From coordinating a preseason camping trip, to baking cakes for teammates’ birthdays, graduate student cross country captain Gretchen Pfeiffer aspires to lead through the small details in her final season of collegiate running.
Program alumnus and associate head coach Jack Hackett, said he has seen how committed Pfeiffer is to leading the team in several ways.
“Gretchen’s been a huge help, she helped organize a whole team camping trip before the season started to help the team get started in a good place.” Hackett said. “As far as organizing some of the rides for the long runs on the weekends, when they go in groups or on their own; Gretchen is one of the people leading that, so she has really stepped up and helped lead the team in different small ways as well.”
But Pfeiffer initially thought about playing tennis at the collegiate level instead of running cross country, with tennis being her first love as a sport, and placing third in Texas’s state tournament as a first-year high school student. Despite not taking to cross country at first, she has grown to love the sport.
Pfeiffer earned her bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from Marquette in May, but through her graduate program, she has realized her ambitions lie in the field of sports and exercise analytics, while working with other Marquette athletics’ teams.
“I’ve realized that I’ve always had more of a passion for being around athletes, helping them with performance, injury prevention, so with this program, we’ve been working with the Catapult systems for men’s and women’s soccer, force plate jumping for them and the lacrosse teams, so learning all the new technologies that are used in sports science,” Pfeiffer said.
Additionally, Pfeiffer said she hopes to apply what she is learning through the sports of cross country and tennis to help athletes from multiple sports.
“With a different system, I hope to analyze different loads in cross country runners, compared to the load of a sprinter, average person or different sport to help with injury prevention, strength and recovery programs, I’ve been embracing myself into the new atmosphere,” Pfeiffer said.
From senior teammate Gianna Konen’s first season with the team, Pfeiffer was there to assist her with the transition to college, the team, and then building a close friendship in subsequent years, despite being from different parts of the country.
“I tried out to be on the team, so I came into the team a little bit later, I was super nervous, and I think Gretchen helped by inviting me to come to dinner with them.” Konen said, “It was really cool to see how easily we got along, since we had very similar senses of humor.”
With the team’s tradition of baking cakes to celebrate runners’ birthdays, it serves to foster team camaraderie, and that mistakes can lead to discovering a new path forward.
“Gretchen makes the cake a lot of times. This most recent one was really good on accident, the cake was too hot when she put the frosting on, so it ended up melting into the cake, and it ended up being amazing.” Konen said.
As the team finished their second race of the season and gears up for further competition in October, Pfeiffer said she likes how her teammates have demonstrated resilience, especially in the team’s most recent race, partaking in the National Catholic Invite, where the team would also have to battle against rainy weather conditions. Seven Marquette runners finished in the top 75, including Pfeiffer, out of the 141 runners who competed at the National Catholic Invite.
“There’s still a ton of room for improvement, but I’m really proud of our team; I think we all gave a ton of effort and showed a lot of grit in this race, given the circumstances,” Pfeiffer said.
This article was written by Mikey Severson. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter/X @MikeySeversonMU.
