Penn women's cross country coach Matt Gosselin has two guiding principles: No one has to be a hero on race day, and you have to know your “why.”
Although dreams of making varsity or running a personal best can motivate you before a meet, your relationship with running — your “why” — ultimately propels you to the finish line.
For senior distance runner Lara Cota, that “why” has always been family.
“I think my mom ran a marathon while she was pregnant with me,” Cota said.
Though the very first race she did was just a family race, Cota now runs with her found family: the Penn women’s cross country team.
Growing up in Croatia and Switzerland, Cota was initially exposed to running in a track club environment — a competitive amateur league similar to AAU basketball or the Nike RBI program. She trained alongside her family, finding an early motivation in her local running community. When Cota moved to New Jersey at 12 years old, she joined her middle school track team but was struck by the lack of an organized running community.
Cota eventually took to training with the boys’ team throughout middle school and high school to support her ambitions to continually improve and get recruited. Her “why” shifted as running became more about meeting specific times to get recruited by specific schools. Now, her “why” is “four years in the making” — a product of labor and true love for the art of running.
It’s hard to imagine what goes into a single day in the life of a three-season double-major student-athlete, but Cota manages to make it work and take it all in stride.
“Something really cool about being a student athlete is [that] it does force you to take care of yourself,” Cota said. “When you’re a Penn student, it’s very easy to neglect sleep and do everything possible in the world.”
Cota — a former Daily Pennsylvanian staffer — has definitely had her share of trying everything possible. She wrote over 20 news articles for the DP and interned at the Quattrone Center of the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School last summer. Currently, she is applying to graduate school while balancing a varsity athletic career and rigorous coursework. With all these commitments, Cota emphasized the importance of self-care in managing everything.
“You’re not going to be a good athlete if you are not sleeping and not taking care of yourself,” Cota said. “When you’re part of a team, you really want to do well, and you want your team to do well.”
Cross country is not often thought of as a team sport, but team scoring ultimately determines who wins or loses a meet. This dynamic is unique to cross country, creating a bond that stems from long hours spent together practicing in the middle of the woods. Hundreds of miles are accrued over the course of a single season; you start to learn how to associate solitude with companionship.
“When you have a group of people you’ve been training with … if you see someone that you’ve been training with and that you believe in right there with you, then you don’t have to be a hero,” Cota explained. “You just have to trust them and trust yourself.”
At the Paul Short Run, Cota finished just ahead of junior Gabrielle Jones, who finished 56th, and senior Anna Weirich, who finished 62nd. This pack finish, while possibly unintentional, exemplifies how Penn women’s cross country works together as a unit, pushing each other to consistently perform better both on and off the racecourse. This consistent drive to do better has led to the team’s success this season, turning a conference championship from just out of reach to well within the women’s grasp.
“It’s not even a community, it’s really family,” Cota said. It’s a family forged through hours in the woods, bound by the shared pain and love for a sport whose greatest opponent is one’s own mind.
Though bittersweet as she reflects on her final cross country season as a Quaker, Cota is looking ahead to the indoor track season and what’s to come. Because no matter what, she knows she found her “why” with the Quakers this season.
