As girls’ cross country runner Veronica Znajda touched the finish line she felt a sense of pride and joy as she had just placed 3rd in the 3A girls’ cross country state competition in Peoria, Illinois. This made her feel so accomplished.
“It was great. I was so happy with my individual performance and … everyone on my team also did amazing individually, so I’m so proud of all of them,” Znajda said.
Despite the fact that they didn’t repeat their state win from last season after the team placed 4th in state, Znajda was still happy with their performance.
“We didn’t win a trophy, but I am just so proud of us anyway because we all did our best and that is all that counts,” Znajda said.
Znajda attributes the bond and support system of the team to helping them band together throughout the season.
“We had ups and downs, obviously like anyone, we really tried to work hard on running together in groups during our races just like we do in workouts because that helps us have the best performance, so it … took us a while but we got there.”
Znajda has lots of trust with the head girls’ cross country coach Pete Wintermute and appreciates how he is always looking out for the best in her and the team.
“He’s a great coach. He’s helped bring us to so much more success and I’m glad we have a good relationship,” Znajda said. “It’s nice to have someone that I can trust and talk to if I have any problems or anything and I know that he’s always looking out for the best for us.”
Znajda talked about how while it might not always go your way the team has to say to themselves to always keep going and push through to strive for more success in their races.
“It can be stressful in the championship season and in the postseason just trying to build off of our past success and knowing that we don’t have to do anything special or different that we’ve already been doing because we race every single week,” Znajda said. “It might be a bigger meet, but it does not have to be very different than the other meets, so we try to remind ourselves that we don’t have to get super stressed out.”
