Girls Cross Country

The mindset behind the miles

Girls cross country team focuses on mental side of running

Sophia Krueger kruegsop000@hsestudents.org

Girls cross country varsity team members run the course at the Hoosier Crossroads Conference meet on Sept. 24. Photo used with permission of Ken Pensinger.

Ahigh school cross country race is typically about three miles, but there if you’re not in the right headspace before you run, it can totally throw o your running is more to the race than just running. e FHS girls cross country team has been focusing on the other aspects of a race all season. Coach Andrew Belloli has been the head coach of the team for three years. is year, he is striving to help his athletes work on the mental facet of running. “A lot of times we have girls that are really training well, and they’ve got a lot of the physical part of it down, but… just learning to navigate the di erent stress that can come in with getting ready for a race,” Belloli said. “It’s more been about how to prepare with everything else we do that maybe isn’t running. Fueling, hydrating, and getting rest...We’ve made that an increased priority.” Sophomore Bella Murch joined the team this year and a er just a few races, already understands the signi cance of having a positive mindset. “It’s really important because… abilities,” Murch said. “If you get super stressed out while you’re racing, that can also have an e ect on you. You have to really make sure that you’re just calm and focused. You have to let [others] motivate you and not make you stress out.” Junior Kate omas also joined the team this year and has been working on the ability to stay calm during a race not just for her mental health, but her physical health as well. “I have sports performance anxiety, so when I got to the end of my runs for the rst few meets that we had, I’d almost pass out at the end,” omas said. “I got diagnosed with VCD (Vocal Cord Dysfunction), so when I get anxious, it closes my airway and causes me to get dizzy and lightheaded. Just being able to stay calm during my races and really work on my breathing… has been one of the biggest challenges to overcome.” Being able to refocus a mindset during a race does not just happen overnight. It is worked on from Monday to Friday practices, to moments before the timer starts. “We’ve been doing some relaxation before a meet,” Murch said. “We do this breathing exercise; we’ve been focusing a lot on breathing and making sure that our heart rate doesn’t spike too much and that we’re pushing ourselves, but that we’re not redlining, [reaching 90 to 100 percent of our maximum heart rate]...Just making sure we can stay consistent.” Sometimes the support of teammates is needed when the going gets tough. e girls cross country team encourages each other using a unique acronym. “Our coach has a saying, it’s called ‘roar’,” omas said. “It [stands for] recognize the obstacle, approach it with a positive attitude and then respond. So, if we’re in the middle of a 400 repeats or something, we’ll just go ‘roar’ at each other and then you just keep running and it’s like, okay, they’re in pain too, we got this.” As the team enters its nal month of the season, the mental preparation will continue. According to Belloli, it has contributed to nothing but success so far. “When you look at our progression of times in the season, a lot of girls have dropped time in multiple meets this year. At our last meet, every single JV runner got their best time of the season and…nine of our 12 varsity girls,” Belloli said. “Hopefully that means they’re progressing the way we want them to, and are gonna be ready to go for the state tournament.”