Katherine Seavers '22 Recruiting Profile

My track journey started in sixth grade when I joined Lourdes Academy's team after transferring from a public school. After being in public school my whole life, my mother enrolled me into a Catholic school that taught kindergarten through eighth grade. I had spent only two weeks at the public middle school and complained so much about not being able to learn due to my fellow classmate's behavior, that my mother knew she had to find me a new school with a better learning environment. Even though sports were not organized like at other schools, I still learned a lot during games, meets, and practices at Lourdes. In most sports, like volleyball and basketball, I learned new techniques and how to better communicate with my teammates. However, in track, the middle school students had to help with the elementary school students at every practice. This is where I developed more confidence and started feeling more comfortable in leadership positions. My coach knew how to get points at the CYS meets, so we almost always got first place and I had to run the 800m and the mile. I would usually only practice these distances two to three times a season, but I almost always got first place. 

When I began conditioning in December of my freshman year, I realized very quickly how different high school track is from CYS track. My new coach made me a sprinter and I had to start running on the balls of my feet. To say that the transition was rough is an understatement. By the time states rolled around, the ibuprofen I had to take before every practice no longer worked and walking up and down the stairs in between classes became more of a challenge. A majority of the muscles in my feet and legs were inflamed and ice baths only provided relief for a few hours. The 4x100 team I was a part of set a new school record and we had the opportunity to compete at the State Championships. At one of our last practices, we were adjusting the steps required for our handoffs and I broke down crying because it hurt so much to run. All I could think about was how I’d be letting them and myself down if I couldn't run. So, I pulled myself together and ran through the pain at both that practice and the state meet. That year, the girls track team was district champions and regional runner ups. It was a year full of challenge and reward and it helped me grow in ways that I didn’t even know I could. 

Last year, my sophomore year, our season was cut short because of the pandemic. The sprint coach had me ease into the season during conditioning to make sure I wouldn’t face the same problems from the previous season. My high school had just gotten a new track coach to coach the middle distance runners. This new coach decided with my school’s head coach to take me out of sprints to focus on my main event, the 400m, and the 800m. He believed that our 4x400 would make it to states and our 4x800 had made it to states during the previous year. Toward the end of what occurred of that season, we had only been going to relay meets, so I could not get an official time for my 400. However, at one of those meets I had run the first leg of the 4x400 and my coach told me I had pr’d and ran a 63. Our last track meet was the night that all of the schools in our county closed and our coach had just told us that our 4x400 and 4x800 teams were seeded to medal at states.