By: Isabelle Yang, Staff Writer
As the spring season comes to a close, Jackie Pan (12) reflects on her years of competing with the Mills Track and Field Varsity team. Despite not getting the opportunity to run her freshman year due to the pandemic, she has competed for three years at Mills. This past season, the team hasn’t done the best due to various difficulties, but Pan still voices her pride for the team and believes her last season was positive.
Although she claims her favorite season was her junior year with the class of 2023 seniors, she’s achieved an impressive amount throughout this year. Pan ended her high school career positively, breaking her personal record by a significant amount in two of her main events, the 1600 and 3200-meter races.
As a result, Pan was nominated for the San Mateo Daily Journal Honor Roll after her phenomenal performance in the 3200-meter race. She finished the race in under 11 minutes, breaking her personal record and earning her sixth place on the Central Coast Section (CCS) leaderboard for this season.
Pan describes how she prepared herself, mentally and physically, before the race. Pan says, “I warmed up for like an hour. I also had a specific goal in my mind – breaking eleven minutes – that [was] really drilled into my head during that time.” She emphasizes that these two preparations allowed her to accomplish this challenge she had set for herself. Pan is very grateful that she was nominated. She also highlights that she is pleased distance running got an opportunity to be recognized, as it is often overshadowed by other sports.
In addition to working hard and accomplishing challenging goals, she enjoys cheering on her teammates and watching them succeed as well. Pan conveys, “When you’re emotionally invested in a race it becomes a lot more exciting to watch, and I love being able to celebrate when my teammates have success.” Pan remembers a couple of her favorite memories, specifically, “…When my friend Thomas went under five minutes in the mile and when my friend Miya was able to close our 4x800m relay with a close win.”
She mentions that she sees her younger teammates doing well in the future as well. Pan believes, “I really think that because of our strong underclassmen classes, Mills’ track and field team is going to see a lot of success in the coming years.”
In the future, Pan will continue to run cross country and track and field throughout college. She was recruited by UC Irvine a few months ago to compete with their team while also majoring in biology. Pan concludes, “I’m really grateful that I get the chance to continue running competitively.”
