Reflections Magazine Issue #83 - Fall 2015 | Page 11

Feature Article

Siena Heights team from left to right: Ruth Ann Letherer, Elaine Johnson, Maria Fisher, Kristin
Stobinski, Lucia Alfaro, Ashley Russo, Hannah Shellenbarger, Erica Oram, and Lauren McMahon.

She doesn’t mind Porter’s blunt assessment six years ago.
“That was the little kick I needed to
get into it and start working hard,” she
said. “It kind of jump-started something
inside of me. I’ve never been so determined to prove someone wrong. I started
training harder, I started training faster
and taking summer training very seriously.

I got obsessed with it and didn’t stop.”
Alfaro had run in sixth grade but
didn’t do any training before coming
out for cross country at the start of high
school. She said Porter’s account of her
first practice was a slight exaggeration.
“I could run a half mile,” she said.
“I think I had to do a two-mile run,
and I could only run a mile. I walked

the rest of the way. His words were the
little kick I needed to get into it and start
working hard.”
Alfaro kept working hard and her times
kept dropping. She went from the slowest
runner on the team to one of the top five
and then became the team leader and a
state qualifier as a senior. She eventually
earned an athletic and academic scholarship to Siena Heights where she is a
junior majoring in chemistry. She wants
to attend graduate school and become a
pharmacist.
“Just being given the opportunity to
even run in college is awesome,” she said.
Alfaro already was running year-round
with her training work in high school.
Now her season runs year-round with
cross country followed by indoor track and
then outdoor track. Success came quickly
in college. Alfaro ran the half marathon as
a freshman. She ran fast enough to qualify
for nationals but was directed the wrong
way and ended up running a 25k (15.5
miles) instead of 13.1 miles, so she didn’t
get the qualification. As a sophomore she
took second place in the half marathon,
running 1: 28.48, and easily beating the
automatic qualifying mark for nationals
by one minute, 12 seconds.
As a captain, she says she “has a lot
more responsibility. Now it’s even more
important how hard I work. I want to be a
role model and to keep everyone working
together as a team. That was my goal.”
Why does Alfaro run? “I run because
no one can tell me what I can and cannot
do,” she said. “I’m the only one who can
say if I can’t do something, whether that
be how far or how hard I run that day.
“My body and mind can tell me to
stop a million times, but it’s my heart that
never gives up, and that’s what makes
this sport so special. Because once you
fall in love with it, you can’t stop.” u

Reflections Fall ’15 | 11