For Shania Harrison, the day of a track meet is always the same.

She wakes up and has eggs, a morning ritual she developed in high school. Once she’s at the meet, she makes sure to have a deliberate and long warm-up. Then, when the referee signals the runners to take their marks before the race, she waits back while her opponents kneel down on their blocks.

“When they say ‘On your marks,’ I always am the last one,” Harrison said. “I like to stand there and picture the entire race before I get into my blocks.”

Harrison, a freshman sprinter from Aurora, Ontario, is always looking ahead. It’s not only her ability to prepare that is leading her to great results in her first season at Syracuse, but her inability to visualize anything but success in her immediate future. Running in the New Balance Collegiate Invitational at the Armory in New York City this weekend, Harrison looks to ride her initial wave of success and continue to improve her personal times.

“I look up to her and I hope to be as successful as she is,” teammate and roommate Rebecca Robinson said. “She is only a freshman and she is absolutely killing it.”

As Harrison and Robinson adapt in their first season as Division-I athletes, their personality differences have made them inseparable.

Harrison helps Robinson with her with stress, makes sure she eats the right foods and gets her into bed so she can get the necessary rest for their rigorous training schedule. Robinson is more energetic, and keeps Harrison loose and having fun.

Their friendship helps ease the transition assistant coach Dave Hegland said often troubles freshman runners.

“We love each other and we do everything together,” Harrison said. “We eat together, well, sleep together, and hang out and train together. It’s great.”

As for results, Harrison’s biggest critic is herself. She constantly crunches her numbers in her head and rarely praises herself.

At the Gotham Classic, Harrison finished second in the women’s 60-meter dash. She crossed the finish line in 7.42 seconds, the fastest season-opening time she had ever run.

“It’s difficult for freshmen to come in the first year but she’s handled the adjustment well,” Hegland said. “She ran real well at our first meet and she is super-talented, but she has to be patient.

“When you’re someone like Shania who has had so much success, it can be tough. She wants success right, which is great, but she has to understand that it is a long process.”

The process Hegland spoke of was apparent last weekend at the Penn State National Open. Harrison ran a Big East and Eastern College Athletic Conference-qualifying time of 7.51 seconds, but was unhappy with her seventh-place finish and thought she could have produced better individual results.

When Harrison is told to take her mark at the New Balance Invitational at the Armory this weekend, she won’t budge. While her opponents kneel down on their blocks, she will remain standing and gaze at the track ahead, visualizing the entire race.

She’ll call on her shortcomings at Penn State as motivation, with hopes of rising above the field once again when she crosses the finish line.

“This weekend my goal is to not stress out,” Harrison said. “I really just want to go there and do my best and improve.”

Published on January 31, 2013 at 1:15 am

Contact Jesse: jcdoug01@syr.edu | @dougherty_jesse