Vanessa Cuevas-Diaz was inspired to do cross country because of track; she did it before cross country and found a love for running. She wanted to see how her endurance would pay off in cross country because it’d be good for her next season of track. At first, it was all just fun, but she really enjoyed it and just kept to it. The biggest challenge she faced in her running career was endurance. Being a sprinter for track was different from long distance, which is in cross country, and running there to four miles was different for her. She can’t sprint well and gaining endurance within those runs was useful. It built her endurance for running. Along with that, she wouldn’t let pain get to her, she’d run for a long amount of time but would push through it which helped tremendously. For her pre-meet routine Cuevas-Diaz would have a good night’s rest and in the morning, she would eat a banana. Then drink lots of electrolytes, along with listening to music before her competition. Before races, Cuevas-Diaz keeps in mind to “try my best and no matter what time I get, it doesn’t define me as an athlete and you know I tried my hardest and no matter what. I’ll still try and get better and it won’t stop me from trying to get better”. When it comes down to handling pressure, Vanessa says “I just think about how my own person and everybody else is our own person so we all have different times you know we’re all different people. We’re not gonna be the same endurance-wise or health-wise so everybody’s different, so it doesn’t define me or anything. Everybody’s just different and no matter what, you know we’re all just running and having fun.”
Recovering after a meet is draining, Cuevas-Diaz likes to gasp for air, lay down, drink lots of water, and eat after. During her recovery, she likes to stretch her calves, take off her shoes, massage her calves and start stretching because the burning sensation is a lot. The hardest part of doing cross country was balancing her school life because of practice. Practice ran during the weekdays. Vanessa would try to get as much work done as the night before Sunday, so that she wouldn’t have to do much on Monday. The weekend didn’t really count to her since the practices were in the mornings & the afternoon.
Advice Cuevas-Diaz gave to inspire other young athletes such as herself is, “to keep practicing even though you think you won’t get better you will, and it takes time it’s not gonna take a day or a week. It’s gonna take time to build up the endurance and to actually feel comfortable when running.” A lot of personal growth and development from cross-country had been made on her journey with the sport. It’s helped her build a lot of confidence since she would constantly uphold the mindset that people would beat her. That mentality would cause her to feel down. It took time to build as an athlete and become more confident within herself. It helped tremendously gaining more confidence in herself. That stopped her thinking about what others thought about how she did. Instead, it caused her to think about what the training she did and remind herself how hard she had trained. All the training for cross country showed she tried and had a commitment to the team. Goals she had set out for the future in cross country is to make better time, practice more even on her off time, and balance school better.
