Blogs : NCAA Division III Blog

Interview: Heather Wilson of Amherst College

(Courtesy of Alison Wade, eliterunning.com)

Heather Wilson, a senior on Amherst College’s cross country team, has earned All-American honors in cross country, indoor, and outdoor track, and is a mainstay on the NESCAC All-Academic team.  On the track last year, she was an individual qualifier in the 5000m both indoors and outdoors, and she also qualified in and scored a sixth-place showing in the 10000 at the outdoor national meet.  She returns as co-captain for this year’s cross country team that brings back six of the top seven—including three All-Americans—from a team that was runner-up by one point at the National Cross Country Championships last year.  Below, Heather discusses the high expectations to improve individually (she led Amherst with her seventh-place finish in cross country last year) and as a team (Amherst is the preseason number one).

Could you tell us a little bit about yourself, like where you're from and how you got started running?

I'm a senior at Amherst College in Amherst, MA. I'm from Danvers, MA (about 20 min north of Boston). My two older sisters ran in high school (one went on to play soccer at Cornell and the other ran at Haverford), so when I got into middle school I started running, too. I'd been playing soccer since I was really young, but when I got to high school I decided to pursue running rather than soccer.

What drew you to choose Division III, and Amherst College in particular?

From my sisters' different experiences I knew that I wanted to go to a small school.  Academically, I wanted to be part of a close-knit community where I could really get to know my professors and where the whole emphasis would be on undergraduates.  Athletically, DIII (and the NESCAC conference especially) seemed like a place where I could really develop as a runner. Amherst had all of these qualities, and at the time I was applying to colleges, the cross team was becoming very strong. I was excited about the prospect of being on a team that had the potential to be successful on the national level.

How do your PRs in high school compare to what you've done so far in college?  More importantly, how has your understanding of training, racing, and running in general evolved?

In high school I ran 11:14 in the 2mile and 5:20 in the mile. In xc I was in the lowish 19’s and broke 19 once.

In college I've run: 6k - 22:00, 5kxc - 18:14, 5ktrack - 17:15, 10k - 35:41, 3k - 9:59, mile - 5:07.

Over the past few years, I’ve learned to place an emphasis on quality over quantity (in terms of mileage) and I've become a big believer in the benefits of cross-training. In terms of racing, I’ve really learned that in cross-country you need to be able to take whatever is thrown at you. Last season every time we were supposed to run on really fast courses we had crazy weather. Our conference meet takes the cake - not only was the course a mess of mud, rain, and wind, but almost everyone that ran there developed a really disgusting rash from the swamp. It didn't lead to many fast times, but it was fun. When you race for your team, and hold yourself accountable to them, nothing else really matters.

In your sophomore year, you had the following finishes at Nationals: 66th in Cross Country, 12th in the 5000 indoors, and 17th in the 10000 outdoors.  Fast forward a year, and you led your team with a top ten finish in cross country, and followed that up with two more All-American finishes in track season. What contributed to this significant step forward in your performances?

By the end of my sophomore year I felt like I was cursed at Nationals. This past year I think the major difference was that I put my full trust in the training I'd done and took confidence from that training to Nationals. The combination of being physically stronger and mentally more experienced (and therefore a lot calmer!) helped me improve from sophomore to junior year. 

(Courtesy of Alison Wade, eliterunning.com)

What was your training like this past summer? 

We use the summer to build a base, and keep it pretty low-key. I got up to about 60-65 miles by the end of August. I was working for a professor in Amherst over the summer and luckily some of my teammates were here, too. We got the chance to explore some new trails, so the area felt new again.

What are your goals for yourself and your team this season and year?

Staying healthy is always our most important goal. Aside from that, we want to improve upon our success from last year. Being ranked first in the preseason poll, we went into the season with a bit of a target on our backs, but we're excited for the challenge. Our school has never won an xc national title before, and we'd like to be the first to do it. 

Amherst returns almost your entire personnel from the team that missed winning a National Championship in Cross Country last year by just a single point.  What role does such a close loss play in how you prepare for this year?   Was it tough to move on from it then?  How do you find yourself thinking about it now that a year has passed?

