Caroline Johnson growing and maturing throughout her high school career.
By: Ana Ruggles
Everyone knows you change all threw high school. When Students change they not only change in the classroom but also their athletic world. So we asked one of our senior cross country runners, Caroline Johnson, a few questions about how she has noticed her mind change and how it affects the way she runs her sport. Johnson is a senior and has done cross country her entire high school career. She has advanced highly and improved her score by over 4 minutes as a runner over her years and continues to do so in the off-season. Many of the younger girls look up to her fierce way of leading the team and taking initiative.
Losing can be hard and you can take it hard when you are younger and less mature to see the whole picture, because with no bad meets you will never have a good meet. Johnson tells us about her experience
“Not particularly, but I’ve learned to not let one bad meet bother me as much”
She has learned about how you need the bad to show what is good. Also in the moment, the bad looks good we notice that as we see her progress from her freshman year to her Senior.
In the sport of Cross Country, it is not good to focus on beating people rather than bettering your own time, as the sport is self-leading.
“I’ve learned to focus on improvement more than how fast I am. I won’t win any races, but I can definitely improve my own times.”
As we see Johnson has learned to think of herself and her performance rather than just being first.
“I’ve honestly learned to take their advice with a grain of salt. I’ll try whatever it is they would like me to do, but if it doesn’t work, I’ll try something else instead”.
Nobody knows you but yourself. Johnson demonstrated that she still had enough respect for her coaches to try something new and if she saw it didn’t work for her she would change it. Unless she could see that what was suggested to her was actually good and helped her because she knows that every runner is different.
As we see a lot can change in athletes not just in their skill level but in their mindset too. We are also faced with the question is this the same for every sport? Or just Cross Country, as it tends to be mostly a mentally challenging sport.