Credit: Courtesy of Baystate Running

WSPN’s athlete of the month is freshman Mia Rent for her top placements in cross country meets.

With sweat dripping, legs cramping and her ponytail flying, freshman Mia Rent has made a name for herself in the cross country community.

Rent began running in fifth grade to stay in shape, but a year later she tried out cross country and track and fell in love with the sport.

“Now I really enjoy both track and cross country because both of the sports allow me to push myself to my limits and it’s really fun to see what I am capable of,” Rent said.

With her newfound interest in running, Rent started to run for a club called Emerging Elites. Emerging Elites is a USA Track and Field (USATF) club in New England that trains young athletes all throughout Eastern Massachusetts. Emerging Elites offers year round training for athletes and focuses on getting the young athletes better with their individual training. Rent believes that the club has pushed her to become the best version of herself.

“They have many talented athletes there and I’m very lucky to be able to train with girls who are much faster than me,” Rent said. “Emerging Elites also helped me learn so much more about the sport and all the different components.”

Rent made the varsity cross country team as a freshman, and has since then set records as she goes. Rent has competed in multiple races throughout her freshman year and made a name for herself because of her top placements.

“It was really awesome to set records at Wayland because I felt like I learned a lot from racing this year and I’m very grateful to have such good coaches who help me strategize and make plans for my race,” Rent said. “It was really fun to race longer distances this year because it was something new to me which made it really fun and challenging.”

Some athletes can get burnt out while playing a sport for a long time. For Rent, she continues to run because of all the work she had to put into the sport.

“When I set a goal for the season I always try my hardest to meet it,” Rent said. “When things get hard in track or cross country, I think of all the work I’ve put into my training which pushes me and keeps me going.”

Because of Rent’s successful year as a freshman, she wants to continue her cross country career at the collegiate level. Over the years, her passion for the sport has grown.

“I would love to continue my running journey in college,” Rent said. “This sport is something that’s really important to me and that I love to do and it would be really awesome to compete in college someday.”