Former Mansfield Lady Tiger, Megan Rose, is shown running up Mount Magazine in a 15K race on June 6.
As the world adjusts to new normals, one former Mansfield Lady Tiger continues old habits. Megan Rose, who will enter her junior season of collegiate cross country racing next fall, continues her passion for running even during the off-season. Rose recently entered a Mountain Run Series sponsored by the River Valley Runners Association. The three race series started Saturday, June 6 with a 15K (9 miles) race up Mount Magazine. This was Megan’s first competitive race since her sophomore track season at Southeastern University in Durant, OK which was unexpectedly shut down in March because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Decisions made by the NCAA soon after the shutdown was good news for the former Mansfield long-distance runner. Per NCAA mandates, Rose will be able to retain her sophomore status for track next season. “When word came down,” started Rose in an interview Monday morning, “I thought about how I would get the season back. My college coach (Ron Hair) suggested being a graduate assistant. Since I’m an education major, I could GA during cross country season, run track, and work on my masters that fifth year of school.”
In the meantime, Rose’s old habits die hard. She works out seven days a week with prescribed mileage from the Southeastern coaching staff. And with permission, she enters an occasional road race like the one she ran last Saturday. “I did pretty well,” spoke Rose in her typically humble demeanor. “I finished 23rd out of about 100 runners. We got lost in the early sections around the streets of Havana so I really did 10 miles instead of nine.” The 19-year-old Savage Storm athlete finished with a time of 1:46:09.09. That included the extra rerouted distance at the start and the remaining almost exclusive uphill mileage to the top of Mount Magazine.
“This was my second time to run this race. The miles are starting to pay off. I’m a little older and more experienced now so it wasn’t as hard as the first time I ran it.” Officially, Rose was 23rd overall out of 105 runners regardless of age or gender that finished the course. In the women’s division, Rose was 11th. Kaitlin Bounds, a 29-year-old female runner from Russellville, was the overall winner of the nine-mile trek to the top. A 28-year-old Dover woman was second followed by a 59-year-old Gravette man in third. And a teenage boy from Clarksville was fourth.
Daniel Sanderson, who was the fourth-place 15-year-old Clarksville Panther, had a peripheral connection to Mansfield. He was invited and participated in the Farm Bureau River Valley All-Star Cross Country Race hosted by Mansfield last November. Chloe Weathers, another 15-year-old cross country phenom from Clarksville, was an RV All-Star nominee but ran the larger Arkansas-Oklahoma All-Star race that same November day. She was the 11th person to finish the Mount Magazine race and the fifth female finisher.
Rose’s Southeastern teammate, Regan Ramos, also ran the race. Starting the race together, the college runners both ran the extra misguided distance before navigating the true course up the hill. “It was fun having one of my teammates run with me,” explained Rose. “Regan usually stays ahead of me during cross country season. This time I beat her by about ten minutes. I don’t think she was used to the elevation.” Rose and Ramos had been following individual track workouts at their respective homes since being sent away from the Southeastern campus because of the virus. Those daily six-mile runs with a 10-mile recovery on Sunday changed to a lighter schedule when off-season officially started in May.
Now, Rose and her teammates do volunteer workouts, still at home, but the mileage has dropped to 4.5 mile runs each of the first six days of the week with a 7.5-mile recovery jog on Sundays. Rose explained that her coach allows some extra rest when she competes in an approved road race. She also said because of NCAA regulations she has to send an email every two weeks that she chooses to participate in voluntary workouts. “I actually took off the day before Mount Magazine and the day after the race,” confessed Rose. “It took quite a bit out of me. I was kind of glad for the rest.”
On the day of this interview, Rose was back to her normal practice routine. This particular morning she included a segment through parts of her old high school cross country course on the MHS campus. “I’m looking to get more PR’s (personal records) next season and stay in the top three of my team,” stated the motivated former Lady Tiger. “I got my time down to 19:56 for the 5K last season.” In the meanwhile, look for Rose to complete the final two legs of the River Valley Mountain Run Series. The next event in that three-race circuit is a 10K run up Mt. Nebo. The final race in the sequence is a 5k race through the Petit Jean Mountain Trails.
According to Rose, each race issues a medal that’s similar to a puzzle piece. When competitors complete each phase, they are awarded the wooden medallions that snap together to make a larger medal keepsake. As history has shown, Rose is sure to collect all three pieces. Snapping the pieces together may be another example of the new norm, but earning accomplishments is an old habit for the former Lady Tiger.
Article contributed by John Mackey
