An extrovert at heart, Iowa City Liberty's Cori Mac embraces camaraderie at Drake Relays
Iowa City Liberty senior Cori Mac spent the entirety of her 3000-meter race Thursday at the Drake Relays with a pack of runners.
Throughout all seven and a half laps around the Blue Oval, she jockeyed for position with the main group of runners, as Valley's Addison Dorenkamp outpaced the entire field for a Drake Relay record time.
For Mac, she was right where she wanted to be with her friends and fellow runners. An extrovert at heart, she wanted to be in the mix with the people she knew well from previous interactions, like her friend and fellow competitor Leah Klapatauskas of Dubuque Senior. She even wanted to be with people she knew only by glancing at their stats online and wanted them to know how good she thought they were.
More: Check out all the records broken Thursday at the Drake Relays
As she passed her Klapatauskas late in the race, she dropped some words of encouragement.
"Leah, we got to go!" Mac said. "Come on!"
This was an opportunity that Mac had been relishing for some time after qualifying for the Relays. She said about 95% of the time she runs alone due to smaller meet sizes where she gaps the crowd or because she outpaces her teammates by significant distances in training. So here in Des Moines, she knew she would get to see people and interact while she competed.
Those runs of solitude were especially made true by an offseason injury to her foot plus a flare-up of hip tendinitis that held her out of training from December until February. This came after missing out on her junior year of cross country due to injury too.
Those were frustrating times for Mac because she couldn't compete in the sport she loved and she missed the camaraderie of distance running that she thrives in.
"I was like, 'Are you for real? Not again,'" Mac said of her injuries.
On Thursday, she didn't finish with the time or place that she desired, taking 13th with a time of 10:22. However, that was a season-best time. Considering she was returning from injury and got to hug her competitors, friend or not, she was happy with the result.
Now, she turns her attention to the 2024 state meet in just under a month, where she hopes to place as high as she can and get as healthy as she can before she heads to the University of South Florida to continue her running career.
Growing up on a lake and always loving the water, Mac always wanted to head to a warm climate for college and accomplished that by landing in Tampa. However, it comes with the caveat of having to leave behind family and the friends she's built in the running community.
"Now that it is getting closer, it's kind of like, 'Wow, I'm going to be so far away from my family and everything that's familiar,'" Mac said. That's scary."
More: Drake Relays 2024 recap: high school results from Thursday's events
But with an extroverted personality like she has, she's not too worried about making connections and is ecstatic about what comes after her senior year at Iowa City Liberty.
"I don't think I'll have any problem making friends and finding my new home," Mac said.
Eli McKown covers high school sports and wrestling for the Des Moines Register. Contact him at Emckown@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @EMcKown23.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa City Liberty's Cori Mac thrives in crowd at 2024 Drake Relays
