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Women’s Cross Country Captain 144–145 Equestrian Club
Senior Isabel Johnston runs during the Jannette Bonrouhi-Zakaim Memorial Run on Sept. 4 on campus. Johnston is the captain of the women’s cross-country team after being cut from the team in 2019. Ash Bailot/The Ithacan
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WOMEN’S CROSS-COUNTRY RUNNER COMES BACK AS CAPTAIN AFTER OVERCOMING HEALTH ISSUES
BY ELI FISHMAN
Ithaca College senior Isabel Johnston, captain of the college’s women’s cross-country team, picked up running in her senior year of high school. With minimal experience, she had little to no intention of running at the collegiate level, but when she toured the college, a track meet was occurring at the Athletic and Events Center. She was fascinated by the race, and Erin Dinan, the college’s women’s cross-country head coach, encouraged her to try out for the team in the fall.
“I had pretty much no long distance experience under my belt, but I liked the sport a lot,” Johnston said. “I tried out, made the team immediately and fell in love.” Despite fnding success on the team, as she began to ramp up the intensity of her workouts and the distances she was running, she found something was physically wrong.
“I was starting to notice shortness of breath when I was racing and working out at high intensities,” Johnston said. “I was passing out after races and having a hard time fnishing.”
Johnston was diagnosed with a laryngeal dysfunction, meaning her vocal cords were blocking her breathing. She continued training before the Fall 2019 season to be ready, using an inhaler and undergoing speech therapy to help loosen her vocal cords, but during tryouts, her breathing problems still impaired her performance, so much so that she was cut from the cross-country team.
“Because of her breathing, she was not able to perform at the level that she’s capable of,” Dinan said. “She just didn’t have the capacity to breathe well.”
Johnston decided to take the whole year off from running and head to yet another specialist to fgure out the cause of her struggles. She was told that she had a deviated septum, which blocks the nostrils from properly releasing and taking in air. She underwent surgery in May 2020.
Yet another bump in the road occurred when the team’s cross-country season was canceled for Fall 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Johnston had to wait even longer to put her hard work on display. In her frst return to action, Johnston participated in six meets during the Spring 2021 season for the college’s track and feld team, placing in the top fve in four of the meets. Though she had success during her freshman year, fnishing in the top 10 in the 2019 Colgate Invitational, 2019 Cortland Invite and 2019 Stockton Invite, Johnston felt she rejuvenated her athletic career.
“I was a whole new runner,” Johnston said. “I was getting the hang of what felt like a new body. … I went pretty hard with my summer training going into junior year. I was ready to go, just to see what I could do because I had never really known that before. I’d always been limited in some way.” After watching her perform on the track and feld team, Dinan said Johnston’s comeback was impressive. “When she came back, I was blown away,” Dinan said. “She knocked off signifcant times in her performances.”
As a testament to her performance and leadership skills, Johnston was voted a captain by her teammates for the 2021 cross-country season.
“I’m super grateful and honored that my teammates voted me into this position,” Johnston said. “Especially because I missed out on a lot of time with them, not racing as a sophomore. I think it’s a good position to be in, and it’s going to keep me motivated.” Johnston has placed inside the top fve for the team in its frst three meets of the season. Coupled with her strong performances, senior runner Paloma De Monte said she believes Johnston’s work ethic and enthusiasm have a positive impact on her teammates as well.
“Isabel is the most driven person I know,” De Monte said. “She always has a smile on her face and this contagious energy that lifts everyone around her up. She has this gift to connect with people and, in my opinion, makes everyone on the team feel special, in turn, undoubtedly driving motivation and performance within the team.”
De Monte said she believes her teammate’s resiliency can serve as an example to motivate athletes who face adversity.
“I think it goes to show that if you really want something you have the ability to get there,” De Monte said. “It’s because of this that Isabel can speak to her experience and help others who are experiencing setbacks. A minor setback sophomore year is setting her up for a major comeback her senior year.”
Two years after she was cut from the team, Johnston now is one of its captains. Johnston has had to wait to return longer than she expected, but she still knows that she has something to prove over the course of this season.
“It’s an interesting dynamic,” Johnston said. “On one hand, I’m a senior and I’m the captain of a nationally ranked team. But on the other hand, I’ve only raced two collegiate 6Ks and I’m still getting the hang of racing. … I still feel like a newbie.”
Junior Equestrian Club Secretary Sarah Cashton rides Ace the horse Oct. 13 at If Only Farm in Freeville, New York. The equestrian club competed Oct. 16 for the frst time since before the pandemic. Ash Bailot/The Ithacan Freshman Taylor Hagquist brushes Jersey the horse Oct. 8. Eleanor Kay/The Ithacan
ITHACA COLLEGE EQUESTRIAN CLUB GALLOPS INTO FIRST IN-PERSON SEASON SINCE 2020
BY TOBIAH ZBORAY
The Ithaca College equestrian club has returned to its “mane” season after spending last semester away from the riding arena, unable to meet in person and forced to hold team bonding exercises online.
