Salute to Seniors: Alex Nichols (Brunswick HS)

What was your most memorable races?
Two races in particular stick out in my mind. My last 400 this year at States was of course one of them. I hadn’t really run a full out 400 all season and I was scared out of my mind coming into that race. It felt really good to finally PR again in such a big way and finish up my season the way I wanted to.

The other most memorable race was junior year during indoor. I had gotten shin splints suddenly and I put on high orange soccer socks to help with pressure because I didn’t have compression socks. I raced Mckenzie Gary, who was a beast, and I did much better than I thought I would. After that race I kept the socks and I also started feeling more confident about running in general.

Out of all of your high school accomplishments, which stands out the most?
I don’t think any particular accomplishment stands out the most. I think I’m most proud of the fact that I was able to participate in track and school and other clubs without sacrificing too much (aside from maybe a little sleep). I really focused on track a lot throughout high school, but I am happy I didn’t stop doing a lot of the other fun things in my life just so that I could focus on track.

If you could do it all over again what would you change about your running career in high school?
I’m really happy with my running career in high school, so there’s not too much I would change. I think the biggest thing was probably that I slacked off when it came to weights and upper body workouts. I should have gone into the gym after practice more often and tried to work on that, but I certainly underestimated how important the upper body is in sprinting until it was too late.

What were the most difficult obstacles you had to overcome?
The biggest obstacles were definitely people. A lot of people told me all the time that I was never going to do very well as a sprinter. I got laughed at a lot my junior year for being the skinniest, smallest kid in some of the fast heats in big races. It was tough to keep running the same events every week as a freshman or as a sophomore who wasn’t especially good, and just trust that I would improve as time went on.

What will you miss the most?
I’m going to repeat myself and say the people again. I think the track team at my school has become some of my closest friends throughout the years, and I’m going to miss racing without them. I also became good friends with so many of the kids I raced from other teams, regardless of their school or the outcome of the race. Every week I was racing a bunch of people I would talk to and joke with for the entire meet. It’s going to be weird being at a track meet next year without my team, and without kids from other teams cheering me on.

What advice you would give to younger athletes?
The most important thing I can say is don’t get discouraged. It’s very unlikely that someone will step on a track and blow everyone away in their first race. The people who do well in track are the people who show up every day and don’t quit just because they don’t win. It sounds cheesy to say never give up but that really is all there is to it.

What influence has your coach had with respect to your performance and overall life goals?
All of my coaches have helped me a ton with everything about running (except for maybe blocks haha). That said, the most important thing they taught me was to go in confident. A lot of times before races I would feel very sick and nervous, and my coaches were the ones who taught me that it’s fine to be nervous as long as I remain confident about the race at the same time, or else I’ll psych myself out. It’s not really a life goal, but going into anything I do with confidence is definitely something my coaches have helped me do, and something that will help in all aspects of my life.

What are your college plans?
I will be attending Middlebury College, where I will be running Indoor and Outdoor. I’m sure I’m too slow to make the XC team there, which is actually quite a relief.

Who would you like to say thank you to?
I would like to thank all my coaches and family as well as my teammates. You guys have helped me a lot over the past seven years to keep training and improving, and I will miss all of you in college. I would also like to thank Mr. Veilleux for maintaining such an awesome website, which has really helped me get excited about track and keep up with other runners. Finally I would like to thank all the runners on other teams who have talked to me and cheered for me in the past few years. I knew my team would be cheering for me, but it felt really great to have kids and coaches from so many different schools wish me good luck before a race or congratulate me after one. Thanks for the support!