Story By: Sarah Turner
MONTEVALLO, Ala. — Running is hard. As a member of the University of Montevallo’s cross country and track and field teams, this is something junior Brooke Ramsey knows all too well – but she hasn’t known it for long. She only started running last year, but in a short time, she’s transitioned from part-time marathon runner to a collegiate athlete.
Ramsey is from Orlando, Florida, and lived there her whole life until coming up to college in Alabama. She didn’t love the city environment and the sweltering heat of central Florida, but she appreciates all that it gave her throughout her childhood.
“There was always something to do in Orlando, and like even within the suburbs there’s always events and stuff, so that’s fun,” said Ramsey, “but as far as the city itself, [I] would not move back.”
Ramsey grew up being involved in all kinds of things throughout her youth, and during high school. She participated in swimming, tennis, rowing and triathlons, among other things outside of athletics, but, shockingly, not competitive team running. She’s always loved staying fit and working on herself, which is what led to her choosing a major in nutrition with a focus in dietetics.
Even when she was really young, she’s always recognized the importance of and appreciated food. “As a preschooler I would bring my friends tomato and mozzarella salads in containers,” she said.
Now, she is working to be a registered dietician and work in sports, but lately has been considering a move into the medical field by going to PA school.
“I just saw the realm of nutrition and how that was so interrelated to how we function,” she said, “and I was just really passionate about that.”
This desire to immerse herself in the realm of nutrition led her not to Montevallo, but to Samford University in Homewood.
Ramsey had family members that are Samford alumni, and she knew she wanted to attend a relatively smaller school that had her program.
“I just liked the security of knowing I was going somewhere familiar,” she said, “which is funny because I didn’t like my high school very much.”
Ramsey was enrolled at Samford for both her freshman and sophomore years of college, and would make a decision that changed her life on one rainy October day.
One day during her freshman year, she was feeling very emotional over things going on in her personal life. “I was like, ‘I’m just gonna go for a run’ and somehow it turned into like a 12 mile run,” Ramsey said, “Was it fast? No. Was it a good idea? No. But it was raining, and it was cold, and I remember it.”
She remembers the feeling she had post-run of shock and desire. She couldn’t believe she had just enjoyed running 12 miles as much as she had, and she couldn’t wait to do it again.
After that, she continued to run during her free time from school and work, just putting in regular miles throughout the week. “I was with a friend and they were like ‘You should just sign up for a marathon, like you won’t do that,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah I will’. So I did.”
Ramsey started training for her first marathon in April of the following year, leaving her about four months to prepare.
She says didn’t really have a training plan before her first marathon, just regularly running and occasionally throwing in some long runs. “I think the longest I had run before the marathon was like 12 or 13 miles, which is not how you’re supposed to do it,” she said.
Then came race day. 26.2 miles through downtown Nashville. “It was a terrible race because it was so hot and it was so hilly,” said Ramsey, “but I loved it.” She knew this was something she wanted to continue doing.
In the weeks after the race, she started running with the Birmingham Track Club, a local running group for adults in and around the Birmingham area. Some of the runners told her they thought she could qualify for Boston in a few years, but she wasn’t going to wait that long.
With the Boston Marathon as the goal, Ramsey got in touch with a coach so she could get proper training to actually hit the qualification mark for one of the most well-known and prestigious marathons in the world. She wanted to qualify by the end of the year.
She trained with her coach throughout the summer and into the fall of her sophomore year, doing a lot of progression runs and long run workouts. “I had a long run workout that would be, you know, 18 miles and then it would be like, two miles marathon pace, two miles easy, alternating, something like that,” she explained.
Ramsey finally hit the qualifying mark in Memphis in December of her sophomore year. “I was very nervous,” she said, “I felt awful afterwards.” But she had done what she set out to do, and had accomplished what very few people ever will in a short amount of time.
Around this time, Ramsey started feeling like she needed a change. She wasn’t in love with Samford anymore, and some of her friends had told her to consider collegiate running, which she thought was just a pipe dream at the time.
She knew she didn’t want to go very far from Samford since she was already far from home, so she began looking into other nearby schools, including UM. She got in touch with the team’s cross country and track and field coaches and came on a visit to campus in April of 2023.
After meeting the team, the rest was history. “It was the idea that I was gonna get to be on a team…because I was putting in so much work…but the idea that I got to do that with people was just like perfect,” she said.
She enrolled at the University of Montevallo in the fall of 2023, and has competed in every race for Falcons Cross Country throughout their season so far.
Women’s collegiate cross country races are typically 5 kilometers, or 3.1 miles, all run on grass. Coming down in race distance has been a major adjustment for Ramsey. “The racing has been a lot different than I expected.”
Becoming a student-athlete has also been a big adjustment. Learning how to not overcommit and prioritize herself is something she is still working on in her three months here. She’s also learned a lot about herself in these last three months.
“I’ve learned that I’m more of a team player than I would’ve thought,” she explained, “I’ve always kind of thought of myself as like an independent person, and I am still independent but I think I’ve learned that the team environment I like more than I would’ve thought.”
I’m more of a team player than I would’ve thought.
Brooke Ramsey
Ramsey is incredibly grateful for all of the connections and experiences she’s already had at Montevallo in such a short time, and is looking to make the most out of her last year and a half in college, doing she something she never envisioned would be possible day in and day out.
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