WHS Alumna Sonia Olson Kicks off the XC Season for the Jumbos at Tufts University

200. 400. 800. 1600. 5k. 6k. WHS 2023 graduate and runner Sonia Olson has done it all. After breaking numerous meet and school records in mid-distance races, Olson has been continuing her athletic career as a Jumbo at Tufts University. At the Division III school, Olson will be competing all year, running cross country in the fall and track and field in the winter and spring.

Olson had an amazing high school career. “[Olson] ranks up there as arguably one of the top three, top four runners of all time in the school’s history in distance [and] mid distance,” said girls cross country and track and field head coach Joseph Berardi. “[Olson] will probably be going into the Hall of Fame in some years,”

To prepare for being a collegiate athlete, Olson continued and intensified the training she had done in her time at the high school. When she began practicing at Tufts, the transition was slightly more difficult than she expected. “Everything’s a lot longer than high school,” Olson said. “In high school for cross country workouts, we usually did a one mile or one and a half mile warm up and then a mile cooldown. Here, the warm up is like two or three miles and same with the cooldown, which was definitely a big change for me. It’s a lot higher mileage per week than in high school.”

Although this transition was a challenge for her, she felt very well prepared for racing in meets. Her experiences racing at difficult New Jersey courses, such as Holmdel made for an easy start to her college career racing on other northeast courses. “Berardi would have us run there in the summer and now I’m really grateful for it,” said Olson. When asked about how the collegiate courses are so far, Olson said “They’ve been easy. Everything feels so flat, which is kind of nice.”

Just as the hills were more difficult to race on in high school, so was the student athlete experience. With a lot more free time not going to school for eight hours a day, Olson is able to prioritize cross country and her school work more evenly than at WHS. “You just have so much more free time in college,” said Olson. “That was part of the reason that I wanted to go DIII is because we only have one or sometimes two practices a day.” 

In addition to the differences between running for WHS and Tufts, Olson had also expressed having a different relationship with her coach in college than in high school. “My coach’s only job is to coach,” Olson said. “It’s so much easier to set up one-on-one meetings to talk about race plans and stuff like that.”

Olson left a big legacy at WHS. She has been an inspiration to all of the people who have competed alongside her and had the opportunity to watch her. Senior sprinter Gabby Demeter said, “Being Sonia’s teammate was honestly inspiring. She would put her best into every race and had a really healthy attitude towards running in general.”