Follow North Yarmouth Academy senior Hannah Austin during her senior outdoor season. Austin finished second in Class C 2 mile a year ago, and returns as one of the individual favorite to win 2 mile title this spring. While she is small in stature she certainly makes up for with her grit & determination.
Hi again!
Wow, I can't believe this year is almost over, and that all of us seniors have only one more season left of high school before moving on to college! This past Friday, I had my last day of classes, which still hasn't quite sunk in yet for me. The track season however, is only just beginning!
Training-wise, my season hasn't been amazing so far owing to my inability to train consistently in between the indoor and outdoor seasons. I took some time off after my indoor season ended, like I always do, and was about a week into my training for outdoor when I got very sick with a bad fever and had to take a week completely off from running in order to recover properly. Then, just a few days after I was back to running normally, I strained my Achilles tendon, forcing me to take even more time off. This injury lingered for a few weeks, which meant that I needed to take it easy so as not to irritate it. Although it was pretty frustrating that this meant I got next to no base training in for outdoor, I think overall it has actually helped me mentally because it has made me even more eager to get on the track for some good training than I was before! Plus, the training that I have been able to get in so far has been good, especially considering how much time I had to take off, so that is encouraging.
My school has actually already had three meets so far this season, and many of my teammates are already doing really well! The first two meets were not regular WMC meets. My school also competes in a private school division, called the MAISAD league, and those meets were part of it. I always enjoy running at those meets because two of my friends, Ali Morin and Laken Kerrigan, both from Seacoast Christian School, are always there and all three of us almost always run the 1500 (which we do instead of the 1600) together. I didn't run it with them during the first meet, but we all ran it during the second one. This race was especially exciting for me because I ran one of the first races all year that I could truly say I was happy about! It wasn't a PR or anything, but it was a better time than I was expecting for my first race of that distance this season, and I felt really good while running it!
Our third meet, and our first regular season meet, happened on Friday at Wells. I unfortunately did not run because I was getting over being sick (again!). Although it was frustrating, I luckily didn't have to miss too many days this past week, even though I did have to miss the meet. I felt well enough to go and watch though, which I was glad about. Although I wished that I could have been running, it was still fun to be there and to just focus on cheering for as many of my teammates as I possibly could! Everyone did really well, but I was especially proud of all of the other distance girls. We had some in each distance race, and all of them achieved season bests in something, which was amazing!
I hope you're all enjoying your last month or so of track before summer starts, and that you're all having great seasons so far!
-Hannah