Christy Cohick, North Penn Junior
Cross Country
Favorite athlete: Dara Torres
Favorite team: Philadelphia Phillies
Favorite memory competing in sports: Running the Broad Street 10 miler and winning for my age group.
Funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Coming home from the Manhattan Invitational, a girl actually pooped her pants, unannounced and unknown to the team! All the cross country girls were complaining about the city, sewer-like smell and broke her down to tears. Eventually, we found out what had happened and felt awful, but looking back on it, it’s pretty amusing.
Future plans: After college, I’d like to be an editor of a magazine or famous (hopefully) writer.
Words to live by: “Just do, and then, shut up about it.”
Goal before turning 30: Run a marathon
One thing people don’t know about me: “My favorite word is pandemonium because it reminds me of pandas dancing!”
Christy Cohick’s cross country season is off to quite a start this fall, a start she admits has surprised even herself.
The North Penn junior is the number one runner for the Maidens’ cross country team and already boasts a first place finish in the Central Bucks East Invitational. She also finished first in dual meet at Wissahickon last week.
Not a bad start for an athlete who ran anywhere from fifth to seventh last season.
“I didn’t think I would be number one at all,” Cohick said. “I didn’t realize how much faster I had gotten, but I’m happily surprised.”
Making Cohick’s accomplishments even more impressive is the fact that this is just her second year on the cross country team.
“She’s really improved since last year,” Maiden coach Jim Crawford Jr. said. “She did a lot of work this summer on her own, and as a result, she’s done very well so far.”
At last year’s district meet, Cohick turned in a personal best time of 19:59, a time she says was not typical of her performances last season.
“I was running 21s and 22 most of the year,” she said.
This year, Cohick has already turned in a personal best of 19:17, and she attributes her dramatic drop in speed to the distance runs she has done on her own. She also took some core classes at the gym with her mother.
“It’s been a pleasant surprise,” Crawford said. “I could see in the workouts at the end of the summer when we first started that she was definitely ahead of where she was last year. She’s kept it up so far, and I hope she continues it.”
Cohick decided to give running a try after watching her older sister, Cassie, compete for North Penn’s cross country team.
“I was playing field hockey in ninth grade, but I just didn’t love it, so I started run by myself,” she said. “And I decided I liked that more.”
When she first began running, Cohick ran two miles a day and also went to the gym once a week where she ran on the treadmill. Last fall, she opted to give up field hockey in favor of cross country.
“I loved the team right away, and I also developed a love for the sport as it kept going on,” Cohick said.
These days, Cohick regularly runs six to nine miles as part of her personal training, and although she seems a natural to run distances on the track team this spring, the gifted junior says she is not interested.
“I couldn’t just run around the track a hundred times,” she said. “I need scenery to keep me going.
“I like to go places. I don’t like to just be somewhere.”
Cohick, according to Crawford, is a pleasure to coach.
“She’s a real nice kid,” the veteran coach said. “She never complains, never says anything. She just goes out and does what you tell her to do.
“As a matter of fact, she always does extra. I’ll tell them to do so and so, and she’ll do an extra mile.”
The results speak for themselves.
