THE ECHO

By Amelia Humphrey // Reporter

Have you always been top of the group? If not, how long did it take you to climb?

Middle school was when I really started running. I was very much not one of the fastest. Actually, for my seventh grade year, I was right on the cut-off of being varsity for conference. I remember there was a kind of a duel. The next meet, me and my peer were both aiming for the spot; whoever won that race would make varsity in conference. We ended up both breaking our personal records by about a minute and a half in that race, which for the 3K [1.86 miles, middle school race length] is an astounding amount of time. I think largely where my speed came from was running in the winter during the offseason, when a lot of people took it off.

What accomplishments has the XC team experienced in the past year? What about you individually?

As a whole, I think times have gotten better, and that’s easy to see. Numerically, we’ve gotten deeper as a team. We’ve had more people break the lettering barrier than I think ever before. But we’ve also gotten much closer as a team. There’s a very good strength in relations between the upperclassmen and the sophomores right now; one of the closest classes I’ve ever seen. That’s honestly my favorite thing about the team. And the biggest accomplishment for me individually? I would probably say I’m just really happy to be absolutely in the question for that varsity lineup. And I’m really happy about what I’m able to help do to foster that growth in team culture.

What challenges have you faced recently in your own personal training?

I didn’t have the greatest season last year for both cross country and track. For cross country, it was the latter half of the season. I started to fall behind from where other people were; I was not nearly as consistent. And then in track it kind of continued. With the actual times I ran, I was just not up to par for what I would need to do to be on that varsity lineup, which eventually ended my season early before cross country state.

This past year, the girls’ team merged with the boys’ team unexpectedly. Describe the merger. How do you think it has affected the team?

I’ve been pleasantly surprised. You know, when we first got the announcement, it was like, “Okay, how’s that going to affect things?” Obviously, there’s a lot more people and two different cultures are getting merged into one. I’ve been very happy that, especially during the first month, over the summer, there’s been a really great effort by both teams to talk to each other and get to know each other. We’ve always been close, as you know, we both do the same sport and have been cheering each other on. I think that’s done something to strengthen us, being on the same team. There’s been closeness, but just enough separation to keep it well-functioning.

Can you share some of your strategies for bringing the team together?

My biggest thing that I’m trying to work on is bringing motivation to the team. I have the mindset that you can’t just yell at people and get them to do everything you want. So my goal is, say, when people aren’t doing drills correctly—it’s mostly underclassmen—I don’t want to yell at them a bunch. I want to teach them how to do it, and if they are still not doing it right, just to not do it, then I’m trying to figure out, “Okay, so how do I get them to want to do it?” I can do that by getting closer to them, or telling them about goals of the season, or even presenting it in a fun way. That even transfers to the upperclassmen. You can’t just yell at upperclassmen to be leaders, you’ve got to give them a reason to want to. I’m trying to create games that get the upperclassmen to the underclassmen, to bring us physically closer so that there’s more interaction.

How do you exercise leadership on the team during everyday practice routines? In what ways do you “put yourself out there”?

I think the best thing that I’ve been doing is walking around with a smile and being the first to laugh at everyone’s jokes. I do think pretty much everybody that I’ve talked to on the team is really funny to talk to, but even then, I’ll try to do a little bit more to say, “Hey, we should all be comfortable here.” We should be an environment where everyone thinks they’re the funniest person in the room. And I think that’s the biggest thing: just making people feel welcome. And then when I have to get on them about something, it softens the blow: they take it more seriously because I’m usually kind to them. I’m also kind to them so they don’t think I’m being rude to be rude.

How will your XC experiences have a role in your future?

I don’t see a world where I stop running. It helps release energy and stress, and by about the seven-day mark of our two weeks off in both the fall and spring, I’m absolutely ready to get back to running. So I think just the ability to run for fun is going to help me a lot. And the lessons I’ve learned on team culture and how to bring people together is going to have a huge impact in whatever job I go into later.

Who are some of your teammates who have played a role in your XC journey?

The biggest influence that anyone’s had on me has been [senior] Mitchell Ford, because he has done more than anybody else on the team can even comprehend to bring my class and the class ahead of me, his class, together. We love each other so much now; we do everything together, and we hang out outside of practice a bunch. And that comes down to his ability to bring people together. I think that’s from my brother, who looked after him a lot when he was on the team, and now he’s looked after me. And I don’t think I could ever repay the kindness that he has shown me through my own time as an underclassman.

What other activities do you participate in?

I do band. I love making music. I think I honestly do more music in my life than running. I play trumpet in band. I’ve been learning piano on the side. My whole family is musical and that’s definitely rubbed off on me.

You just got a huge personal best at a meet. How do you celebrate?

I have two songs depending on how my races go. If it didn’t go the best, I’ll listen to Runaway by Kanye, but if it goes great, I’ll listen to Maslanka’s 4th symphony, which is where the band’s coming in. And I’m sure the people I drive are sick of listening to my band songs on the way to school, but I listen to Maslanka’s 4th because it holds such an emotional place in my mind, and it gets me recentered again, so that I’m elated, but also figuring out what I have to do next.

Do you have a job? If so, where?

I actually do not have a job. I like to think cross country is my job right now. Including pasta parties [pasta dinners Friday nights before meets], I have about 10 hours of work I put into the activity we do. I could hold a job, but I like my free time.

If you could play any sport you wanted, besides XC, what would it be?

The first thing that comes to mind—I don’t think this is actually what I would do—is that it’d be sick to be great at ping pong or bar games in general: ping pong, pool, darts, stuff like that. That would be really cool. It would be a racket sport. It’d probably be tennis. That’s what I generally gravitate to. I’m just so bad at soccer and football, ball sports like that. But racket sports I like.

You led a “debate” across the team to decide which flavor would be eliminated from the bagels the team brings to races. If you had to take a side, which would it be?

First off, I’m on team donut. If I had to kick one out, I would probably kick out cinnamon sugar, because it’s too messy and it attracts bees. It’s not my least favorite flavor out of the ones presented, though; my least favorite is probably blueberry. I’m not a big blueberry fan. My favorite bagel, though, is an egg bagel. Just a plain egg bagel.

Describe some of your “extra-academic” projects. What motivates you to construct elaborate arguments and essays to prove a point, create stock markets for joke auctions, and do notes for classes far ahead of time?

The first thing is that I get bored in school so easily, to the point where I need something to do to push me, and I find that when I’m working on these projects, my days go by the quickest. I also love writing. I love debating. That’s my favorite thing to do, for something I’m really passionate about, and writing is a way to do that on my own. So a lot of my projects focus on writing. But the other thing, beyond proving a point, is that I love having ideas that make other people laugh. And I think there’s so much that, if I put a certain amount of effort into it, I can make a conceptually funny idea and turn it into a project to make others laugh. These actually probably started in second grade. Two of my friends that I made at River Birch and I created a play in second grade, and we ended up eventually making two sequels to it over the next three years. It was a lot of work, but the whole point was to make people laugh at the end. That was, I think, the biggest payoff from it. And we would continue to do these stupid projects. We had a game where we tossed applesauce across a table, and we ended up creating an entire APA-style seven-page paper about the rules of the game that was full of rhymes and tongue twisters. I love working with people, and that really motivates me, and I love finally looking back at it when it’s all done and thinking, “That’s something I can be proud of,” and that other people find it entertaining as well.