Madeline Morgan
SR., Mountain Brook HS
Mountain Brook, AL
Highlights: A member of the perennial powerhouse Mountain Brook XC team, Madeline's resume is stacked with enough career highlights to make most people envious. The returning Nike Team National girls individual champion has had a terrific senior year finishing 8th at the Great American XC Festival and PR'ing at the Chile Pepper Festival with a time of 17:40. Morgan returns in 2008 to compete as an individual at NXN.
Coach (Michael McGovern) says: “Madeline has been and continues to be a joy to work with everyday. Her most remarkable trait is her ability to completely focus during a workout or a race and block everything out. She amazes me every week in her willingness to push herself to the limit. She has raised the level of our team to unsurpassed heights as well as upping the expectations for the whole state. NXN has been our focus for most of the year, so we have geared the training towards an early December peak. After the race, we will sit down and plan for some big goals in the spring.”
Morgan says: “For me, training has always been a kind of stress relief, so balancing it has never really been a problem. Practice is a part of the school day I can look forward to. Obviously there is a lot of time demanded and racing takes up most of your weekends, but my team and I always manage to make the meets fun--we are so close, and we have so much fun being crazy with each other. For the most part I feel like I balance running well with everything else, I just have to focus on the fact that I run because it's something I love to do and keep myself from over thinking it or getting stressed out. My coaches and team definitely help with that.
“ My defining moment as a runner would probably be dropping out of the state meet last year and then moving on to regionals and NTN. I feel like at that point I let go of any pressure and expectations and focused on the team, which really helped me and made me a better runner.
“Overall I've been happy with this season. Not every race went as well as I would have liked, but some days you're on and others you're off, and I'm just happy knowing I gave every race everything I had. I felt like the regional race was a good reflection of the hard work I've put into this season.”
Summer mileage: 45
Weekly mileage: 40-45
Training shoes: Nike Structure Triax 11
Superstitions: get lots of sleep the night before the night before a race
Hobbies: singing, shopping, extreme razoring, hanging out with friend
Favorite school subject: Calculus