There was a lot of worried that, like, my first week back training, I genuinely, like, could not run a mile without stopping, which, like, I know everybody gets out of shape, but, like, it was kind of terrifying.

I was telling coach, I'm like, like, the love of the sport is not there right now. Like, this summer was just such a mess. I was so stressed out all the time,

which was really disappointing.

And then, you know, I think doing that race with her,

kind of, like, it brought the fun back.

And after that, like, a switch kind of flipped,

and suddenly things started to, like, roll a little bit better.

And just throughout the season, I feel like,

just my team is a whole kind of gained momentum.

That's Grace Hartman today on the Running Effect podcast. I'm your host Dominic Schleader,

and I'm thrilled. You've clicked on this one. Grace is someone that I've followed her career

for quite some time. We're both from the great state of Ohio. I want to say my junior

year making the state meet was her senior year. She won many, many state titles as an Ohioan.

I want to say she won eight state titles. She was also back-to-back Gatorade State player of the

year in cross-country, if I'm not mistaken, 2020 and 2021. Grace now runs for and competes for NC State, the Wolfpack,

and she recently plays fifth at the 2024 NCAA cross-country championships held last month in

Madison, Wisconsin. I think what's most notable about that is last year she placed 63rd,

so quite the jump, and I assumed that jump would have been because of massive leaps in training

or something of the like, but she actually details and documents how she had a pretty

rough summer and even rough start to the season with some different struggles and setbacks.

And I thoroughly found value from hearing about how she approaches setbacks, how she views

her growth in the sport, how you guys can grow

...