A runner for the Keene State women’s cross country team was announced as an individual qualifier for the NCAA Championships.
Senior Maggie St. John is one of eight qualifiers in history for Keene’s Women’s cross country.
St. John’s main focus has always been cross country. “I did it all four years in high school and then I did not run at all my freshman or sophomore year and started running again my junior year of college,” she said. St. John mentioned that she joined Keene State’s cross-country team because another incoming freshman was joining the team as well.
“I missed competing. So I trained hard that summer and started competing again, and just fell in love with it.”
St. John is a public health major at Keene State College. She mentioned she loves to be active even when she’s not in cross-country season.
St. John said, “I just like sports and puzzles and stuff like that in general.”
Even though St. John started cross country at Keene later than everyone else, she capitalized on all her opportunities.
The coach for women’s cross country, Dan Roark, mentioned her impeccable ability to never give up. Roark said, “From the whole season I think we knew this was the goal, to try to go to nationals… she’s grown a lot as kind of planned and expected to.”
Roark mentioned the work she put in paid off because in just one year St. John doubled her weekly mileage during practices.
When Roark was asked what St. John put in that work, he said, “She’s the last one on the road every day, putting in long runs of 13 miles. She really comes ready to go every day.” Roark also joked that St. John never seems to have a bad day like most runners do.
St. John leads the team with co-captain Sara Christian. “I feel like we work super well together and we are also super close friends so it’s just easy to work with one another and we just kind of bounce ideas off each other.”
On the work st. John puts in during practice, Christian said, “She’s a beast. She’s always going. She worked super all summer and got in some really good workouts and long runs… if the teams are doing 6, she’ll do 7 or 8 miles.”
The NCAA national championship is on Saturday, Nov. 18 in Newville, Pennsylvania. Christian said, “I’m so excited! I literally love her with my whole heart, she deserves it more than anyone I know… she did super well all season at all the meets, we won conferences and she got second overall which is pretty awesome.”
Along with Christian, Roark said he is excited for St. John. He said, “I think it’s a great opportunity. That was her goal and that was driving her all year. I think her two goals were to go to nationals and win the conferences as a team.” At nationals, Roark mentioned that St. John is aiming to place in the top-40, which is all-American.
When St. John was asked how she felt about nationals she replied, “I’m excited to get to race at such a competitive level.” This being her senior year, St. John said she hopes to finish the season out strong.
St. John finished the nationals race in 232nd place out of 293 runners with a time of 23:22.8.
Elyse Picard can be contacted at
epicard@kscequinox.com
