By: Darby Radcliff
Major: Nutrition Dietetics
Year in College: Freshman
Sports Team: Track & Field/Cross-Country
Team Position: Distance
Before joining the Ole Miss Track and Field/Cross Country team, Margaret Harkness was a top-six finisher at the Alabama State Meet in all four years of her High School career at St. Paul’s Episcopal School in Mobile, Alabama.
She also helped her team win the Alabama Outdoor Track State Championship all four years of High School as well.
During her senior season of track, Harkness achieved the success of winning the 1600 meters, the 3200 meters, and was also runner-up in the 800 meters at the Alabama State Track Meet.
Harkness also won the Mobile Challenge of Champions Mile her senior year, and she still holds the school record in the 1600 meters.
Now as a Freshmen Distance runner at Ole Miss, Harkness said that she chose to run track at Ole Miss because she really liked the program, as well as the coaches.
Harkness also enjoys that her sports team is really close and supportive, but she explains that being a Freshmen athlete is hard because going from High School to collegiate running is really difficult.
With this change, Harkness has faced the physical struggles of being injured due to going from low mileage to such high mileage at such a fast pace.
Another struggle that Harkness has faced by joining a collegiate track team was learning good time-management skills, as well as how to balance her sport with her academics and her sorority.
A typical day for Harkness during cross-country season is waking up early in the morning at 5:30 am and then having practice at 6 am, then she goes to classes all day, then after classes she has to go to practice, then has sorority stuff and homework to do later that night.
Now, Harkness said that her team is on their own schedule for track season, so they don’t have to meet as a team, and they can run whenever they want to in the morning, but they do meet as a team in the afternoon.
For the spring season, the Ole Miss track team’s toughest competitors are going to be: Florida, Florida State, LSU, and Alabama.
Lastly, Harkness’ advice for future collegiate athletes is “to just be prepared, have time-management skills, and know that it is more serious to be an athlete at a collegiate level.”
For more information, check out the Ole Miss Track & Field/XC page at:
http://www.olemisssports.com/sports/c-track/ole-c-track-body.html