The 2020 Catoosa/walker County Cross Country Dream Team
Back in 2017, then-freshman runner Allison Craft stepped up and defied her age by becoming one of the better runners for the Heritage Lady Generals and for the entire region.
Four seasons later, she’s going out the same way.
Now a senior, Craft is being named as the Catoosa County Girls’ Cross Country Runner of the Year for a third straight time to go with a fourth award she shared with two other teammates as a freshman.
Craft finished in the top three in five of 11 races this season and earned top 10 honors nine times, including league meets against some of the top runners in the entire Chattanooga area. She set a new personal-record with a 20:22 at the Fast Break Challenge and averaged 21:23 for the year.
After helping her team to a second-place showing at the 7-AAAA Championships in Jasper — taking third individually with a 21:13 — she enjoyed her best-ever finish at state with a 21:29, good for 14th (out of 169 runners) on the tough Carrollton High School course. That helped a somewhat youthful Heritage squad placed 12th overall (out of 25 teams) in the final Class AAAA standings.
“(The season) went well,” she said. “I didn’t get my times exactly where I wanted them to be, but I did set a new PR, so that
Madison Todd came into the 2020 cross country season not exactly knowing what to expect, and it had nothing to do with anything related to COVID-19.
It was simply because Todd had never run cross country before.
However, you wouldn’t have known it just by looking at her results or watching the sophomore in action.
Three top 10 finishes, including a victory at the Walker County Championships, a third-place showing at an NGXCL meet at Lafayette and an eighth-place finish at the Region 6-AAA Championships, gave her an outstanding first-year resume.
Today, she adds to that impressive checklist with 2020 Walker County Girls’ Cross Country Runner of the Year honors.
Todd ended her first season in the sport with an average time of 24:27, including a season-best 22:37 in the league meet on her own home course. She also broke 25 minutes at the region meet (24:40) and won the county title with a 23:19.
But Todd quickly admitted that it wasn’t nearly as easy as she made it look.
“It was really hard,” she said. “I came into the sport thinking it was going to be easy because you’re just running. But I found out that it takes a lot of hard work and that the more work you put into it, the better results you get.”
Those results also featured a team-best 24:25 in the season finale in Carrollton as the Lady Ramblers enjoyed a long-awaited appearance at the state meet.
“It was a pretty crazy and a really awesome year,” she continued. “The whole team
was excited. It was just amazing.”
Todd said she’d love to get her times under 20 minutes for next year, even though she knows it’s a tough goal. However, there is one lesson she said she’s learned that she’ll take with her into her junior year.
“Don’t underestimate yourself,” she stated. “You can do a lot better than you think you can.”