Heart pounding, Lilly nears the finish line of her very first State cross country meet. With the end in sight she starts to run faster. She hears the cheers from her teammates on the sidelines and the support inspires her to sprint faster than she knew was possible. She crosses the line knowing it was her teammates that gave her the encouragement to succeed.

“it was just really cool crossing the line with my teammates” Lilly said. “I feel like I actually did something that year”

Despite her success at state the past year, running hasn’t always been easy for Lilly. Overcoming the mental challenges came from experience. In the 7^th grade she was tripped at the beginning of the race, when asked how she overcame this obstacle she responded with, “the entire race I was like, ok I’m going to drop out over there behind the tree so no one can see me and then I would pass that spot and be like oh that wasn’t so bad I’ll just go drop out over there and eventually I just finished the race”

Now days she handles motivation a little differently. She continuously supports her teammates throughout races and they do the same for her. She also imagines she is being chased.

“Through the experience of running state this year I learned it doesn’t matter how fast you are, at the end of the day everyone’s running the same race. It’s the same distance so it doesn’t matter if you ran it in 25 minutes or 18, to me I don’t care about your time, I only care that you push others while pushing yourself forward too.”