Jaime Thomas '13 Recruiting Profile

My name is Jaime Thomas, and I'm a runner.  I have been running since I was 6 years old, and have gone from being the only girl on my middle school team, to running with 40 others on a high school team, some of the time braving it out to run with the boys for hard workouts.  Being only about 5 feet 5 inches tall, and weighing a little over 100 pounds, people put me in the class of having the perfect body needed to being a perfect runner.
My team has thrived in the time that I have been on it.  I have been on the girls varsity team all three years that I have been on the team, and have been the number one girl for most of the time.  Our girls team has won the Vermont Girls Division Two state title all three years, and has qualified as a team all three years for New Englnds, which accepts top 6 teams out of all three divisions in the state.  As an individual, I have qualified for New Englands all three years, which in order to do so, you must be in the top 25 in the state out of all three divisions.  My freshman year, I was 25th overall, my sophomore year I was 8th overall, and as a junior I was 4th overall.  I have also qualified all three years for New Englands in track and field.  Both sophomore and junior year i won the Vermont Girls Division Two title as an individual, running my sophomore year with a time of 21:00, and junior year with a time of 20:42.  The course I ran this on is at Thetford Academy, which is known for being one of the hilliest and most challenging courses in Vermont.  My junior year I traveled to New York to run as an individual in Nike Cross Regionals.  There I ran a solid 19:52, and got 30th overall.  My current personal record is at New Englands my junior year, which was in Rhode Island, where I got a 19:25, and 37th overall.
Being on a team is like having another family.  They get to see you at your best and worst moments, and you get to help others, and get help from them.  A team sees you grow and learn from your mistakes, and can sometimes help you to be not only a better runner, but a better person too.  I have been on a high school team that has older kids on it, so I have yet to be a captain, even as a junior, who has run the majority of her life.  But people continue to come to me for advice on technique on how to run courses and how to become the runner they want to be, giving me a rare opportunity to be a captain with no title.  I want to bring what I know about running to others, being a captain to everyone on a team, even if I won't get the chance to have a captain's title.  I also want to bring my abilities to a team to help push others, and to make a team better as a group.  A lot of people focus on themselves and how they want to do as a runner, and that is important, but it's also important to realize that without a team, running well would be extremely difficult, and wouldn't show what running is all about.  My main goal is to be the best runner I can be, and to show others the potential I have.  Running in college would give me the great opportunity to prove to myself that I am capable of anything I want to do.
I go to a high school that consists of maybe 700 people, which is very small for a high school.  I would love to go to a school that isn't too big, but big enough that I can meet new people and have great opportunities.  Vermont is known for its hills and its difficult running courses.  Many people believe that hills are the worst and most challenging part of a course, but to me they are the best.  Hills are what make a course so much fun, and the challenge of a hill can show the strength in a runner and the weaknesses in others. I would love the chance to run at a school that could get me on tough courses, like the ones I am use to running on.
I am still trying to find out what field I would like to go into when I attend college.  Since I am a junior, I know that I have time to decide still.  As a high school student, I love art, and have been in most of the art classes my school has to offer.  I also love history, because I love the chance to explore moments from the past.
My athletic goals are very simple.  I want to be able to show my full potential for running, and have a chance to work as hard as I possibly can.  I want to be able to run at high competitiong levels, so see how I would rank out of runners I wouldn't normally run with, and that way I can see how I need to improve as a runner.