Wellington High School senior cross-country runner Cameron Shelby is on a mission to run faster each time she competes in a meet this fall. On a personal level, she thrives in a running environment.
“I find it relaxing when I run,” Shelby said. “I also like the team dynamics of running cross country. Also, in running, you can quickly see the results of your hard work and how it pays off.”
Shelby is off to a good start in her senior year. She ran a personal best time of 18:33 (for 3.1 miles/5K) in her first cross-country meet of the fall season. That race, the Garcia Invitational, was contested at Riverbend Park in Jupiter. While she set a personal best at Riverbend, her favorite cross-country venue in Palm Beach County is South County Regional Park in Boca Raton.
“It’s all grass at South County Regional Park, and there’s only one hill,” Shelby said.
While cross-country meets are contested over a 3.1 mile/5K course, her daily training prepares her for those high school races.
“I’m running six or seven miles a day, six or seven days a week,” Shelby said. “On some occasions, we will run 10 miles in practice.”
You don’t necessarily have to attend one of Shelby’s meets to see her in action, since she and her teammates are literally running around Wellington for practice.
“We run along the sidewalks of Wellington, along the horse trails, and sometimes we run at Okeeheelee Park,” Shelby noted.
Chances are strong that Shelby will break that personal best time of 18:33 at least one more time this season, since she’s also interested in earning her way back to the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) state cross country meet, which will be held at Apalachee Regional Park in Tallahassee on Saturday, Nov. 16. If she qualifies, it will be a repeat performance.
Last year, she finished in third place in an FHSAA regional, which qualified her for the state meet. When she competed up in Tallahassee, she finished in 34th place. Shelby knows that she can improve on last year’s performance by increasing the difficulty of her practice terrain here in Palm Beach County.
The state venue, Apalachee Regional Park, has many hills. In order to be better prepared for this year’s state meet, Shelby and her teammates are doing more rigorous workouts. “We are doing more bridge repeats and hill repeats,” Shelby explained.
One of Shelby’s running tactics is to wear different shoes for training and racing. She wears New Balance shoes for training and Nike shoes on race day.
“My New Balance shoes have more cushioning and support, whereas the Nikes are more reactive, which means they are better for races,” Shelby said.
As Shelby progresses through the fall season, she is motivated by memories of watching the Olympic track athletes in Paris last month. But she is fueled on race day by an all-American snack. “I always eat a peanut butter sandwich about two hours before my race,” she said.
The end of the cross-country season will not mark the end of her high school competitive running career because she has the high school track season coming up in the spring.
“In the past, I have always just run the one-mile race in track, but I have done enough training to also include the two-mile run next spring,” Shelby noted.
She also qualified last spring for the FHSAA’s Class 4A Track & Field Championship. There, she ran the one-mile race and finished in 12th place. She hopes to return to the state track meet and improve upon last spring’s performance.
After high school graduation next May, she has her sights set on running cross country in college while pursuing a degree in criminal justice.
