If Haines High freshman Marirose Evenden felt overwhelmed by her first trip to state cross-country championships, her coach Alixanne Goodman didn’t notice.
“You were excited the whole time. Jumping up and down…on the ferry, on the flight. You were so excited. You didn’t show that you were nervous or anything,” Goodman told Evenden.
Evenden, however, had a different take.
“I was kind of freaking out a little bit,” she said.
Evenden’s time of 22:37 took 42nd out of 143 runners in the women’s portion of the 123A State Cross-Country Championships in Juneau last weekend.
If anything helped calm Evenden’s nerves, it was likely her preparation with Goodman and fellow assistant coach Chandler Kemp during the week leading up to the race.
“That week before state was definitely the hardest I pushed myself all year. It was a lot of work running with two coaches next to me the entire time and no team. But having both of them there. … It definitely pushed me,” Evenden said.
Goodman agreed: “She didn’t really have an option to relax during practice.”
Heading into the race, Evenden’s strategy was to keep up with the front of the pack for as long as possible and “kill the hills.”
That simple plan hit an early snag.
“I got a flat tire (when someone steps on the back of your shoe) in the first few hundred feet, and I had to stop and fix that. At that point, I was kind of like ‘uh.’ But I got it back on and caught a few people and just kept running,” Evenden said.
Despite the early setback, Evenden recovered and achieved the rare feat of setting a new personal record in each of the three meets she competed this season. Her final time of 22:37 was eight seconds faster than any run she had ever done before.