Mckee is a senior at Kents Hill School where she has been a standout XC runner, winning the NEPSTA Division IV Championship title in 2014. She has a 5k personal best of 18:59.40, follow her this fall as she looks to stay healthy and run fast.
Hey you all! I'm loving seeing all of you already killing it this year already - all this new coverage is fantastic for a person who basically lives on MileSplit. Big thanks to all involved contributing to this website. Also, shout out to the Orono girls - you guys are slaying as a team, it's crazy!
FINALLY, after much anticipation, Kents Hill started our cross country season. Although our numbers are a little smaller this year (around 13 girls and 3 boys), we have a really great group of committed newbies and veterans, making for an incredible, tight-knit team dynamic. Our top five girls are returning from our team last year, and we have some strong newcomers looking to crack into our varsity squad. The warm weather was great for our last couple weeks of preseason and workouts have been feeling stronger than ever.
After a great last couple weeks of preseason, Kents Hill had our first race at Hebron Academy on Saturday (9/19). Man, is that a tough course to have a first race on! There were some gigantic hills there in the middle which definitely kept things interesting, to say the least. Since it was such a small meet, we raced boys and girls together, as we often do in our prep school races. It was really nice to tag along with some of the guys racing as there were a lot of them in my vicinity on the course. Very proud of my team, as everyone gave a great effort and ran very well!
Coming into big midseason races is both exciting and daunting, as I'm sure all of you have high expectations for yourselves. Manchester next weekend and FOC the weekend after - ahh! One thing I've really been focusing on these past couple years that has helped me immensely, as I'm sure it could you, is mental preparation before racing. Like any runner out there, I toe the line with serious anxiety and even dread at times. With high goals comes high expectations, and those can be daunting at times. I've self-prescribed myself a method of dealing with this anxiety by doing mental preparation each night before I go to sleep. To do this, I've labeled notecards: goals, form, passing, affirmations, motivational quotes, and mentality. A couple weeks ago, I filled in these notecards with personal goals for myself, reminders of good form, strategies how and when to pass, confidence boosters for myself 'you are strong!,' some favorite quotes, and competitive mantras to keep me going during a race. When I'm in a race, I hear myself saying and thinking these things, which both keeps me focused on the race at hand and calms me down. In addition to the notecards, I make a concerted effort to visualize races both ideally how I would want them to go, but also coping with different possibilities. Although I know a race will never go exactly as I had visualized it, I still have the tactics engrained in my mind as to how to overcome obstacles.
I believe that knowing HOW to race is just as important as racing itself. Thinking tactics far before the race itself has helped me to relax in a race and keep a clear mind. Racing is tough, but having negative thoughts while racing is even tougher. I'd seriously encourage everyone to try thinking of this coming into these big invitationals coming up. It has helped me tremendously.
Now, onto the next few weekends with Manchester Invitational and Festival of Champions. Anyone else think that came up ridiculously fast!? One thing that will make Festival of Champions especially interesting is that there are SATs that day. Luckily, my coach and I noticed the date conflict early, so I'll be taking the SAT in Rockland that morning then racing up to Belfast for the meet. It will definitely make for an interesting day, to say the least. Can't wait to see you all in the coming meets, and best of luck in all of your training.
Here's one of my favorite quotes from Steve Prefontaine: "Some people create with words or with music or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run. I like to make people stop and say, 'I've never seen anyone run like that before.' It's more than just a race, it's a style. It's doing something better than anyone else. It's being creative."
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