2008 Female Athlete Of The Year:

CC: It’s just you. It doesn’t matter [what’s going on around you]. You just have to move away from all the distractions and not worry about the weather or the competition and just race.

I remember [before] the race at Masters, I was actually sick for a week and I didn’t even run the day before and I sort of had a more carefree attitude. ...That was actually my best race because I had a better kick at the end, so I think just finishing strong makes it a good race also. You just feel better at the end knowing that you finished strong and gave it your all.

GR: Because the cross-country team had such a successful season in 2006, it was ranked very high in the section, the state and even the nation coming into 2007. With the higher expectations that come with that, was there pressure and how did it affect the team during the past season?

CC: I think we mostly felt the pressure from ourselves — we really put it on ourselves to do well. We tried not to pay attention to the rankings because they can be misleading.

We were so close and so strong that we could handle the pressure and we just proved to ourselves how strong we were at state, finishing fifth when no one else expected us to finish that high.

GR: As in track, there’s a lot of hurdles you have to clear during the cross-country regular season on your way to CIF and state. Describe the momentum you had and that the team had going into the Pacific League final and that postseason phase.

CC: Once we get going we don’t really stop and we were sort of flying under the radar. We wanted to surprise people and there’s just so much energy on the team when you have a goal and nothing can really stop you except yourself.

GR: By your own criteria, do you feel like your final races of the cross-country season — league finals, CIF and then state — were the best of your career so far?

CC: [State] was a strong race. I’m really hard on myself, so I don’t know if I did my best. I just had fun with it, I ran for the team and I just moved on from it. I think the races where I did my best and surprised the most people were probably at Clovis or Woodbridge. ...[State] was definitely one of the major highlights, even if I didn’t do as well as I wanted to. It’s state.

GR: You’ve chosen to go to Stanford. Tell me about the process of picking a college and what went into your decision.