Vanessa Blanco '17 Recruiting Profile

My name is Vanessa Blanco and I was born and raised in Estherville, Iowa.  I am currently seventeen years old and I am taking a couple of dual credit classes. I have maintained on being the A honor roll for many years.  I love keeping myself busy and try to be involved in many activities.  I participate in cross-country, track, History Day, Purple Cord, marching band, concert band, Midget  Maniacs, and any other volunteer work I can fit into my schedule. I love running and I do anything to fit a run into my schedule whether I have to wake up at five in the morning or staying up until nine at night. Running is one of my passions. I lettered in cross-country and track. My freshmen year I made varsity and received the Rookie of the Year award. I have also participated in the Iowa Lakes Cross-Country camp. Choosing to participate in that camp was an amazing decision. The camp helped me push myself even more. I was proud of myself when Coach Peterson  gave me the girl MVP of the camp. I plan on continuing my running career throughout college.

I am currently working at Hy-Vee and I enjoy my position at Customer Service. As I have been working at Hy-Vee I have noticed I have gotten a couple promotions and new positions. My HR manager made me team captain of Hy-Vee’s running team participating in the relay for life race. Also my HR manager put me in charge of a project and I was the only one chosen to do this task. It took about three weeks to get it done and I also did a little extra which made my HR manager proud.

This passing track season I set some goals for myself. One of those goals was to drop at least 25 seconds from my first track meet which was held at Buena Vista University. The time I ran at that meet came out to be 3:05, I knew from a start that was not where I wanted to be and I needed to make more improvement. After that we had a mock meet and my time was a 2:50. By the end of the season, I had dropped my time by almost 30 seconds! For track 2016-2017 season I plan on dropping more than 30 seconds.

I have proven that I can handle sports, academics, and a job all at the same time. I am ready to take my running career to the next level!