Meet the Metro Girls Cross-Country Runner of the Year: Norah Hushagen of Forest Lake

Forest Lake distance runner Norah Hushagen remembers her fall at the Class 3A state championship meet as much as her finish.

She wiped out at the 2,000-meter mark before picking herself up off the 5,000-meter course at the University of Minnesota's Les Bolstad Golf Course to win in a time of 17 minutes, 27.6 seconds — more than 30 seconds clear of the second-place runner.

Hushagen carried the memory into her next race, the Nike Heartland Regional Championship in Sioux Falls.

"I didn't fall during the regional race," she said. "So that was really nice."

And it kept the focus where it belongs. Hushagen won the race by three-tenths of a second. A winner no matter the margins (or footing), Hushagen is the Star Tribune Metro Girls Cross-Country Runner of the Year.

"I gave it all I had, and it was really cool to win," said Hushagen, a junior.

For her victory she received a card from her peers in Spanish class and a spot in the Nike Cross Nationals in Portland, Ore. She woke up on race day to a prototypical rainy Pacific Northwest morning.

"I thought, 'Oh, that's fun,' " she said.

Making matters worse, the boys ran the Glendoveer Golf Course first and tore it up. Hushagen thought only of keeping her footing and wound up 22nd.

"Between the competition and the slippery course, it was the hardest race I've ever done," she said. "The end result was not what I had in mind. But I stayed positive because I know one race doesn't define me."