The News picked Meagan Smith  as Athlete of the Week for being one of two girls on the All OVC Team at the end of the cross-country season.

1. How long have you been playing your sport and why did it interest you to begin with?

“This is my fourth year running cross-country. I started running track two years before I began to run cross-country. I fell in love with running as soon as I began track my freshman year of high school. I started out only running track because I also played soccer, which took place during cross country season. My initial purpose for getting into running was to stay in shape for soccer, but I began experiencing great passion for the sport and started to realize that I was meant to be a distance runner, so I stopped playing soccer to run cross-country and focus solely on running.”

2. What is it about your sport that makes you enjoy it?

“I love how it is a mixture between being team-oriented and individualized. You want to do well for personal improvement and achievement, and that personal improvement thus helps your team as well. You can rejoice in team and individual successes. If one race wasn’t the best for you that day, you still can celebrate others’ successes or the team’s progress as a whole, so there’s always a positive you can pull away with. You have to work hard every day but I love that also because you can set and achieve daily goals for yourself and for your team, and you know that meeting those everyday goals brings you closer to achieving great things when it is time to race.”

3. How does it feel to be on the All OVC Team?

“It feels great to be on the All OVC Team! Last year I placed 15th and did not make the All OVC team [top 14], so it feels great to come back this year and move up to the top 14 and receive my first medal in collegiate running. I’m very happy with the race.”

4. What do you most look forward to the rest of the season?

“We have one more race left and that is regionals so I’m looking forward to that and getting to race another 6K. I’m also planning on doing a half marathon after the season is over. I have not run one since high school so hopefully I will see improvement there, and it will be a fun way to end the cross-country season.”

5. If you could give one piece of advice to someone about accomplishment, what would you say?

“I would say that believing in yourself and fighting the voice in your head that says ‘you can’t’ is one of the most important things when it comes to accomplishments. Anything worth accomplishing doesn’t come easy, but you can work hard and still fall short of your goals if you don’t have the faith that you can achieve that goal. Believing you can is half the battle!”