In Her Own Words: Stefanie Kurgatt

Hey there Flrunners! Hope everyone is having a fantastic week. It definitely is a good one for many of us here in Tallahassee. This week is out spring break and many of us are living it up at the beach and what not. It is so crazy how after spring break it is almost April and then school is practically over. For all the seniors, enjoy your last few months and live it to the fullest. You are about to open up a new chapter in your life. Enjoy and cherish every moment that you can because we are all growing up very quickly.

So I actually am not living it up at the beach,  but I am training hard here in Tallahassee preparing for my upcoming races. As a runner sometimes you have to make some sacrifices and do what is going to benefit you the most. So, instead of going out of town I decided to stay in town and train, which I have no problem doing because I love the sport.  Spring break is a great time for me to relax and focus on training without the stress of school and homework. Although it has been a little rainy, the trails have been absolutely beautiful. While doing a long run with my fellow teammate Jack Rutledge, we noticed how beautiful and green all the trees are. Tallahassee trails are absolutely amazing and I do recommend anyone who comes through Tally to check them out. I will truly miss running here when in college.

Last week was yet another amazing week for Maclay. We held a spring break relay meet on Thursday and it was time to take down some school records. The boy’s team took down the DMR and our thrower Lindsey Poole broke her own record in the discus. I ran in the DMR and the 4x4 and I must say it was such an honor to be able to be on both those relays. We ended up breaking the school record in the DMR first and we were all pumped, but we all knew there was bigger work to be done in the 4x4. It was time to go after a ten year old school record. It was us against the clock, and I knew we were all really ready to roll. On the team was Lonzetta Simpkins (7th grade), Tamani Wilson (freshman), Kristen Fontela (senior) and I anchored.  The adrenaline was really pumping and when I got the baton we were on pace to just break it. The old school record was 4:02 we came in at 4:01.54! It was so insane and one of the best memories I will have from being on this team. You could hear coach yelling at us, “you got it, you got it”. It really started to sink in that I only have a few more races with these girls. What a bitter sweet moment but one that I will never forget.

Then the next day six of us headed to Atlanta for the Georgia Teach meet with Coach Droze. This is one of my favorite meets. So what happens when you take a bunch of distance runners and put them in a coed relay? -A pretty funny sight. You get me, who ran the first 200m leg, awkwardly starting without blocks. People were probably laughing  because I didn’t have much balance at the start waiting for the gun to go off, but I ran as fast as I possibly could and didn’t do too shabby being up against pure sprinters. Might be my new calling. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and our anchor Connor ended up busting out a speedy 800m leg. After that we all ran the two mile, what a change in pace. All in all the entire meet went well and I finished out in second with a 11:08. I worked a lot on starting out conservative and making my way up as the race went on. It was certainly an amazing week of racing!

Hope to see many of you at FSU relays. Run hard, train hard and race with passion.

God Speed and Go Hoyas!

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