Rayna Maggelet is an ASU Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication student assigned to cover Arizona Lutheran Academy for AZPreps365.

Junior cross country runner Avanti (Ava) Wadhwa is Arizona Lutheran Academy’s star female runner, and it’s no surprise statistically, but it wasn’t always easy flowers and sunshine.

Like most athletes, you set high expectations for yourself heading into a game or race. Wadhwa was a victim of this for most of her cross-country career, up until her junior year.

“She would finish a race and she would get third place, for example, but her time wasn’t where she would want it to be, pre-race, and she’d just be mad,” ALA cross country coach Mish Aleisa said. “It would be tough to talk with her afterward because she’d be so upset with herself."

Over the years, Wadhwa has started to mentally enjoy the sport like she did back in her freshman year when there weren’t as high expectations, according to Aleisa.

Her mental growth was highlighted in ALA’s last race when she placed second, and her time was just slower than she wanted; everyone else was, but she understood that. Wadhwa was actually proud of how she performed instead of tearing herself down, according to Aleisa.

"In the past years, I would get very mad at myself after my races, and I realized it wasn’t healthy mentally,” Wadhwa said. “Now I’m just trying to grow every day at practice and to be better today than I was yesterday."

The support from her fellow teammates and coaches has helped her tremendously, especially during their last meet, the Erin Botma Invitational.

“Having my teammates there cheering me on was my biggest strength at Botma,” Wadhwa shared. “Seeing them cheer me on on the sidelines kept me motivated to keep going."

Like Wadhwa, her teammate ALA senior Ryan Schmidt dealt with similar mental hardships that got better over time. 

“The first three years [of his cross country career], my mental game wasn’t super awesome,” Schmidt said. “But then this year, I’ve been working with Coach Aleisa and I feel like I have a much better mentality now than I ever had.” 

According to Schmidt, Wadhwa and him both share the same crazy cross-country runner mentality. They also ran track together and you can catch Wadhwa joking around and blame him for her long-running stride.

Both Aleisa and Schmidt mentioned Wadhwa’s unmatched energy that she brings to the team and that her stand out. 

Last year, Wadhwa finished ninth at the state level, but this year she plans to place fifth or lower at the state meet, which should go according to plans now that she has dedicated all of her time and energy to cross-country completely.

She played soccer for years, but decided to quit and dedicate all her time to running. 

“I hope to be top five,” Wadhwa said. “I’m going into this with high hopes so I aim higher.” 

Wadhwa plans to go into the medical field and major in nursing in college. While visiting Wisconsin Lutheran College a couple of weeks ago she looked into their pre-med program.

“I give all the glory to God, and I’m running for Him,” Wadhwa shared.