Natalie off to a White hot start to her sophomore season for Chesterton in the mile and 2-mile races

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

The combination of sports that high school athletes try as freshmen can look different from what they settle on later. Just ask Chesterton sophomore distance runner Natalie White.
A volleyball player as a freshman, White went out for track in the spring and fell in love with the sport of choice of her older sisters, Chesterton graduates Rebecca and Catherine White.
So she traded in her volleyball jersey for a cross country singlet and hasn’t looked back a second since. The path to becoming a better distance runner on the track cuts through the winding hills and tree roots that cross country runners negotiate in the fall.
“Track made me switch to cross country and I’m really glad I did,” White said. “It’s a lot of fun.”
Not only that, building up the miles in the fall has amounted to a big-time springboard for her success on the track.
“I’ve improved a lot since last year,” White said.
She certainly has.
Without the foundation of cross country, White’s best times her freshman season were 12:33.31 in the 3200 meters and 5:58.12 in the 1600.
The first proof that she is a different runner as a sophomore in the second meet of the season, came at home vs. Valparaiso.
In the first meet, at home vs. Highland and Gary West Side, White’s 5:45 was the fourth-best among Chesterton runners, behind Evie Fortney (5:38), Paige Clancy (5:42), Hannah Haring (5:44) and Natascha Lepinasse (5:45).
Then she reeled off the best 1600 meters of any Chesterton runner so far this spring with a 5:29.14, second to only Valpo’s established Whitney Anderson (5:22.28).
“That was kind of like my breakthrough, I think,” she said of her mile that day. “It really boosted my confidence a lot.”
She ran a 12:13.66 in the 3200 that day.
If the metric mile vs. Valpo was her breakthrough race, her performance at this past Saturday’s Garry Nallenweg Chesterton Relays was her metric 2-mile breakthrough race. She won it and was clocked in 11:58.99, finishing more than a half-minute before the next-closest competitor, Munster’s Sophia Puliaeva.
“I really like the mile a lot, but I really like the 2 mile a lot, too,” White said.
That’s ideal for what this team loaded with talented 800 runners needs.
By the time she runs her first track meet as a junior, White will have two full seasons of cross country and two full seasons of track and field behind her.
Coach Lindsay Moskalick is excited about White’s prospects and White is determined to stay on a steady improvement path.
“A lot of people on the team are really supportive and they really motivate each other a lot, so that brings your confidence up,” White said. “And the workouts that Coach M has are specialized for you, so they really help training a lot.”
White is taking steps that show how serious she is about getting better.
“I log all my runs on Strava and look through them all the time so I can see my progress, and that really helps,” she said.
As for what she has learned from the studying what she logs, she said, “It shows me that Coach M has put a lot of time into selecting the workouts so that we can improve.”
She also has learned how important running cross country is to improving in the spring. Not only that, she loves the fall sport.
“I’m really excited for cross country,” she said. “We were one point away from state for cross country last year, so I really hope we can make it.”