In the fall of 2023, Aoife Shovlin ’25 captured her second consecutive cross-country state title, heading a superb Girls’ Cross Country team that won the Dual-County League title and finished fourth at the Division 1 Championships. After running over the Massachusetts field, Shovlin excelled at Regionals, then ran an 18:49 5K at Foot Locker Nationals in San Diego, California.
Register Forum (RF): When did you start running, and how did you get into the sport?
Aoife Shovlin (AS): I pretty much started cross country freshman year. I did a little bit on the middle school teams, but not really.
RF: Did you have expectations about where cross country would take you?
AS: I just thought that at the beginning it might be a fun sport to try, and I thought I might be good at it because my dad used to run cross country, and I was like, “ooh, I want to run it too,” and see what happens.
RF: What would you say about the CRLS cross country community?
AS: I think we have a really good team culture. We’re all friends. And I think that’s part of what makes a good cross country team. People need to like each other because then there’s more of an incentive to do your best in every race to help the team’s score as well as yours.
RF: What are your goals for next year and beyond high school in cross country?
AS: Next year, I want to try and win states a third time because that has only been done once by a girl in Massachusetts. For our team, we are also going to try and win the state title since we got pretty close this year and last year. We’ll be losing our captain (Eliza Dickie ’24), but if we can get another good runner, I think we’ve got a chance. After high school, I think I want to run in college, but I’m not sure where.
RF: What is your mindset going into a big race?
AS: I try to go in confident. If I’m going in thinking I’m going to lose, I never run well. It was harder to do for regionals and nationals because I was racing people who were better than ones I’ve ever raced before. But for meets in the state, I [tell myself], “I know I can beat all of these people. There’s no reason why I can’t win.”
RF: How was your experience at nationals?
AS: It was super exciting. I got to meet people from all over the country who loved cross country. They were all really fast, and the race [was] different from anything else I’ve experienced.
This article also appears in our January 2024 print edition.
