I apologize if these are unpolished and jump around, I like to fly by the seat of my pants when writing while still maintaining chronological order. Also I hate proofreading so it’s a full send once I decide I’ve written enough.
Spring 2017
Somehow, I had turned into a club veteran by the time spring of my sophomore year rolled around. I was leading people on runs, bringing north campus freshmen to social events, and answering new people’s questions about the club. I still felt pretty new to the club, but I guess I was becoming more of a leader and feeling like one too. That winter break, I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the NIRCA winter conference in Boston with Dolf, Briggs, Ethan, Katrina and Hiro. I was the only non-officer in attendance and I had a great time and gained more of an appreciation for NIRCA and for the club sphere. I had a chance to voice my opinions (while Harry from UPenn stopped talking for five seconds) about the direction NIRCA is going in and plans for future nationals and make connections with other club runners. There was even one runner from BU’s club team there that I knew from XC camp in high school that I got to see! My further involvement in club and NIRCA happenings solidified my status as a truly involved member of the club.
Now that my first full season of training and racing with the club was complete after a brief hiatus from competition post-high school, I thought I would be primed to have a successful season of running that spring. Key word thought. Not much progress was made that season. I was running everyday and doing all the workouts, but it just didn’t feel like my overall fitness was really improving. It seemed like every run was a struggle to finish-even the easy ones. I could do an easy short run and somehow feel like I had just done the hardest run of my life. The only good thing about doing workouts was listening to Luanne count down the reps: “Only 3 more til we’re halfway done!” “Only 2 more until we’re halfway to being halfway done!” “Only one more until we’re at the countdown!” (the countdown being 3-2-1). While Luanne’s enthusiasm during workouts was certainly helpful, it wasn’t changing the fact that I felt so tired after practice everyday. I didn’t really understand it, but nonetheless kept training.
Racing wise, spring of 2016 was very random and sporadic. It was also the season where I was afraid of the mile/1500. I opened the season with the one and only indoor meet for us, the Happy Valley Invitational. It was an exciting atmosphere with a nice track. We also brought a nice helping of girls to run. We had enough for two whole women’s DMRs!! Being that many of my teammates had specific legs they wanted to run and that I was also afraid of running anything moderately long because of how slow my time would be, I filled in as the 400 leg. A nice and (relatively) quick and fun two laps around the oval was an easy way to open the track season. It’s not like my 400 split mattered that much‒I never even found out what it was. I took a brief cooldown outside and waited for my next race, the open 800. I ran a very unremarkable time in the open 8 later as the lactic acid took over my muscles, but I thoroughly enjoyed being at the meet and racing. It was the first of the season and there was still plenty of time for improvement.
The next opportunity for racing didn’t come until club Penn Relayz (I missed UMBC earlier in the season) at historic Franklin Field. Everyone that had been to club Penn Relayz before raved about it-the pick your own batons, the distance runners doing 4x1s, the shot glasses as prizes–so I, and everyone else, was very excited for this meet! One difference this year though was that the meet was moved from late April to late March and that made for some way chillier temperatures for race day. Some wonderful parents came to support us anyway though, including mine and Julia’s. Penn Relayz, as the name indicates, is the ideal time to partake in some relays. I decided to do just that, running in a swedish medley relay and a 4×4. I also originally signed up for the open mile, but like I mentioned earlier I was afraid of the mile and how could I risk tiring myself out when I had some very important sprint races to do! According to Britney, our then sprint captain, I actually did a really good blind handoff in our swedish relay and we creamed the only other team in the race so it was worth it. I had earned myself a club Penn Relayz shot glass! Except they did not have any to give out that year and we were all under the impression that we would be receiving some after winning all the races. No surprise that we haven’t gone back to that meet since.
Spring track nationals was only a few weeks after club penn. After having the time of my life at xc nats, I was so ready for another jam-packed NIRCA weekend. My van consisted of Luanne, Briggs, Jonathon Shinholt, and Kirk Morris, a good mix of sprinters/distance and people who I knew and didn’t really know. Would this be my chance to hear life stories and tell my own?! I hoped so. It was still pretty cold when we left that early April morning. In fact, when I took the second shift driving the van starting in Cumberland, MD, IT STARTED SNOWING. Wtf I thought why did this have to start as soon as I took the wheel? I clutched the steering wheel for dear life while we slowly inched up some mountainous terrain. Kirk generously offered to take over driving, but I couldn’t bear the shame of pulling over on the side of the road and switching back to the passenger seat after a five minute shift. I just had to take it r e a l s l o w. Of course we had also merged into a one lane road so I was now backing up cars behind me with one of those cars being one of our vans where Trey was complaining about my driving without knowing it was me.
