Nov. 4
November 4, 2008
Roger "Jay" Rebstock
November 6, 2008
Ellender sophomore Hali Yarmush had two goals coming into the 2008 cross country season: Win her first cross country meet and finally beat Terrebonne’s senior star runner Skyler Jackson.
An ankle injury has kept Jackson out of action for the last month, so Yarmush will have to wait until track and field season to try to outrun Jackson.
Yarmush’s first goal has been accomplished with ease over the past month. She has won her last three races, the South Terrebonne and Assumption invitational meets and the Terrebonne Parish Cross Country Championship.
As a freshman, Yarmush won the Region 3-4A outdoor track and field title in the 1,600-meter run. She competed in the state championship in the 1,600-and 3,200-meter runs, finishing eighth in both.
SportsNet caught up with the 16-year-old Dularge native as she prepares for today’s District 8-4A Cross Country Championship Meet at Vandebilt.
SportsNet: I heard you have asthma. How are you able to compete in these long distance races?
Hali Yarmush: My doctor said I’ve almost outgrown my asthma to where eventually I’m not going to need my inhaler anymore. I’ll be like anybody else.
SN: When were you diagnosed with asthma?
HY: Since I was little. It makes me allergic to everything and easily overheated.
SN: Do you mean like foods or flowers?
HY: No, like molds, and some types of medicines, like penicillin.
SN: In distance running, is it more important to have speed and then build up the endurance, or to have endurance, then work on increasing speed?
HY: You need both to do well, so I don’t think the order matters. I, personally, always had endurance and my coach (Cynthia Newman) has been working me hard to knock my time down.
SN: Does anything else motivate you during a race?
HY: I was pushing myself really hard, thinking about how this was my last meet to beat Skyler, and then she doesn’t run, so it feels like I haven’t really accomplished what I set out to do this year.
SN: The cross-country course at Vandebilt is the longest of the season (3.1 miles). Did you prepare for this race any differently because of the extra distance?
HY: No. I run 30 miles a week – five miles a day, six days a week.
SN: You are also on Ellender’s powerlifting team. How did you get involved in that?
HY: My world history teacher is one of the coaches. All the coaches that stay after school every day see me coming in. He asked me if I wanted to join, and I told him I’d think about it. So I went home and told my mom about it. I said, ‘Mom, I’d be really good. It will keep me strong.’ So she said I could.
SN: When do you train for powerlifting?
HY: I’m training right now. Powerlifting falls between cross country and track (seasons). We’re preparing for regionals in January and state (meet) in February.
SN: What is the most weight you ever lifted?
HY: We do bench press, squat and dead lifts. I’ve bench pressed 65 pounds. At the state meet, I only squatted 135 because they (the judges) said I wasn’t low enough. For my dead lift, I did 205. So in total I did 405 pounds.
SN: You compete in the 105-pound class. Is that the lightest weight class?
HY: No, the lightest is 97 pounds.
SN: What’s it like having your parents (Rhonda and Jerry Detwiler) and sister (Hannah) cheering you on at every meet?
HY: It’s good because some kids who play sports never see their family outside the house. You can’t miss my mom. She has blue hair.
SN: Do they cheer like normal parents or are they fanatics?
HY: Fanatics. They haven’t done what they said they were going to do. Thank goodness.
SN: What did they say they were going to do?
HY: Because my family is from down the bayou, they were going to cheer like they’re from down the bayou. ‘Oh yeah! Go chat, go! Run baby!’ That would be embarrassing.
Ellender’s Hali Yarmush won the girls’ Terrebonne Parish Cross Country Championship Meet by over two minutes. * Photo by KEYON K. JEFF
