Junior Year Cross Country Recap

There are never the correct words for how much each cross country season means to me. This season especially showed me a lot of new things about myself as a runner, teammate and person of faith.

So much of my creative work lately has focused on the experience of being a runner and how athletics shapes personal identity, and I think that artistic work has helped me to process a lot of my feelings around training and running competitively in this season of my life. I love training and always have, but the racing side has always been more of a necessary evil. It shows me where I'm at and gets me the status I need to continue at this level. This cross country season showed me that racing doesn't have to be that way. My word of the season this fall was "celebrate", as I wanted to focus on the idea that racing is truly a celebration of all the hard work I've been putting in, both alone and alongside my teammates.

With a lot of hard and easy miles and an equal amount of mental work, I'm so excited about how this season showed me that racing actually can be fun. This emotional progress came from a lot of factors but especially those of being a leader on my team and understanding how loved and valued I am outside of any race result. That belief in my self worth is easy to say but far harder to truly believe and implement into how I operate as a runner and teammate. I'm proud of the progress I've made and I'm really, truly excited to bring that understanding into the next few seasons of my racing career.

Some stats!! :)

• First team all-region & 10th place in the NAIA South Regional

• 67th place at NAIA National Championship

• 2nd place individually at Sun Conference & Sun Conference team champions

• New 5k PR: 18:05 (Project Sub-18 continues)

• New 6k PR: 22:04 (started the season with a PR of 22:43)

• Raced in South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, Tennessee

• NAIA Champion of Character Award

One of the biggest highlights of this season was winning the Sun Conference Championship for my third year in a row alongside my incredibly strong and wonderful teammates! I got second place individually behind my dear Talia and secured a team qualification to the national championship. At the national championship I placed 67th, improving from my 94th finish last year. I was and am still absolutely over the moon with that finish! I approached that race with a newfound sense of calm confidence that this season prepared me to have, and it payed off big time. I also was able to improve my overall 5k PR to 18:05 from 18:07 (baby PR but I'll take it) and my 6k from 22:43 last season to 22:04. This 6k jump was thrilling and really gave me a lot of confidence in my patience and fitness.

Another major highlight for me was getting honored with one of the NAIA Champion of Character awards at the athlete experience event at nationals. I've always thought that this character-based award was such an inspiration and shows that this sport is about far more than the numbers. I never expected to be awarded this myself and I'm still not entirely sure how it happened, so I suppose #TYJ!

This season was not without its trials though, as usual. I fell flat on my face 30 seconds into a 5k race in Charlotte, NC and bruised a rib in the process, but got up and still finished in 18:24, which is equal to my 5k XC PR from last season. I got sick right before our regional meet in Knoxville, TN but still managed to secure a negative strep throat test before jumping on the bus to drive to Tennessee. These challenges make for good stories and lessons.

I keep just saying how grateful I am for my team and this progress and it’s simply true! This season had a steady progression in fitness, minus a few typical injury prevention scares, but more importantly I learned how to have genuine fun doing something very hard. 

Life is changing but so am I!! Indoors is up next.