I managed to make it through a two-hour stint behind the wheel without causing any accidents or near death experiences this time thankfully. Our car was getting very anxious to finally make it to Indiana, though we managed to keep ourselves entertained with the glorious emergence of NIRCA Snaps. Anything was, and still is, fair game for NIRCA snaps All you have to do is insert the word NIRCA in front of another word/phrase to make it instantly cool and worthy of being shared on a snapchat story to hundreds of people. We NIRCA athletes have very high standards of course. Also butt chugging was very important (at least to Rob).
We finally arrived at what was definitely the nicest lodging we’ve ever stayed in as a club. I wish I remembered the name of it so I can stay there in the future when I go to Indiana (HA), but actually it was very log cabin-y in a nicer, more modern way. There was a super nice outdoor fire pit area where we roasted marshmallows on Saturday night while Ethan was on the verge of body slamming Trey in a sleeping bag. 5/5 stars. I got a nice and cozy rest wedged in between Shannon and Katrina in our possibly queen sized bed before getting up to go cheer on Norf Norf in the Hoosier half marathon. We camped out by the Indiana frat/sorority houses as our first cheering spot. I only feel the need to mention that because the houses were absolute MANSIONS and they all had unique designs.They put Maryland’s houses to shame. Cheering for the marathon with Dolf, Ethan, Luanne, and Marcel was without a doubt my favorite part of that weekend. It was just an all around great atmosphere with good vibes and supportive runners-a splendid way to start track nationals.
Meanwhile everyone else was gearing up for a long day of races at the track. We kicked off the day with the 4×800 relay. One of my best friends from high school was also running the 4×8 for Purdue’s running club but in the slow heat (lame). Nevertheless, it got me even more excited to race that day. Katrina, Luanne, Shannon and I warmed up and stretched together, while watching the slow heat. Before starting, we gathered for a pre-race huddle and got photographed by NIRCA’s official photography crew, one of my most cherished pictures from a club event.
Katrina led off strong and passed the baton to me on the second leg. As usual, I went out at a pace that I couldn’t keep up and slowed down a lot on the second lap. My time was somewhere in the high 2:40s, not what I was hoping for on the big stage. Shannon and Luanne held their own for the next two legs and helped us to an eleventh place finish and a new women’s club 4×8 record! I was glad to have my team to rely on and carry me to the only club record I would ever be a part of (until it was broken the next year at nationals). I had another 800 to run later on much more fatigued legs and only just managed to break three minutes. I almost always ran significantly worse in my second event of the day in high school and this was no different. The disappointing times didn’t bother me though since I was having such a good time overall with the team at our biggest meet of the season. The rest of the day was spent chilling and watching races, mainly while laying in the grass with Luanne and Katrina making guesses on what times our guys would run in their 1500s.
Later that night we had an…interesting dinner at what was essentially a fast food restaurant but for pasta. The cashier was sketchily pulling mass produced salads out from under the counter and the manager was offering us endless breadsticks. The most interesting part though was that Rob’s dad, who had traveled with him out to Indiana, joined us for the meal. Afterwards, my car took an eventful trip to target where Dolf and Ethan argued over whether to get Patsy (the birthday boy) a birthday cake and eventually settled on some butterfly shaped pastries and s’mores supplies. With stomachs full of questionable dietary choices, we tucked ourselves into bed before the second and final day of spring track nationals.
Day two got underway immediately as everyone was trying to get the heck out of Indiana and back home before class on Monday morning. The big event for me (and Katrina, Shannon, and Luanne) that day was the women’s 1500, and I distinctly remember none of us wanting to do it. My excuse was that I had a feeling I would run slow after seeing my times from the day before. Also, I was legitimately afraid of running a 1500/mile. I hadn’t done one since spring track counties my senior year of high school, and that was one of the worst, saddest races I had ever run. I didn’t ever want to relive that race, so I stayed away. It made me feel better knowing that the other girls were all considering scratching except, my fear and doubts getting the best of me, I was the only one that actually wound up scratching. The culminating event, like at most track meets, was the 4×4. Katrina, Luanne, Shannon and I reconvened once more to #squadup for the relay (funny how that happens when only five girls sign up for a meet), this time more focused on just having fun. After all, this was NIRCA and there were girls in our heat racing in flannels and backwards baseball caps calling it the “4 by fun.” I was very here for the 4 by fun, in fact I think that should be the mindset everyone has about running a 4×4. With that in mind, we smiled our way through 1600m of pure Nirca joy to cap off the weekend. Obviously that race was my favorite one that I ran that weekend. It helped that there was absolutely no pressure!
