Jared Craw runs his way to fourth place at nationals

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By: Jacob Freehart

Staff Writer

Jared Craw attended and ran for Colonie Central High School and recently placed fourth at Cross Country Nationals for Hudson Valley Community College.

Craw is part of the marketing program at Hudson Valley Community College, but when he isn’t studying, he is running.

“I started running when I was in fifth grade but of course I started running when I was really young, but fifth grade is for actual running,” he said.

Craw is a freshman at Hudson Valley Community College and shined on the Cross Country men’s team since he had arrived.

“The season was really good, just really good,” Craw said. “I had great teammates throughout the entire thing and the coaching staff worked so hard to make it fun for us,” he said. “The coaches in general were just great too and their work for us showed with our performance.”

On Oct. 27, both men’s and women’s cross country attended Regionals and claimed the Region 3 title. Craw was first overall with a time of 30 minutes and 38 seconds.

“For me personally, [Regionals] really helped boost my confidence and made me want to finish first at Nationals, just like I did at Regionals,” he said. “I feel like it had the same overall effect on the team too, because they seemed to really want it too.”

On Nov. 3, the team attended Nationals. Craw ran against 175 other students from 22 other colleges.

“At first it was very intimidating, having so many teams and other runners around you,” Craw described about Nationals. “I was able to focus though and get myself hyped up for the race ahead,” he said. “I wanted to put it all out there for the last race and have no regrets.”

Although his personal goal for the season was to place first at Nationals, Craw is really proud to had placed fourth. Not only is he proud of himself, he is proud of his team for placing seventh.

Due to the trip, he was able to grow closer to his teammates from the bus ride and staying at the hotel together.

“The best moments though were from our time in Nationals,” he said. “We stayed overnight in a hotel and the whole team just stayed up and we hung out and had a lot of fun.”

After leaving from Nationals, the team has new goals and plans for the next season.

“[Placing fourth] felt good, but my real feeling was that I wanted to do better and I wanted our team to come together as a unit,” he described.

For next season, expect to see Craw accomplish his goal of being a D1 athlete and spending more time getting to know and hanging out with his teammates.