[2] As a seventh grader in 2016, she "took down" a large field of female high school runners in a Minnesota cross-country invitational meet.
[4] As a seventh grader, she was allowed to compete for Cotter High School, in Winona, Minnesota.
[2] As a 12 year old, she finished second behind 19-year-old Weini Kelati in the girls' 5,000 meters at the New Balance High School Nationals in Greensboro, North Carolina.
According to her father, Ryan Ping, she was expected nonetheless to compete in “significant indoor and outdoor meets this coming spring.”[5] Which she did: in March 2017, in San Francisco State Distance Carnival, she ran away from the field to achieve 16:26.83 in the outdoor 5000 meters, breaking the world record for 13-year-old females by more than 10 seconds; the previous record had been set by Aleksandra Olinyk of Ukraine in 2007 in Mykolaiv, Ukraine.
[4] According to MileSplitUSA in December 2020, she committed to attend Oklahoma State University after she graduates from high school in 2021.