Interview With MEG HOGAN | eliterunning.com

Who is the best collegiate distance runner you’ve never heard of? Hogan is certainly one of the fastest distance runners who didn’t run at the NCAA Championships this past spring. Hogan’s only loss of the season to collegians other than Lisa Koll came at the Penn Relays, where she ran 16:12.10 to finish a close third behind Stony Brook’s Holly Van Dalen and Villanova’s Amanda Marino. Hogan finished 27th at the 2009 NCAA Cross Country Championships after taking a hard fall early in the race, and will look to finish significantly higher in 2010. Hogan’s first season of running, at Mount Ida College in Massachusetts, was solid, but if you didn’t know she was new to running, you probably wouldn’t have known that there was a future star in your midst. This reporter, for one, was at several of Hogan’s meets that season and, frankly, did not notice her 69th place finish at the New England Division III Regional (23:19 for 6k) or her 35th place finish at the ECAC Division III Cross Country Championships (24:17 for 6k). One year and one school later, however, she finished 96th at the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships, and that was just the beginning of Hogan’s rapid rise. Under NCAA rules, athletes at a Division I school that sponsors cross country but not track and field can compete in track meets, paid for by the school, on a limited basis. the only associations I had with running were suicides at basketball practice and Indian runs at soccer practice. When I started running my sophomore year of college, I realized I had a talent for running and I also fell in love with the sport. My dad ran cross country when he was in high school and he is now getting back into it. He plans on running a marathon next year. That summer I ran road races, trail races, I had no idea how to train, no idea. I knew I really wanted to keep running, though, so I thought I would just shoot the coach an email and see if he was interested…and he was! I think some advantages to a cross country only college, for me, is that you can still run track but not have the added pressure of being in season. There is a lot more freedom in that if I'm not feeling ready for a race, it's not a big deal, I'll just run in the next meet. It can be difficult at times because you have to be strong mentally, but coming from someone who can easily get psyched out, I think it has made me a stronger person and a stronger runner. My first year of running I had no idea what I was doing, I was just running. Tuesdays and Fridays are workout days with a morning workout and an evening 30-minute run. I think I might run a road race or two in August and use them as a workout. All I am sure about is that I definitely want to continue running after college at the elite level. Read full story here: adult-web1.finiser@blogger.com