Kasia Ostrowski is a quiet champion: soft spoken but relentlessly dedicated, a leader by example, a listener. This season, she was Bromfield’s best girls cross-country runner, but her path to the top was untraditional.
Kasia Ostrowski finishes first for Bromfield and third overall in the pod championship race at McCurdy Park Nov. 11. (Photo by Tim Clark)
This past spring and summer, while many were bonding with their favorite Netflix characters and spending quality time with their couches, Ostrowski took to the roads. During the pandemic, the Bromfield senior said that running kept her sane. She plugged in her headphones, queued up a list of upbeat pop songs, laced her sneakers, and disappeared into the rhythm of heartbeat and footfalls for miles.
From the start of summer training in June to the beginning of the cross-country season in late August, the catharsis she found on the roads led her to log over 500 miles.
A few years ago, Ostrowski couldn’t have imagined this.
Prior to her sophomore year at Bromfield, Ostrowski didn’t see herself as a distance runner. She ran track as a freshman, but competed in events like the 100-meter dash and pole vault. She dreaded having to run the mile in PE, and often stopped to walk when she did.
The summer of 2018, that changed.
Marley Ferguson, a close friend of Ostrowski’s, had recently joined the cross-country team. Used to running short-distance races herself, she was struggling to keep up on the team’s long runs. She wished for company and hinted that Ostrowski might join her.
This was a hard sell. “When she asked me to come I was like: I don’t know, it sounds crazy,” recalled Ostrowski.
Always the supportive friend, though, she agreed and the two labored through 5 miles of hilly Harvard terrain. By the end of the run, Ostrowski was hooked.
She figured, “If I can run at least 5 miles without stopping, I [can] run the 3-mile races [for cross-country].” That fall, she joined the cross-country team and began her journey as a competitive distance runner.
Today, she said that what she likes best about running is the way it brings her closer to her teammates. On long runs, especially, which can take over an hour, there’s little to do but talk and that’s what the girls do. “We kind of know everything about each other because we just talk and rant to each other [when] we go out for our easy runs.”
Her teammates say she’s a good listener. Sometimes she’ll hang back on a run to stay with a teammate who’s having a bad day to make sure they have company and a sympathetic ear. “She’s the kind of person you can just talk to about anything,” said senior captain Helena Justicz.
Determined competitor
Ostrowski has also been successful competitively. Without much background as a runner, she came in with plenty of room to grow and, over her three years on the team, she has flourished.
Coach Matt Lynde recalls that in her first year on the team, she struggled to finish their league meet, dropping out partway through due to an injury. This year, her final season as a high school cross-country athlete, she placed third at that same meet and was consistently Bromfield’s top runner.
Ostrowski didn’t expect to find herself leading the team this season despite her copious summer mileage. She had been running long and slow during the off-season and wasn’t sure she would be able to recover the 5-kilometer pace she reached last fall.
When it came time to race, her worries proved false. In the first race of the season on Bromfield’s home course, she bested her personal record by one minute and 18 seconds. This is the kind of improvement Lynde said he sometimes sees in his youngest runners, but that rarely occurs between an athlete’s junior and senior year.
Lynde attributes the jump to Ostrowski’s work ethic over the summer, her calm demeanor on race day, and a level of determination that allowed her to perform under the strange circumstances of this season.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the team’s league meet was conducted pod-style. Each athlete raced only against members of her own team, comparing times with opposing schools afterward. This meant that Ostrowski had to pace herself and stay motivated without being shoulder-to-shoulder with the competition.
Chasing down the boys
She said she was nervous about this but focused on staying consistent and chasing down the boys, who started their race two minutes ahead of the girls. She finished in 21 minutes and 11 seconds, five seconds behind the league champion and tenths of a second behind the runner-up.
Ostrowski wears her newfound success well. “She’s very sort of businesslike about it,” said Lynde. “She’s very humble. She doesn’t get too high, she doesn’t get too low, and she just keeps working hard and getting better.”
Her teammates agree. “She’s definitely really determined to get where she wants to go, but she’s also really really sweet and supportive of everybody on the team,” explained Justicz.
This is one of the qualities the team captain admires most about her teammate. “[She’s] not self-centered. She’s amazing, yes, but she also makes the other people around her want to be amazing, and I think that’s a part of what gives our team such staying power … I’m inspired by her every day.
