Juli Smith '12 Recruiting Profile

I am a very hard worker. I am driven by a challenge. I don't love cross country because it's something I'm good at, I love it because it is challenging. Another reason I love cross country is because it's an individual sport and a team sport. It's nice not to have to depend on other people to do well, but it's also nice to have teammates you can support and who can support you too. I am 5'4" 122lbs and I started running cross country in 8th grade. Middle school races were 1.5 miles and that year I had an undefeated season. I had found my niche and I set my bar high going into freshman year. My freshman year I won most of my races never placing less then 3rd. My greatest accomplishments that year were winning the conference meet where I set my p.r. of 15:07, being on the all-state first team, and finishing 3rd at the Nebraska class B state cross country meet. (high school womens races are 4k) Getting 3rd at state my freshman year was great, but I knew that if I worked hard over the summer and trained well I could shoot for 1st my sophmore year. My sophmore year I consistently placed in the top 3. At state I ran my season best of 15:13 placing 2nd in class B and 2nd all classes. I was very happy about improving from 3rd to 2nd but I am still working towards that 1st place finish. In track I have run a variety of events. In middle school I really liked the hurdles and I ran the 300 hurdles my freshman year but I decided to give it up to focus on distance. I love the challenge of the hurdles and the endurance of distance and the steeplechase is an event I would really like to run in college.
Going into my Junior year of cross country I got a groin injury and wasn't able to run the first of the season, but when I was able to run again I worked hard and placed 3rd at the Nebraska class C state cross country. After having a rough cross country season I really wanted to do well in track and my goals were to break  school records and medal at Nebraska class B state track. I went to state in the 1600m and the 4x800.  At state I placed 6th in the 1600m breaking the school record which is now 5:25. We placed 4th in the 4x8 and earlier that season broke the school record by about 20 seconds with a 9:47. Ealier in the season I also broke my previous school record in the 3200m with an 11:58.