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Although Elizabethton High School senior Reaghan Curde hasn’t been running cross country for a short time, her time on the courses has paid dividends in a major way.

Curde inked to continue her cross country running at Lincoln Memorial University (LMU) in Harrogate where she plans on studying nursing.

“I started running last year and it was really all new to me,” Curde said. “Every single person I have met running is so nice and running just gave me the confidence to be who I am outside of the school in every aspect of life and that was why I wanted to continue running.

“LMU is just the best fit for me because of the people there – the coaches, the girls there are just so nice and I feel like I will do well there.”

She added that the program is fairly new having brought in a new coach two years ago that was really young but has been working diligently to get runners to come to the school. The program fairs pretty well considering they are a young team.

Curde credited a lot of her cross country skills to her head coach at Elizabethton – Mark Newman.

“Coach Newman is very smart on how to run and how to train because he ran in college,” said Curde. “I just trusted him with all the workouts and all the mileage because I know that he knows what he is doing. In college its going to be a lot higher mileage.”

The senior’s advice to any young runner who is considering taking up the sport of cross country is simple but straight to the heart.

“To just have fun,” she said. “If you love it you will do well. It is really useless to focus on your time because if your heart is into it, then your time will be good anyway.”