Girls’ Cross Country Runner of the Year

Cougars’ Spinazzi ran with state’s best

By: Justin Feil
   Run.
   The word holds special meaning to Eleonora Spinazzi, who recalls when she first heard it while at John Witherspoon Middle School.
   "I was from Italy and it was the only word I could understand," said the Milan, Italy, native. "My sister had to translate everything."
   Spinazzi has come quite a ways since then. She is a fluent A-student at Montgomery High now with no difficulty understanding any words. Beyond that, she’s also become one of the state’s top runners.
   "As of right now, she’s the best runner I’ve ever had, boy or girl," said longtime MHS coach Jim Goodfriend. "She’s the fifth-best senior in the state. She’s an incredible girl. She’s just an incredible worker. And she stayed healthy all year.
   "She ran 700 miles over the summer. She put a ton of miles in. But she stayed healthy. She gets everything she deserves. There’s nothing more you could want from the kid."
   Spinazzi, who moved to Montgomery after her sophomore year at Princeton High, was looking for something special coming into her senior year. She hadn’t been happy with the way her junior cross country season ended, a step short of the Meet of Champions due to late-season injury. It was hard for the emotional runner to take.
   "I remember last year many races, I cried," she said. "I really care about the sport. There’s nothing like this. I didn’t want to have any regrets (this year). I wanted to be happy."
   Spinazzi did plenty to assure she was smiling after her races this fall. She started quickly with a second-place finish in the C race at the Shore Coaches Invitational with the 10th best time of the day overall. She set the course record at Montgomery Park in her final home meet, a 17 minutes, 46 seconds for the three-mile course. Spinazzi won the Somerset County Championship at Pleasant Valley Park’s 5-kilometer course in 18:54, the second-fastest time ever recorded on the course. At Deer Path Park, she ran 18:33 to finish second at the Skyland Conference meet in the third-fastest time ever recorded on the course. She helped MHS go 7-1 in the dual-meet season.
   Things got even better through the state meets. At the North Jersey, Section 2 Group III meet at Warinanco Park, she finished third in 19:10 to lead the Cougars to a fifth-place finish and berth in the state Group III meet. There at Holmdel Park the next weekend she was seventh in 19:16 to reach the Meet of Champions as an individual. She capped her season by breaking 19 minutes at Holmdel to finish 14th overall and garner All-State honors.
   Eleonora Spinazzi is the Princeton Packet Girls’ Cross Country Runner of the Year.
   "It’s very exciting," Spinazzi said. "I’ve never had such a great season. Maybe it was because of my training. That was much better. My mindset was, it was my last season, I didn’t want to have any regrets at the line. I wanted to be happy."
   The start to Spinazzi’s season did a lot to help her accomplish all she did the rest of the year. It opened her eyes to her potential for her final scholastic season.
   "When I got first at counties, I didn’t know I went that fast until they told me it was the second-fastest time ever," she said. "It made me so much more confident."
   Spinazzi’s confidence remained high in part because she remained healthy throughout the season. She showed the lessons learned from having dealt with past injuries.
   "I think I trained a lot smarter," she said. "The fact I knew I could go somewhere, I put a lot of effort in during the summer. I wanted to accomplish something. I knew I could run with the best girls."
   Nobody close to Spinazzi had any doubts that she could do just that. She had the combination of drive and talent necessary to run with the fastest girls in the state.
   "She’s like (former school record holder and MHS graduate Christine) Nystrom," Goodfriend said. "She’d say, anything you do is worth giving 110 percent or don’t do it. The other attitude she has is, there’s somebody out there doing it so I’m going to do it. She’s going to do everything she possibly can to get better."
   But this year, the key was not doing too much. In the past Spinazzi had gone so full speed ahead with training that she had missed out on some goals at the end of the year.
   "I’ve been injured many, many times, mostly because I overwork and I do too much and I never think it’s enough," she said. "I had a swim coach who said, if you do 10 laps, there’s always someone doing 11. I’d always do more and more. I always thought the more I did, the better. The first thing (Goodfriend) said was, if you want to be competitive, stay healthy."
   Spinazzi also stayed hungry throughout the fall. She was happy after plenty of meets, but she tried not to be satisfied with what she had accomplished.
   "When I got that time at counties, it fulfilled a dream I had," said Spinazzi, who hopes to run at Columbia University next fall. "I started having new dreams. Like last year, I won Shore Coaches. I thought, this is the best thing that could happen. I was never ambitious to get more. This year, I was ambitious to get more. I had big dreams and I think I fulfilled them all."
   It made for quite a different feeling at the end of this fall than last season. Spinazzi not only reached the MOC, but finished as an All-State runner in the most competitive year of New Jersey girls’ cross country ever. It made up for a tough finish to her junior season when she couldn’t go to the MOC.
   "It was a bummer," Spinazzi said. "I cried a lot. I cried until the winter season started. When you train a lot and get injured, everything gets shattered. You think you’re never going to come back. But this year, I was healthy. I figured, I’m running well, I have to take this. I have to do this. The weather was beautiful. I knew nothing better could happen. This year was the best year. All these factors made it the best year."
   By her senior season, Eleonora Spinazzi accomplished all she wanted, and more than she ever dreamed of all those years ago when she first heard that word that would become her unique drive.
   Run.