Tribune names Carr runner of the year
The following article, which appeared recently in the
Pasco edition of the Tampa Tribune, names Barbara Carr of Gulf as the
Pasco County cross country runner of the year.
By ROBERT GARRETT
How well does Gulf's Barbara Carr run? Depends on which voice is
talking the loudest in her head.
It may sound crazy, but the Tribune's Pasco County cross country
runner of the year has a perfectly sane explanation.
"I guess in my mind when I run, I always have two people talking to
each other. They're fighting against each other the whole way," she
said. "One's saying, get up there and beat this girl, you need to go
faster. And the other side of me is saying, it hurts too much, slow
down, stop, what are you doing?"
Most of the time the voice telling Carr to run faster wins the
argument. This year she won her third consecutive Sunshine Athletic
Conference title, placed second in the district, 12th at regionals
and 27th in the state, the highest finish among area runners.
Although she finished seven places lower at state compared to last
year, Gulf coach Dean Lofton was satisfied with her run because the
field was deeper.
"It may sound worse but she ran a phenomenal race there," Lofton
said. "If anybody looked at the stats, there were 100 girls in that
race that broke 21 minutes."
Carr, who ran a 19:16 at state, has come a long way from her first
race as a timid freshman when she placed 22nd at the Hudson
invitational.
Lofton noticed her natural talent and began pushing her. She
finished first on the team in the next race and since then has been
in the front of the pack. Carr has qualified for state the past
three years.
"She's made a really nice, steady progression since her freshman
year," Lofton said. "She's got a lot of natural talent but she's
also a hard worker. She'll do whatever she's asked to do, she's not
a whiner, not a complainer."
Not even when Lofton assigns her 750 miles to run during the summer.
She has grown used to the off-season workouts since learning about
them as an eight-grader at Gulf Middle School.
When I was in middle school it sounded like the most horrible thing
in the world," she said. "I didn't believe it when I saw on the back
of the cross country people's shirts, I said, '500 miles, what, did
you drive that many miles?'"
After running nearly 425 miles the past two summers, she's ready to
kick her workout into high gear because she knows the benefits and
she doesn't mind the punishment. No matter what the voices in her
head say.
"We want to get in more mileage because mileage means power," she
said. "I run because I like pain. A lot of times [runners] don't
like to admit it.
