On December 9th, Sophia Franco ’20 broke SHS’s 600m record in her first race of the season. Her time was an astonishing 1:34, which is not only a qualifying time for Nationals, but it is also the fastest time in the country at this point in the season. “I wasn’t really expecting to have such a strong of a race because I didn’t know what shape we were in. It was only my first run of the season,” said Franco. She described the excitement she shared with her team when her teammates were hugging and congratulating her: “I came off the race and everyone was just kind of high-fiving me and I guess all my teammates knew that I broke the school record and that I qualified for Nationals, but I didn’t know yet… I went to my coach, he told me the big news, and then everybody started cheering.”

Now that Franco has qualified for Nationals, she plans to make some changes. “I made it by a little less than a second and I will continue to bring that time down,” she assured. Franco and the entire winter track team have been training harder and harder, ramping up their mileage in practice. “We went from 30 [miles] a week to 35 since the beginning of the season,” she said.  As the season continues to progress, Franco hopes to compete in more meets. “I’m looking to cut down at least another second or two going into Nationals,” she said. 

It was a very successful meet for SHS overall, with Eric Jacobson coming in 1st place in the 600m, Nick Bernard in 2nd in the 1000m, and Aliza Mehlman in 3rd in the 1000m. This first meet shows great promise for the rest of the season for Franco and her teammates.