Duplicating success is no easy task. Finding the next Katy Moen … well that might require some luck.

Moen, a redshirt senior distance runner, has provided needed consistency and leadership for an ISU women’s track and field team loaded with young talent.

She has also provided a blueprint for a successful track and cross-country career.

“It takes enjoying the process and embracing where you’re at in the moment, and not really focusing on the end result,” Moen said.

Moen says a lot of luck is included in the blueprint, but the consistency she’s displayed would suggest otherwise.

There had to be more than luck contributing to Moen’s eighth place finish at the NCAA Championships during the 2014 cross-country season or her two titles in the 5,000-meter run and the 10,000-meter run at the 2014 Big 12 Outdoor Championship.

And there had to be more than good fortune assisting in her runner-up finish at the Big 12 Championship during the 2014 cross-country season or her appearance at the 2015 NCAA Indoor Championship as the lone representative from the ISU women’s track and field team, right?

After all, luck and consistency are mutually exclusive.

“It’s taken a lot of patience, a lot of trial and error and a few successes here and there that have motivated me and kept me going forward,” Moen said. “A lot of luck, frankly, and learning from good and bad experiences.”

The moment that provided one of the biggest sparks in Moen’s ISU career arrived in a race she didn’t compete in. Moen ran a career best time of 15:56.53 in the 5,000-meter run at the Stanford Invitational on April 4, 2014, but that wasn’t the race she remembers most.

“Two weeks after [the Stanford Invitational], I watched [the 5,000-meter] at Mt. SAC and I saw a couple of the girls who also ran sub-16 [times] and it was kind of the moment like, ‘Wow, they’re running really fast,’ and it was really fun to watch them,” Moen said. “Then seeing their time on the board and realizing, wait, that’s me. That was a moment that stuck with me, just that feeling. There’s been a lot of great little moments that have happened.”

Talk to ISU coach Andrea Grove-McDonough about the young runners on the team and will she will discuss the search for the next Katy Moen.

“She’s a tough little kid and she’s going to be a big part of the group that we built around,” Grove-McDonough said during the cross-country season when talking about redshirt freshman Erin Hooker and her future with the team. “We hope [Hooker’s] the next Katy Moen.”

With a deep roster of first and second-year runners who have displayed great amounts of growth and improvement throughout the 2014-15 year, Grove-McDonough has a strong foundation of young athletes poised to lead the team in future seasons.

But there is only one Katy Moen.

“[My career at Iowa State] has been great,” Moen said. “I don’t know exactly what I was expecting when I came in as a freshman, but it’s been awesome. “It’ll be neat when it’s finished to look back and see what I’ve really done. I don’t know if it’s all really hit me yet.”