Conversations with Nora:
You are one of the pre-eminent sprinters in Division III. How do you build your speed?
My coach is the brain behind the whole operation, so he’d have a more technical answer for you, but a lot of speed work has to do with building power and explosiveness. This is something that we work on from multiple different angles, but two exercises that help us move towards this goal are weighted sled pulls and hill sprints.
When you run in the 60 meter hurdles, does it seem sometimes that your back foot hits the track and the next hurdle is almost right in front of you?
No, not really. When we practice, we typically move the hurdles in slightly to account for both the physiological difference of the situation and to work on our turnover. This means that at a meet, the hurdles are actually spaced farther apart than we’re used to at practice. However, the meet day adrenaline more than makes up for the difference, so it’s not a problem. If anything, I feel like I’m taking too long to get to the next hurdle. It may look like the hurdles are immediately after each other, but I promise it looks and feels slower than that as the person on the track.
How do you build quickness for a race like the 400?
I guess it depends on what you mean by quickness and what part of the race you’re talking about. The way I see it, the 400 requires two core ingredients for success: speed and strength. The speed and quickness you see at the start of the race is all about power. Similar to shorter sprints, this type of speed comes from getting stronger in the weight room and working on acceleration. However, the quickness you see towards the second half of the race is a different beast entirely. You can only hold your top speed for so long, so while the very beginning is all about getting out as fast as possible, the majority of the race is actually about doing what you can to ride momentum and preserve your speed. In the later part of the race, what may look like quickness is just deceleration at a slower rate than your competitors. This type of quickness is built through improving stamina and lactic tolerance, which we get from running longer distances at a higher percentage of our top speed (EX: 450m at 90% speed).
As each leg of the 400 relay is completed, the next foursome steps on the track waiting for a handoff. Is there any talk between the competitors, or is it all focused on your teammate running to you with the baton?
No, there’s never any conversation when you’re on the line. When you step up to receive your hand off, you have to act like it’s just you and your teammate out there. You need to be focused on the incoming runner to help them find you, encourage them in the last few meters of their leg, and judge their body language to determine when you need to take off. When you’re juggling all that information at once, there’s no room for getting cozy with competitors. It’s you, your teammate, and the baton: nothing else.
Let’s talk about academics. Are your Psychology and the Brain & Cognitive Science majors linked at all?
Yes, absolutely! Psychology and BCS have a fair amount of overlap, and for that reason, it’s a more common combination for double majors. They feed into each other very nicely because you get the best of both worlds: BCS helps to explain how the brain works and the mechanics behind it whereas psychology helps you understand why things work the way that they do and what this looks like at the individual level.
Where have you been able to do research and interning in the summer and in early fall before track workouts begin?
Over the summer, I’ve been doing research at the Cognitive Development Lab (CDL) in Meliora Hall. In the fall, I’ll continue my work within the CDL while also starting an independent study with Dr. Craig Cypher, our sport psychologist.
Have you done any work as a teaching assistant?
No, I have not. Between research, track, and my work as a Writing Fellow, I keep myself pretty busy as is.
With the idea of keeping focused in the race itself, do your psychology classes help develop a competitive mindset?
That’s a great question. I would say that the answer is both yes and no for this one. If I look at the overall influence of the psychology courses that I’ve taken, I would probably say no. For the most part, I would say that what I’ve learned hasn’t been super translatable to my success as an athlete. However, the big exception here has been PSYC 262: Approach to Human Motivation. This course is taught differently than most others in that it involves a lot of reflection about how the concepts learned apply to your life. It’s something that’s helped me to better engage with my sport and be a more balanced athlete.
As an upper-class student, what do you speak about to the younger team members, both in terms of the track program and about the University itself?
There are so many wonderful people here at this university, both within the team as well as outside of it. Yes, there’s always going to be something to work on within courses and within track, but there is incredible value in developing community. Work hard, study hard, but make sure you dedicate time towards building your friendships as well. Go on that spontaneous trip to the movies or out for ice cream with your friends. It may seem like a small, inconsequential choice at the time, but it’s something that will continue to provide you happiness many months and years later.
Who were some of the upper-class students who helped to guide you when you were in your first year?
Being on the national 4x4 team my freshman year, I would certainly say that I got a lot of guidance from Kate Isaac, Megan Bell, and Madeline O’Connell. However, without Jael Fleurant, I don’t even know if I would’ve joined the team and had the chance to meet any of these amazing people. When I met Jael, she insisted that I come get ice cream with the rest of the women’s sprint team, even though I wasn’t sure about doing track yet. Because of her, I got to meet all the wonderful women on our team and the rest is history. She was always my rock, and I’m forever grateful that she was the first person I got to meet.
How did you become interested in the University when you were in high school?
One of my high school teammates had originally looked at the U of R for track and my friend’s older sister went here as well, so I had Rochester on the back burner for a while. I decided to look into the University when I was applying to college, and as someone who’s hopelessly indecisive, the idea of open curriculum was a huge pull for me. While I wasn’t initially sure that I wanted to continue running track, I wanted to go to a school where I could walk on to the team if I decided to run later on. So, between having more academic freedom and the potential to compete in D3 athletics, University of Rochester was high on my list.
