuck.

“I chose the tough ones. I don’t know why,” she said with a smile.

While Beiting runs for Lexington Catholic during the fall cross country season, she prefers the track.

“I just love (track) a lot more. I love no hills. I love having multiple events. I love having people here the whole way,” Beiting said. “In cross country, sometimes you have stretches in the woods where there’s no one and you’re just by yourself.”

Beiting’s best state cross country finish is second place her freshman year. A hip injury limited her last season and caused her to miss the regional. She recovered enough to run at state and finish 13th. Her teammates finished second (Conklin), third (Dawahare), 12th (Bryant) and 17th (Cecelia Lowry) to help the Knights win their third state straight cross country title.

“She’s not just an incredible athlete, she’s an amazing person,” Lexington Catholic track and cross country coach Bernadette Madigan-Dugan said. “She leads the FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes), she’s very involved in school leadership and probably one of the best students.”

Beiting hasn’t settled on plans for her future. While she enjoys flying, she doesn’t see that as a career. She plans to run track in college with Duke, Virginia and Florida on her short list of schools, so far.

“All I know is that I really liked science in school, like physics and chemistry,” Beiting said.

When told those courses might be difficult with an athlete’s other demands, she shrugged.

“My friend (and former LexCath teammate) Kat Woodall is a swimmer at SMU and is a bio major. I guess I’ll talk to her and see how that went this year,” she said.

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