The equestrian club is a group that participates in competitive horseback riding at Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (IHSA) shows. During the fall show season, the club attended six shows and started its season Oct. 16 at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Rochester, New York.
The return of in-person activities for the club is different from last semester, when it was forced to host all its meetings online. The club was unable to ride together or have a guided team practice, and members tried to stay in touch during Spring 2021 but found it diffcult to bond as a team online. The participation for its team bonding events was not what members were hoping for. “Participation was defnitely a lot more stagnant,” club president senior Lauren vonStetten said. “We tried to do Zoom bondings every month, but there defnitely was a lot lower participation for that. Most of the girls on the team just want to ride.”
Part of the participation problems that the club faced with online meetings was due to members feeling overworked from online learning, with them ending up being burned out by the time the team meetings would come around.
“I feel like everyone in general just didn’t want
to be on Zoom for any longer than they had to be,” club secretary junior Sarah Cashton said. “Nobody really wanted to come to our Friday night bonding events that we planned. We tried to have games and different activities, but it was very diffcult.”
Now that the college has allowed for clubs to meet in person again, the club has begun to move its focus to its upcoming show schedule. However, the club still has to work around COVID-19 protocols. Despite these hurdles, vonStetten said the club has not had to alter as much in regard to following COVID-19 protocols as other clubs.
“We haven’t had to do that much at our barn,” vonStetten said. “It’s basically outside, so we can stay pretty distanced.”
Another reason that the club has been able to work around COVID-19 protocols so well is not only because of the barn that it uses but because of how its practices run.
“We’re socially distanced by the nature of the sport,” Cashton said. “If we’re within 6 feet of each other while on a horse, we have a bigger problem than COVID. By nature, it’s pretty COVID-safe.”
Although the club can work safely while riding at its barn, it still has to work with precautions when the team competes.
“We’re not required to wear masks while riding, but otherwise we’ll wear masks at shows,” vice president senior Sonia Alfandre said. “We stay pretty far apart at the barn, and the thing’s open.”
Now that the team has returned to
-Sonia Alfandre
Freshman Taylor Hagquist brushes Jersey the horse Oct. 8. Eleanor Kay/The Ithacan Senior Lauren vonStetten rides River the horse Oct. 13 at If Only Farm in Freeville. Ana Maniaci McGough/The Ithacan
in-person meetings, it has been able to keep a regular schedule. However, the club still has not been able to do full team practices this semester. This dilemma has less to do with COVID-19 protocols and more to do with the number of people in the club.
“We ride at a barn that doesn’t have as many horses as we have riders,” vonStetten said. “Our lessons are smaller, so it’s not like a full team practice. So we usually have three to four girls in a group, and they’ll ride once or twice a week.”
The smaller group practices have allowed the team to work with its riders more on their talent level, something that Alfandre said the club appreciated during the fall.
“We’re split up based on availability and our level,” Alfandre said. “So Audra [Ravo Putnam], our coach, will assess everyone’s level and try to group us based on that, and so we can just mostly ride with our level and our availability.”
For the members of the club, the resumption of a full practice schedule has meant a sizable time commitment not just to practicing but also in taking care of the horses at the barn.
“In general, breaking down the time, we have hour-long practices typically,” Cashton said. “And then we get there a half hour before to clean up the horses and get them ready for the lesson, and then we’re there for a half an hour afterwards. … So it’s a pretty big time commitment. It’s a three-hour chunk of time from when we leave campus to the time we get back.”
That time spent at practice for the club has been used to get ready for the fall schedule of shows, which is a return to the club’s normal schedule. Alfandre said the club was able to use the experience it gained during its practices this fall to start its show season. The club had three riders place frst overall Oct. 16, with Alfandre, freshman Anna Riley and vonStetten winning a blue ribbon. The club’s performance at the RIT doubleheader tournament over the weekend was good for a fourth place fnish, earning the club a white ribbon for the weekend tournament.
The weekend provided an opportunity for new members of the club, giving them their frst experience of an IHSA show. Riley said that the opportunity to compete in the show was exciting for the new members of the club.
“It was a really fun time, and I’m so happy to be part of a team with such a great community,” Riley said. “This weekend was a really great experience as my frst IHSA show.”
Following the struggles that online meetings and no team practices presented to the club in the spring, the show was a step back to normalcy for the team. Alfandre said the tournament gave the club an opportunity to show what it has been able to do in its return to practice, as well as help to build team character, something it struggled with during the spring.
“After a tough last year, we’re happy to start this one on a great note,” Alfandre said. “We’re looking forward to the rest of the season.”
Senior Sonia Alfandre rides Max the horse Oct. 8. Abbey London/The Ithacan
