This year, both the boys and girls cross country teams have gotten off to a strong start and are looking good ahead of their postseason races. The GH Falcon sat down with the top runners on the boys and girls team, Seamus O’Driscoll (‘25) and Isabel Short (‘28), to ask them about the success of themselves and the team.
Seamus O’Driscoll has been running for Green Hope for four years as a member of both the track and cross country teams. Over his Green Hope career, he has improved substantially, improving his 5k time by around seven minutes to his current PR of 16:12. That time is the seventh fastest time in the conference and 13th fastest time in the region.
Isabel Short, on the other hand, is new to running at Green Hope. The freshman began running with the team over the summer of ‘24. Since then, she’s improved her 5k time by a minute to 20:42, the fastest time on the girl’s team this year. Her 20:42 mark ranks her sixth in the conference among freshmen.
There is a lot of focus and skill that goes into running, but O’Driscoll makes it as simple as possible for himself. When asked what he attributed to his success as a runner, he said “just running more.” Expanding on this, he talked about a week of practice for him, saying it involved, “running 50 to 60 miles, some solid workouts, and a lot of hip and core exercises.”
Short takes a similar approach to improvement, saying her success comes from “hard work and keeping up with practice.” Her practice schedule is challenging, but it leads to her success on the course. When talking about it, she says “There’s two workouts, and every other day is an easy run which is about 5 miles. On Saturdays, I do a long run if I don’t have a race.”
O’Driscoll has seen much success this season with these methods, running his PR at the Friday Night Lights meet. In addition to his personal victories, he thinks the boys cross country team overall is shaping up to be strong this year. When asked his thoughts on the team, he said, “If we stay healthy we’re looking pretty strong and can hopefully bring home conference.”
Short’s team-leading PR came from the same race as O’Driscoll’s at the Friday Night Lights 5k. She also thinks positively of the team, but in addition to talking about the great performance of the team, she also discussed the team connection, saying, “We’re looking good. Everyone has really grown a lot.”
O’Driscoll is in his last cross country season for Green Hope, but that isn’t where he’ll stop. He plans to run in college and continue reaching goals and breaking boundaries. Short, on the other hand, has just started her journey at Green Hope and plans to run for the rest of her time here.
These two runners are ready to lead Green Hope as they near the end of their season. Both teams will run in the conference championship on October 15 at Wake Med Park.
