Welcome to the first installment of "Run, Write, Repeat", a weekly column telling the stories of Minnesota's fantastic running community. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I will enjoy writing it each week!
A little bit about myself:
In the fall of 2016 I won the Class A Cross Country Championships, and at the State Track Meet last June I was the 1600m champion and 3200m runner-up. I am entering my senior year at Mounds Park Academy where I have been since kindergarten. My passion for running did not develop right away; in middle school I wandered between sports including golf, speed skating, and soccer before finally settling on the sports that my two siblings were in: cross country, nordic skiing, and track. Initially what drew me to the endurance sports were the people on the teams. At our school most people who run cross country also do nordic and track, and the community and friendships that we make are invaluable to me. Apart from training together each day after school, the community of endurance athletes is a very close-knit group of friends. After my first two years running cross country and track, I made the decision that I wanted to try and take myself to the next level and compete with some of the best runners in the state. The summer after my sophomore year in which I finished 19th in cross country and on the podium in both the mile and two mile, I started diligently training over the summer and with successive months of 60+ mile/week training, I found myself running simply because it was what I loved to do. It is an indescribable feeling I get when I am out on a run with only myself and my music and it has been one of the most important things in my life throughout my high school career.
Over the years, I have had the privilege to compete against some incredible runners, and I have met many of my best friends through the distance running world. When I'm not running I love to golf, force my dog to spend time with me, and eat! Looking ahead to college I hope to continue running at a D1 level, major in biomedical engineering, and hopefully attend medical school after college.
About this column:
I have always loved checking websites such as MileSplit, Down the Backstretch, and Lets Run and reading new articles about the running world. However, I have always felt that the Minnesota high school running community, in particular Class A, never got the coverage that it deserved. Apart from the back pages of local newspapers with the highlights of the State Meet at the end of each season, myself and many of my family and friends have been in search of a news source that does not just highlight the end of season achievements of Minnesota top runners, but rather the journeys athletes undertake in the buildup - stories which oftentimes are far more interesting than the end result. Class A running in particular receives significantly less coverage in comparison to its counterpart- 2A- not just in running, but other high school sports as well. It is true that nationally competitive runners such as Tierney Wolfgram and Grace Ping come and go, however it is important to keep in mind that the athlete who runs a 25-minute 5k his/her first year and a 20-minute 5k the year after is working just as hard as the athletes qualifying for the elite national meets. I have seen firsthand the hard work that all of my teammates, both experienced and new, have put in and it is stories like these that deserve recognition regardless of how they finish amongst other runners. One story that comes to mind is a teammate of mine named Matthew Bourne, who has always been a good friend and runner. Running in the mid-18 minute range for the majority of the first parts of last season Matthew was not expecting to qualify for the State Meet. However at sections, Matthew ran close to a thirty-second PR of 17:27 and clinched one of the coveted individual qualifications for state in a sprint finish. That performance, coupled with some outstanding results from our 3-5 runners, brought our team within five points of qualifying for State in a section where there were two teams that had been ranked in the top ten all season (Trinity and Minnehaha). Matthew's excellent performance and others like it are the stories that I think people need to read. Fortunately the directors at MileSplit MN recognized this as well. After reaching out to inquire about potentially sharing some of my experiences and love for the running world, I was very excited when I was given the opportunity to do this in a weekly column.
I have three main goals for this column. First, I hope to shed some light on my own experiences as a high school athlete, as well as share the stories of some of the people who have inspired me both on and off the course. My second goal is to offer better coverage of some of the fantastic athletes in Minnesota whose achievements deserve to be recognized and too often go unacknowledged. If you read this and think of an athlete whose story deserves to be recognized, don't hesitate to contact me and I will do my best to share it! Finally, I want to find answers to and offer opinions on questions and topics that are of interest to the Minnesota running community in hopes of generating a community discussion that extends the joy of running to both on and off the course. I hope that this column is something that you can look forward to reading each week, which is why I want to interact with as many of you as possible in order to tailor the content to your needs and interests. My contact information is below and I strongly encourage you to reach out with ideas for articles, athletes who deserve recognition, stories that you want to share, or questions that I can hopefully answer!
Happy running!
