Congratulations to our October Athlete of the Month, Colby Huntress from Born To Run Track Club. Colby has defied all odds recently as he was hospitalized with mono and strep just three weeks prior to the XC regional meet and lost 8 pounds.
Colby came back and placed 6th at the regional meet and qualified for his 2nd state championship. Might we also mention, he just crushed it at the 5A Texas High School XC State Meet this weekend and placed 6th overall with a blistering 15:52.10. Colby's story is a true testament of never giving up despite facing unfortunate circumstances and shows that great results can still happen even when faced with difficult challenges just before a Championship meet. Hear more from Colby:
"I am a junior at Austin Anderson High School and have been running off and on since seventh grade, when my Kealing Middle School soccer coach asked if I wanted to run Cross Country in the off season. I have always played a lot of different sports. Growing up I played baseball, soccer, basketball, flag football and swam. For the past two years I have also played on the Anderson freshman and junior varsity basketball teams so this is actually the first year for me to only run. During my freshman year of cross country, I won the district title beating my brother, Kepler, who now runs for Michigan. At regionals I was one spot from qualifying for state. Last year for Anderson, I was suffering from a knee injury but was able to advance out of our district, then placed 11th at regionals to advance to State after not running for 10 days. My injury got worse during the two weeks prior to State and I couldn’t run which led to me not having a good meet. I had a pretty late start to track last spring after finishing my basketball season but I was able to advance out of district and area in the 800m. At regionals, I ran my first big PR of the season with a 1:53 in the 800 which placed me 5th, finishing up my sophomore year. At the Meet of Champions, I set a new PR in the 800m (1:52.04) then at the BTR Twilight Meet in June, I set another PR, this time in the 1600m (4:11.43). I finished the summer at Nike Outdoor Nationals, highlighted by winning the Boys Emerging Elite Mile in 4:13.37. This fall my training has been amazing with both my high school team and with my Coach Paul Carrozza from Born to Run. I had not competed in many races, but my fitness was the best it has ever been leading up to the McNeil Invitational. The day before that race, I woke up not feeling great but I tried to not let it affect me going into the race. On the Saturday of the meet, I didn’t really have any energy and felt horrible which led me to not run well at all. Interestingly, my result never showed up for some reason. I wasn’t feeling well and on Sunday I was diagnosed with strep throat. I started taking antibiotics but over the next few days I was not feeling any better. My symptoms got worse and when I went back to the doctor, I tested positive for mononucleosis. Several days later I was still feeling worse. I had lost eight pounds and the doctors sent me to the emergency room to get treatment. I received an IV and was discharged. I slowly started to feel better after leaving the hospital and I felt a lot better about my chances to run at district. I still didn’t have any energy to run until the Monday before district, after 16 days off. That Thursday I finished fourth at district, but felt horrible throughout the race leading to my slowest time since freshman year. I now had 12 days to see how much I could recover before regionals. The key was to stay positive and listen to my body. These days were really challenging for me because I had to push myself as hard as I could throughout the week to get some of my fitness back in such a short amount of time. A few days before regionals I began to feel like I maybe had a shot at qualifying for state again. Leading up to the regional meet, it was difficult to focus on my race plan. I felt like there had been a lot of pressure on me to do well at this meet early in the season. I tried to focus on the positive aspects of my fitness and run my race that fit into the things that I’m best at. It also helped a lot that this was the first time since I’ve been at Anderson that we qualified for regionals as a team. I was able to really appreciate all the team aspects of this sport and the community that we had built at Anderson starting all the way back in the summer, something I would say is more important than any time I ran on the course. Exactly three weeks to the day after sitting in a hospital bed attached to an IV, I placed sixth at regionals and earned my second straight trip to the state meet. With 12 more days until State, I am hopeful that my goal of a podium finish is still within reach. There is no way I could have done this without the support around me, including my family, friends and teammates. I am also lucky to have a bunch of people in my corner including: Coach Paul Carrozza at Born to Run, Coach Chavez at Anderson, Dr. Tommer Arbuckle at Austin Sports Therapy and my sports psychologist Dr. Tim Zeddies."
"I am a junior at Austin Anderson High School and have been running off and on since seventh grade, when my Kealing Middle School soccer coach asked if I wanted to run Cross Country in the off season.
I have always played a lot of different sports. Growing up I played baseball, soccer, basketball, flag football and swam. For the past two years I have also played on the Anderson freshman and junior varsity basketball teams so this is actually the first year for me to only run.
During my freshman year of cross country, I won the district title beating my brother, Kepler, who now runs for Michigan. At regionals I was one spot from qualifying for state.
Last year for Anderson, I was suffering from a knee injury but was able to advance out of our district, then placed 11th at regionals to advance to State after not running for 10 days. My injury got worse during the two weeks prior to State and I couldn’t run which led to me not having a good meet.
I had a pretty late start to track last spring after finishing my basketball season but I was able to advance out of district and area in the 800m. At regionals, I ran my first big PR of the season with a 1:53 in the 800 which placed me 5th, finishing up my sophomore year.
At the Meet of Champions, I set a new PR in the 800m (1:52.04) then at the BTR Twilight Meet in June, I set another PR, this time in the 1600m (4:11.43). I finished the summer at Nike Outdoor Nationals, highlighted by winning the Boys Emerging Elite Mile in 4:13.37.
This fall my training has been amazing with both my high school team and with my Coach Paul Carrozza from Born to Run. I had not competed in many races, but my fitness was the best it has ever been leading up to the McNeil Invitational.
The day before that race, I woke up not feeling great but I tried to not let it affect me going into the race. On the Saturday of the meet, I didn’t really have any energy and felt horrible which led me to not run well at all. Interestingly, my result never showed up for some reason.
I wasn’t feeling well and on Sunday I was diagnosed with strep throat. I started taking antibiotics but over the next few days I was not feeling any better. My symptoms got worse and when I went back to the doctor, I tested positive for mononucleosis.
Several days later I was still feeling worse. I had lost eight pounds and the doctors sent me to the emergency room to get treatment. I received an IV and was discharged. I slowly started to feel better after leaving the hospital and I felt a lot better about my chances to run at district.
I still didn’t have any energy to run until the Monday before district, after 16 days off. That Thursday I finished fourth at district, but felt horrible throughout the race leading to my slowest time since freshman year.
I now had 12 days to see how much I could recover before regionals. The key was to stay positive and listen to my body. These days were really challenging for me because I had to push myself as hard as I could throughout the week to get some of my fitness back in such a short amount of time. A few days before regionals I began to feel like I maybe had a shot at qualifying for state again.
Leading up to the regional meet, it was difficult to focus on my race plan. I felt like there had been a lot of pressure on me to do well at this meet early in the season. I tried to focus on the positive aspects of my fitness and run my race that fit into the things that I’m best at. It also helped a lot that this was the first time since I’ve been at Anderson that we qualified for regionals as a team. I was able to really appreciate all the team aspects of this sport and the community that we had built at Anderson starting all the way back in the summer, something I would say is more important than any time I ran on the course. Exactly three weeks to the day after sitting in a hospital bed attached to an IV, I placed sixth at regionals and earned my second straight trip to the state meet.
With 12 more days until State, I am hopeful that my goal of a podium finish is still within reach.
There is no way I could have done this without the support around me, including my family, friends and teammates. I am also lucky to have a bunch of people in my corner including: Coach Paul Carrozza at Born to Run, Coach Chavez at Anderson, Dr. Tommer Arbuckle at Austin Sports Therapy and my sports psychologist Dr. Tim Zeddies."