Natalie will be a Warrior

​By Dave Merchant [email protected]
 
Chelsea senior Natalie Davies is taking her running skills to Wayne State University in the Fall. She recently signed to be a Warrior.
 
Natalie will compete in cross country and track. “They have one of the top 5 journalism programs in the state, I want to live in a big city, I talked to many coaches and the Wayne State coach was the one I clicked the most with,” Natalie said. “The running program sounded similar to what we did in cross country focusing on tempo runs, and that program was a good fit for me in cross country.”
 
She has had some interesting running experiences.
“I had a unique experience with cross country… my freshman year, I ran 23 minutes 1 second in the 5k 3 times (the cut off for a varsity letter is 23 minutes). Coach Clarke made an exception because I got that time multiple times,” she added. “My sophomore year was my first year running on varsity. At the regional (how to get to states), my shoe fell off in the first 100 meters of the race, I ran my worst race of the season. My junior year, I ran at the regional with a stress fracture that took me 8 months to heal from (no running without pain for 8 months… did cross training and a little running, but it took way longer for it to heal than normal) ran my worst race of the season in pain (neither year we made it to states). Senior year we won the pre-region, regional, and got 7th in the state. That was definitely the best end to the season I could have hoped for after so much adversity the last few years.”
 
She ran 19 minutes 53 seconds at the Gabriel Richard meet where nearly everyone ran a personal record, and she was the first girl on the team in 2 years to run under 20 minutes. That was her junior year.
 
“Track season my sophomore year was one of my favorite seasons ever,” she said. “I fell in love with running and I got really close to all the runners and made my closest friends.”
 
Her majors at Wayne State will be Journalism and Computer Science. Natalie will live on campus.
 
Her family includes parents Amy and Jeremy Davies, and siblings Nora and Iris Davies.
She likes being a Bulldog. “I moved here in 8th grade. There have been so many opportunities here,” she added.
 
Her goals are admirable. “I want to improve a lot and enjoy my time running in college,” she said. “I want to write for a big newspaper someday and/or be a programmer for a company that has to do with learning languages and write for them… my options are open, especially with 2 majors. Also, like my dad, I want to coach for kids.”



She has had many influences. “I started cross country as a Freshman because Coach Clarke told me I should join in middle school track (my mom is a runner and she thought I would like distances, so that is why I joined middle school track) because I didn’t play a fall sport, but I ended up quitting 2 sports I played for most of my life before that (softball and basketball) because of running,” she said. “I stopped playing softball my sophomore year to run track, and I stopped playing basketball my junior year because I had an injury from running and my senior year I ran in the winter instead of playing basketball.
 
For her many family members, friends, teammates, coaches, and teachers have helped her get to this point. “I couldn’t be more thankful for them and the opportunities that I have. Coaches McPherson, Clarke, Swager and Gabrielson have helped me as a runner and person so much,” she stated. 
 

---