When you think about track, your brain mostly goes to sprinters, with the 100m dash, 200m dash, or even the worst event, the 400m. If your head doesn’t go to sprinters, then it might have gone to field events, pole vault, all of the different types of jumps, or even throws. But the last thing that goes in your head is distance. The horrible gut wrenching 800m, 1600m (mile) or 3200m (2 mile). But for some people, distance is their event, distance is why they go out and run. Jenna Winn is one of those people. Winn is a freshman at Eaglecrest High School, where she runs cross country and track and field. Even before high school, Winn did a lot of running.
“I ran in elementary school and middle school, and when I got into high school, my friend Sadie Halladay, a sophomore on the cross country team, got me into it,” said Winn.
Since she has been running for most of her life, running itself wasn’t that much different in high school, but running in high school was a lot more competitive for Winn. With these aspects, she learned to run fast and push herself to the limits.
On Winn’s first race on the track team, she made the top 10 for school records for the 1600m, running an incredible 5:54.
“I was so happy, I wasn’t expecting to get on there freshman year, so I was super excited when I saw my name on the list,” Winn said.
As a lot of people know, it is hard to hit the 10 team school records in general, but as a freshman it is even harder. The current school record was set in 1996, followed by a 2002 performance. As of right now, Winn holds the #8 place in the school records for the 1600 with a time of 5:46.11.
“I also run the 4 by 800m relay and I was in the open 800 once, but the mile is my favorite,” Winn said.
Starting this year, Eaglecrest track is bringing our top 20 fastest runners to go to the University of Oregon for a national track meet. EHS is currently the only team from Colorado that is going to that meet. Winn is the 1 out of the 20 athletes that was picked to go run at the meet in Oregon.
Because of her love for distance running, track isn’t the only sport Winn is crazy good at.
“I was really proud of my performance during cross country season,” Winn said.
She ended her XC season with a personal record of 20:38 for her 5K (3.1 miles). She was one of the fastest runners on the girls side of the team, making varsity on her time trials. The end of cross country season was a huge success for Winn , finishing 13th during leagues and 17th during regionals; just 2 spots away from making state. Sadly, no one in cross country, boys or girls, made state this year.
“It was kinda annoying that I was only 2 spots away from state,” Winn said.
Not being able to make it to state this year hasn’t stopped her or discouraged Winn from anything. Winn wants to keep running track and cross country for the rest of her high school career. She has goals to make it to state in track and in cross country next year. EHS Track and Cross Country are both very excited about what Jenna Winn’s next few years will look like.
