Latest / Kendall County News - Shaw Local / Now a ‘true runner,’ Yorkville’s Athena Triner racing with confidence after unexpected success

Transcript

Now a ‘true runner,’ Yorkville’s Athena Triner racing with confidence after unexpected success · Kendall County News - Shaw Local

• 0:05
  Now a true runner, Yorkville's Athena Triner racing with confidence after unexpected
• 0:10
  success. Written by Skylar Casellus. This article is being read by an
• 0:16
  automated voice, brought to you by Everlet. During last Friday's Southwest Prairie
• 0:22
  Conference meet, Yorkville Jr. Athena Triner found herself in an unfamiliar position,
• 0:27
  at the front of a field of 67 runners. I'm not usually
• 0:31
  used to leading, Triner said. So there was a point where I
• 0:35
  just knew I needed to start leading and pushing myself, and pushing
• 0:38
  the pace a lot more if I wanted to do well. She
• 0:42
  did more than just do well. Triner won the conference's three-mile race
• 0:46
  in 18 minutes, 2.3 seconds, edging last year's conference champion, Plainfield North
• 0:52
  Senior Marley Jarniewski, 18043 by 2 seconds. Triner teammate, Senior
• 0:58
  Paige Tim, finished 9th in 1841.7 to help the Foxes place second.
• 1:03
  I think my main focus was being sure I'm running for my
• 1:07
  team because I knew that they were pushing for me, Triner
• 1:10
  said. Trainer wasn't the only Yorkville runner to claim a conference title.
• 1:15
  Ellison L. Myers won the freshman-slash-sophomore race in 1946.1. For Triner, the
• 1:21
  title was The Product of Confidence She's Built From a Season That's
• 1:25
  Exceeded Her Expectations. I was feeling pretty confident, Triner said. My season's
• 1:31
  been going a lot better than I expected coming into it. The
• 1:35
  junior opened the fall season with back to back second place finishes
• 1:38
  at the Cayley Fox Invitational, August 24th, and the Kane County Invitational,
• 1:44
  August 29th. Two weeks later, on September 19th, she took second again
• 1:49
  in first flight of the Manooka Flight Races before winning the Rock
• 1:52
  River Run on September twenty-sixth. Her success continued through one of Yorkville's
• 1:58
  toughest stretch of meets. Trainer placed fourth at Naperville North's Twilight Invitational
• 2:03
  on october seventh, a Wednesday night meet that featured what Fox's coach
• 2:08
  Chris Mouth described as some of the best competition in Illinois on
• 2:12
  a fast course. After a three day turnaround she’s traveled to Portige,
• 2:17
  Michigan, for another meet on a challenging five kilometer course, finishing fourteenth.
• 2:23
  Athena's really been exceptional the past four or five meets, Muth said.
• 2:28
  Yeah, you can look at her times, which have been really, really
• 2:31
  good. You can look at her winning, but just the way that's
• 2:35
  she's running and with such intelligence about her and how she's learning,
• 2:38
  and really starting to become a true runner. While in the past
• 2:42
  year she's been successful, she's just kind of used her talents and
• 2:46
  survived. This year She’s
• 2:47
  really truly become a runner. When asked what Triner's intelligence looks like
• 2:52
  on a cross-country course, Muth explained that’s it isn't as simple as
• 2:56
  just running to the finish line. You have to control your emotions.
• 3:01
  You have to control your heart rate and your effort level to
• 3:04
  sustain the three miles with the best intent, Moose said. And she's
• 3:09
  now not just surviving. She's really thinking through her race and really
• 3:13
  strategizing when to really spend her energy and when to survive. And
• 3:17
  that's really taken her to a new level. That growth will be
• 3:21
  important as Yorkville prepares for Saturday's Rock Island Regional, where Triner will
• 3:27
  try to win a regional for the second straight year. From there,
• 3:30
  the Foxes will look advanced to the Lincoln Way Central Sectional, and,
• 3:34
  ultimately, the Class 3A state meet on November 7th. Treiner finished 161st
• 3:41
  at last year's state meet in 1834.88. This year she heads into
• 3:47
  the postseason with the boost of an individual conference championship. It definitely
• 3:52
  makes me feel a lot more confident in myself and also helps
• 3:56
  me feel a lot more comfortable going into the next few races.
• 3:59
  Triner said just knowing that I can trust myself a lot more
• 4:03
  and I understand how I race a lot better and what works
• 4:06
  for me and what doesn't.