Penn State Cross Country 2011-The Inside Scoop

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Hello Women Talk Sports readers! This is my first blog for the website and I am so excited to have this opportunity to share my experiences with all of you! A big thank you to Ann Gaffigan for this opportunity!

Here’s a little background information about me. I started running when I was seven years old and I started competing shortly after that. I’ve been very lucky; Running has allowed me to travel to every corner of the United States with family and friends.  After competing at various AAU and USATF youth competitions, I attended Argyle Central School where a group of 7^th graders made it all the way to the top 10 in the National High School rankings. I was fortunate enough to be on the inaugural Nike Team Nationals winning team with Saratoga Springs and finished my high school career at Greenwich.  In 2008 I started school at Penn State and continued to build on this amazing journey. It is my senior year and after graduation I hope to pursue a career running professionally. I have big goals for myself but I am on my way to fulfilling them.

I started writing a blog for GoPSUSports.com at the beginning of this cross country season as a preview and recap of the races we competed in so I’ll fill you all in. Our season started at the Lock Haven Dolan Duels, which is a very low-key meet. It is just Lock Haven and PSU and it is only a 4k, which is a nice way to ease into a cross country season.  Our team got off to a fast start sweeping the first five places. The women’s team looked great and poised to have an excellent season. After Lock Haven we had a small home meet. We sat out our top nine to prepare for a big weekend in Minnesota. We traveled to the University of Minnesota where the women ran a decent race. We finished eighth in a deep field but should have placed better. From Minnesota we turned around six days later and competed at the Notre Dame Invitational. The women rebounded well from Minnesota and placed fourth in another great field. After Notre Dame we had an off week to get some good training in and then on the 14^th of October, we had our home meet, The Penn State National. Our goal for the meet was a win, but unfortunately we had to settle for third as West Virginia won with UConn second, so we were pretty disappointed with our performance. We have now set our sights on the Big Ten Championships. We will be traveling to the University of Illinois this weekend to try and to win another title.

Three years ago, when I was a sophomore, the Penn State women started doing something called “Theme Days”. This year we started on a Thursday so we could dress up for the ten days leading up to Big Tens. Animal day, power color day, ninja day and tie-dye day are some of the themes. For a lot of people, being silly doesn’t get them fired up. For us, it seems to work. We started doing theme days the year we won the Big Ten Championships. We’re hoping that we have the same spark we had in 2009.

On Friday we will head to Illinois, where the Championships are being held this year. We’ll have all day Saturday to relax and get prepared for the race. For those of you who don’t know, the Big Ten is wide open this year. It is anybody’s race. Penn State, Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa, Michigan State and Wisconsin will all be major players. The individual race is up for grabs as well. I hope to be up with the leaders and contend for the win. My best finish at the conference championships is 22^nd so it will be a big jump, but a jump I am willing to put everything on the line for.

We’ve had two great weeks of training and everyone on the team is extremely excited to get this meet underway. Big Tens is a special time and one we take very seriously here in Happy Valley. The Penn State women are prepared and ready to go. Hopefully when you hear back from me next, we will be the 2011 Big Ten Champions!

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• Cross Country
• Running
• Sports
• SportsPLUS
• College
• Student-Athlete

This post is related to an ongoing story:

• 2011 NCAA Cross-Country

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