Throwback Thursday–The time my xc team won nationals

8 years ago my cross country team won the NJCAA DIII National Championship. We were also the first women’s team in the history of the college to win a national championship. I decided it was a good idea to “throwback” to November 11th, 2006 because thinking about this day always makes me happy but also because Friday we are leaving for nationals so I am feeling nostalgic. To eliminate confusion for everyone who doesn’t know me in real life I am now an assistant coach at the same community college I went to. I have not been competing in college for the past 8 years–this isn’t even possible.

I need to point out that I wouldn’t be able to say that I was on a national championship team if it wasn’t for the 6 other girls on the team that year. I was in a running “slump” at the time. I wasn’t running well at all. In 2006 life wasn’t so great for me. I was facing a lot of personal challenges and I was really struggling with day to day life. So, thank you to my teammates for running so well that day so that I could be a part of something so awesome.

I ended up at community college by fate, although at the time I called it bad luck. I took my SATS two times. I did horrible the first time and even though my grades were good I needed a higher score. The second time my scores got lost. I did not want to take the SATS again because I have really bad test anxiety. Two year schools don’t require the SATS so that solidified my decision to start at community college and then transfer–I found a loop hole. I’ve also found loop holes for many other things in life but that isn’t the point of this blog post. I had quit running after my senior year of high school but then ended up joining the xc team in college anyway. You can read about that here. I believe I was destined to be on that very team at that exact moment. I don’t think I was in the right place at the right time, I think I was where I was meant to be and so were my teammates. We wouldn’t have won if any one of us had taken a different path in life. I became a national champion along with 6 other women because we were all brought together that season to meet our fate. When we won we all became a part of something larger than any one of us could be alone. These ladies allowed me to accomplish something that I would never have accomplished on my own. Believe me, I was absolutely not accomplishing anything on my own that year. I’ll never forget that experience and now I always have patience and understanding when unfortunate things happen in my life, like my SAT scores getting lost. If that didn’t happen I wouldn’t have gone to community college, I wouldn’t have been on a national championship team, I wouldn’t have the life I have right now which I love 95% of the time.