School: Central Bucks South
CROSS COUNTRY, TRACK & FIELD
Favorite athlete: Pre
Favorite team: Dallas Cowboys
Favorite memory competing in sports: “In my junior year, our 4x800m team made it to States at the last-chance meeting, running 10 seconds faster than the time needed to qualify. All four of us crowded together after the race, still out of breath, like one huge, exhausted mob. Our coach came running over to congratulate us, but she could barely speak; she’d lost her voice from cheering during the race!”
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: “Our team stayed overnight at a really fancy hotel for States and thought it would be funny to take gum wrappers and put them over our teeth so it looked like we had ‘grills.’ We all went onto the elevator in baggy sweatpants with our grills on and stopped at every floor. When we finally reached the ground level, we posed like gangsters, and when the elevator doors opened, our coach was right there in the lobby at the front desk, staring at us like we’d lost our minds!”
Music on iPod: Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Daughtry
Future plans: Continue running at the collegiate level at Millersville University and become an English teacher and track/cross country coach!
Words to live by: “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.” –Pre
One goal before turning 30: “To be happily married and to have no regrets in life.”
One thing people don’t know about me: “I’ve written a full-length novel and am trying to get it published!”
By Alex FrazierCentral Bucks South’s Megan Meyer is one of the most polite and soft-spoken girls you’d ever meet.
Unless you happen to be next to her on the starting line at a track meet.
That’s a different story.
“In a race, I don’t want to have any regrets,” she said. “I don’t want to have anything left. I like surprising people.”
That’s why coach Lauren Senske uses Meyer as the leadoff runner on the 4x800 relay.
“When you’re the leadoff runner, you need to be aggressive,” said Senske. “It’s like a complete 180 on her personality when she gets on the track. She’s aggressive and throws some elbows in there. She always gets us a nice spot and has a good leadoff leg.”
Meyer recalled one start she’d rather forget at indoor states this year. Perhaps that was the motivation she needed.
“The start was horrible,” she said. “There were so many girls on the line. I got completely boxed out. I was so frustrated. I didn’t do well in that race and I was really upset. Now I have to be on the other end of the stick.”
From, leading off the 4x800, she goes to the other end, anchoring the 4x400.
“She’s running it a lot more this year,” said Senske. “She had a lot of breakthroughs last year with her speed. Her 400 time came down a lot during spring track last year. She’s definitely one of our four fastest 400 runners right now.”
The Titan senior started running track in eighth grade.
By the time she was ready to go to South as a sophomore, she decided to give up soccer and focus on running.
“I wasn’t sure how I was going to like cross country because it seemed like it would be a lot of running,” she said, “but I actually enjoyed it, the smaller team aspect of it.”
An injury after her sophomore cross country season precluded running indoors that winter, but she found that she was still better prepared for her first high school track season in the spring.
“It was actually better because I did cross country,” she said. “My coach made a program for the summer. Track didn’t seem as bad after doing cross country, but it was definitely a level up compared to middle school.”
Meyer said she prefers track to cross country.
“Hills aren’t my best friend,” she said, “although I’m starting to like them a little more.”
This year, Meyer is one of the track captains, no easy task on a team of 70 athletes, some of whom she doesn’t even know.
“It’s a little overwhelming at times,” she said, “but I enjoy it.”
She and the other captains lead drills, stretches and organize the big pasta party.
Senske said Meyer is a good role model.
“She trained really hard over the summer and had a fantastic cross country season, and it has translated to track,” said Senske. “She is a great leader by example on our team. She never cuts corners in workouts or stretching. Also does everything she can outside of practice (eating, sleeping, etc.) to make herself a better runner. She’s very responsible.”
In her junior year, Meyer was a member of the cross country team that qualified for states. She went as an alternate. This year the team qualified again and placed 10th.
Indoors, Meyer has been on the 4x800 team that placed eighth at states the past two years.
“She had a fantastic performance there,” said Senske. “She had one of her best times to date.”
Meyer has not made it to states in track, but Senske is confident she will. Her 4x800 team has already qualified for districts and Senske is confident she will also qualify in the open 800.
“I have almost no doubt she’ll be making it there this year on her own,” said Senske.
Although she’s dabbled in a few other events like the mile and long jump, Meyer is now focused just on the 400 and the 800.
Her main goal this year is to lower her PR in the 800 from 2:22 to 2:20. She has run a 2:21 split on the 4x800 relay.
Next year, Meyer will head to Millersville University, where she will major in English with the goal of teaching. Her other choice was Susquehanna.
“I did an overnight at each place, and I just clicked at Millersville,” she said. “I loved the campus. I loved the people there. Everything just seemed right. And it’s a great teaching school. That was one of the reasons I looked at it in the first place.”
At one point Meyer considered a dual major in English and German.
She also hopes to coach track someday.
“I can see myself doing that,” she said. “I would always give little talks to get people pumped up in middle school when I was the big ninth grader. I would talk to the seventh graders before races to try and get them motivated.”
She also plans to continue running at Millersville.
If she hits a time of 2:18 in the 800, she will also qualify for some scholarship money.
Aside from track, Meyer is an excellent student. She is a member of the National Honor Society and is ranked 31st in a class of 576. Her GPA is 4.1.
She also finds time to cultivate her literary skills by writing for the school newspaper and literary magazine as well as contributing articles to the Reality feature in the Intelligencer and Courier Times.
Her most recent article dealt with crunch time for college decisions.
When she’s not giving teen advice, she works on her own novel.
She’s been working on it ever since she started it in eighth grade.
The Witch Hunt is about a girl living in an 18th Century European town that, like Salem, Mass. was conducting witch trials and burnings.
The girl discovers she was been kidnapped when she was younger and is, in fact, a witch. She escapes the town seeking her real parents.
Meyer has submitted her manuscript to several agencies.
“They have been encouraging, but said it wasn’t the right fit,” she said.
One editor told her that if she cut 3,000 words and sent it back, she would look at it.
If anyone knows a potential publisher, contact Meyer.
