Off to the races
Senior Kiley Atwood and junior Jessica Nye had standout performances to end the 2016 girls’ cross country season.On Oct. 22, at the Mt. San Antonio College (SAC) invitational meet, the largest annual high school cross country meet in the world, Atwood placed 9th overall in the 5K event. Atwood had a new personal record and placed 9th overall in the girls’ division.
Atwood finished the race with a time of 19:40, which was an improvement from her time last year by four seconds. Initially, Atwood felt uncertain as to how she would perform due to unexpected weather conditions brought on by the late start time of her race.
“I think I did really well considering the circumstances,” Atwood said. “I was proud of my time and, compared to other schools, I was more prepared to run because Coach Foster did an amazing job in our training. This was the first race I ran with a strategy so I think that helped me as well.”
Cross country coach Chris Foster says that Atwood has improved greatly this year.
“Kiley’s progress this year has been incredible,” Foster said. “She has seen an improvement over the last year by probably three or four minutes every single race. Her race at Mt. SAC was kind of the icing on the cake for her because it was such good competition and such a difficult course and she really performed well.”
Mirroring Atwood’s success, Nye finished the 5K with a time of 19:19, which was an improvement from her time at last year’s Mt. SAC race by 25 seconds and placed 7th place overall.
At Bay League Finals on Nov. 3, Nye ran a personal record of 17:58 in the three mile event and qualified for CIF-Southern Section Division Preliminaries on Nov. 11, where she ran a 19:04 in the three-mile event.
“It was a little overwhelming because I felt like all the hard work had paid off,” Nye said. “Even though I did not put together the race I would have liked to at Prelims, I am still very grateful to have had the opportunity to race there in Riverside and have my teammates come out and support me.”
Nye owes much of her improved focus to Foster, who helped her strengthen her mental approach to running.
“My coach tries to help me get past the mental aspect during each race because I usually psych myself out,” Nye said. “Whenever the course has hills he is always at the hills because he knows that is my weakness and he tries to get me to forget about the hills and just not mentally destroy myself.”
Foster says that Nye has made big strides due to her active training and preparation.
“Her tactics, her strategy, her mental toughness, all of that has been something she has been working on and I think it is starting to pay off with that big race at Bay League Finals and that good finish at Mt. SAC,” Foster said.
Nye is optimistic about her final season next year and hopes to advance to further rounds of CIF.
