Local Cross Country Standout Commits to Winona State University

(KNSI) – A Cathedral cross country standout committed to Winona State University on Wednesday.

For Ella Voit, it has been a whirlwind couple of weeks. She helped guide the Crusaders to conference, section and Class A team championships this season. Voit finished third overall individually at states. Pretty good for someone who took up running on a lark during the pandemic.

Voit says, “I never really ran up until quarantine. I was bored! Did a couple miles a couple days a week. Even like my freshman year, starting off, I still was not really sure…I mean, I fell in love with it, but I didn’t realize that I was gonna want to keep doing it in college.”

Voit now helps develop a nutrition and diet plan for herself and her teammates in-season and appreciates the science of the sport. “We talk about where we want to be at each mile. So, there’s some meets that I’ll go into it being, ‘I want to get ahead, I want to have a strong first mile and then hold that pace.’ Or, if there’s a lot of good individuals there, I want to sit back and then try to work my way up in the pack.”

Voit says there are other considerations during a competition as well. She talks about attacking a flat section of the course so you can hit the hills with momentum and learning to throttle back as you go downhill.

Voit also plays basketball and softball for Cathedral and will continue with those activities her senior year before heading to Winona to run full-time. She plans to major in exercise science.

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