We hit the road, one “rush back” car actually having left first thing that morning, ready for the long journey back to College Park, but not quite ready to go back to school and the real world. I had a very intimate car ride home consisting of deep life talks late into the night with Briggs, Luanne, Dolf and Shinholt. THIS was the true nationals van experience I had heard so much about. Admittedly, I fell asleep at some point during the second half of the drive and woke up who knows how long later—except I pretended to still be asleep because I didn’t want to partake in the deep life convos at that time. I eavesdropped still half asleep from the very back row of the van. Yes, I am the worst, but I wasn’t really in the mood to talk about myself at the time and no one should feel pressured to. My time would come. Soon. Finally, we arrived in good ole CP in the wee hours of the morning, returned the vans, and crawled into bed, hopefully after taking a shower. Nationals may have been over but the season still wasn’t!
The next meet on the calendar was at Hopkins the weekend immediately after nationals. It was a Friday meet with some great DIII competition, but since it was on a Friday and that was back when I still had Friday classes, I had to forgo it for the sake of my academics. The Hopkins meet was followed by a weekend off before we returned to Shippensburg University for the Paul Kaiser Classic. Ahh, Shippensburg, where I made my return to racing just a year before. This time, I signed up for the 3000m steeplechase. Steeple was huge in New York and I had been dying to try steeple since freshman year of high school. I didn’t think I was good enough to do it as a freshman, though, so I never asked my coach to put me in it. I wanted to get better at running in general before attempting to run with barriers and water jumps. By the time I felt ready to try it senior year of high school and asked my coach about it, he said we needed to “get me healthy first.” For context, I missed the beginning of that spring season because of injury and I guess I never got healthy enough for my coach to let me try steepling. Alas, part of the beauty of club running is that you have the freedom to sign up for whatever the heck you want (@Shannon and Julia in the shot put) without having to get it okayed with a coach, and it was steeple time.
I practiced some barrier jumps that week during practice. Thanks to my time as a hurdler in middle school, I was able to clear the barriers with ease and didn’t suddenly get scared when approaching them like some people do. The women’s steeple that day at Ship only had five entrants—three of which were me, Eileen, and Rachel. I had a lot of fun trying out a new event that day, although I wished I ran it a little bit faster. I may have been the worst at running in that race (I finished 4th out of 4 after one girl dropped), but according to the spectators, I was the best at the hurdling part which gave me a sense of accomplishment. On another note, we had an absolute squad of girls at Ship that day, most of which were underclassmen. Now that we had such a solid it was exciting to think where the club would continue to go on the girl’s side in the future. Not only were we running with each other, but we were becoming good friends with each other too! The night before Shippensburg, eight of us bussed over to the tattoery, still sweaty from practice, and got some ear piercings. That will forever be one of the best bonding experiences I’ve had with the club girls. I loved the spontaneity of it. Unfortunately, that is an expensive tradition to keep up and we would all eventually run out of piercings that we want to get, so we have not had a team piercing trip since. Maybe the next generation of club girls can bring it back.
With that race in the books, my weird season with inconsistent racing, absent fitness, and a lingering feeling of fatigue was over. I was extremely ready for a break after Ship. As much as I loved running Frederick freshman year, there was absolutely no way my body could handle 13.1 miles, even if I took it easy. It was time for a much needed break before gearing up for a fresh season of cross country. Funnily enough, when we were talking about who had signed up for the half at practice one day, Luanne was surprised to find out that I hadn’t. She just assumed I did because I signed up for almost about everything with the club! I was flattered and pleased that in a year I had gone from a random, quiet girl that people did not think would stick around to a consistent and devoted club member that people had come to expect to be around all the time.
Outside of racing and competing, there were still plenty of fun things to do with the club that spring, like underclassmen dinners (did somebody say smoothie tower?), volunteering at kehoe, playing intramurals (one of my favorite aspects-more later!!!), and other end of semester extracurricular activities I enjoyed spring ‘17 a lot despite not having a single good race, speaking more to the beauty of club running. Even when you’re not at your best, being around the team and the good vibes surrounding it is enough to make what seems like a failure of a season into a successful, fun, and memorable one. Season 4/8 taught me to appreciate the little things and not fixate on your own personal failures.