Of course it was disappointing when we found out it had been so close, but at the same time 2nd place was the best finish we'd ever had and we were psyched about that. This year the loss still motivates us - and we've definitely learned that every single point matters! - but now we're looking ahead. We bring back a lot of depth and experience and we're taking those positives with us while leaving the disappointments behind. Last year was a great season for us, but this year we want to do even better.

What is your favorite workout during the cross country season and what do you like about it?

During cross we focus on effort instead of splits, so we barely ever time anything. We also work out at different places each week, so we can't usually compare interval times from one week to the next. With that said, my favorite place to work out is probably on a dirt hill on the edge of campus called Tuttle Hill. I think hills really help build the mental and physical strength that you need once you're feeling exhausted during a race in the middle of November.

Who has been the biggest influence in your life and/or running?

My teammates, no question. They are the most motivated, hard-working people I know and they inspire and motivate me all the time. There are so many ups and downs in running and to be able to share it all with your teammates is incredible.

What do you like the most about Amherst Cross Country?

What's not to like about acxc? The team is fun and wonderful - balancing competitive running with all sorts of other academic and 'extracurricular' interests. Ned is a great coach and his belief in us as a team (along with his training, of course!) has pushed us to be better than any of us probably thought we'd ever be. We also have a great number of trails to train on, and a competitive conference/region to race against week in and week out.

Amherst loaded up the distance events at nationals during both indoors (5000 [3 All-Americans]) and outdoors (10000 [3 All-Americans], 5000 [3 participants], and steeplechase [2 All-Americans])—what's it like being on the start line of a national meet with multiple teammates by your side?
It helps you maintain the perspective that Nationals is just another race. With teammates by your side like they normally are it's easier to just go out and race like you always do. Additionally, having so many of us on a starting line was exciting because we knew that if we all raced hard and for one another we could do well as a team. We ended up fourth at outdoor nationals with four people. (Of course, Shauneen would've been fifth by herself! Being there to see her triple was incredible.)

What's the relationship between the track team and the other athletic teams?  What's the athletic culture like at Amherst?

The teams all support each other a lot. As a whole, Amherst has a strong athletic tradition. Last year, for example, our men's basketball team won NCAA's; the women's swimming team was 2nd, and one woman won quite a few individual titles; our women's hockey team was 4th; and the women's tennis team was 2nd, with two Amherst women winning the pairs title. (It's pretty awesome that the women are the ones having so much of the success since the school didn't become coed until 1976!)

How do other students (non-runners) and professors at your school view the track team and its members?

I think cross teams always appear a bit crazy to nonrunners (do normal people run many miles in the snow/rain/heat, etc?) but the Amherst community has always been really supportive of us.

Do you follow running at the collegiate or professional levels at all?  Would you care to confess to what extent you lurk on Letsrun.com or other message boards?

I follow running a little bit. Shalane Flanagan ran in the same high school conference that I did (she graduated before I got there, so I never got to the chance to get lapped by her, or anything(!) but I saw her run a few times). It's always cool to see people from your area have so much success.

As for letsrun...I'll admit to reading the message boards every once in a while... Kim has our team's claim to letsrun fame - a picture of her was posted once under the thread "Gloves in May?!"  Lots of letsrunners out there speculated about why she'd race in gloves in the springtime. (It was actually April, not May. We had a track meet up in Maine and it was really cold when we started warming up. She just never took them off...)

Thanks to Heather for a fantastic interview.

dates

5:13 PM, September 22, 2007 .. Posted by boyce

can you guys give me the dates for these meets? wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday?

oops

5:14 PM, September 22, 2007 .. Posted by boyce

that was supposed to go on the other post.

Dates

8:09 PM, September 22, 2007 .. Posted by D3 Blog Webmaster

Boyce,

Thanks for the input. Next week we'll be sure to include dates in the schedule. Thanks for reading our blog, and be sure to say something if you see any other changes we can make!

-The webmasters