Heather Schmit, sprinter, long and triple jumper is anything but ho-hum when it comes to dashing down the track or jumping in the sand in the long and triple jump.

Schmit, now a senior on the New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva girls’ track team is coming in on the final lap of her high school track experience. She’s making a bid for her fourth consecutive trip to the state meet in her final season.

Schmit’s senior season started off a bit rocky as she opened the year with an injury in the first meet.

“It has been a little tough,” Schmit said, “The injury has made it a little rough to get back to the form I need to be in to really compete the way I want to.”

In a recent meet in Montgomery, Schmit placed second in the 100-meter dash with a time of 13.67 seconds, second in the long jump with a jump of 15-feet, 5 1/2 inches, third in the triple jump at 32-feet, 4 1/2 inches and seventh in the 200.

“Heather had a good day placing,” Panthers track and field coach Duey Ferber said. “Her times still need to come down and Heather needs to get a little stronger for the stretch run of conference, subsection and sections.”

Running in an event at any level can be nerve racking for the best of athletes.

“I get really nervous when I am at the state meet,” recalled Schmit. “I remind myself that everyone else there is in the same place as I am.”

How nervous does Schmit get?

“When I am on the track preparing to run before a race,” Schmit said, “I remind myself to not fall out of the blocks.”

Of some of the others on the track, Schmit shared some her observations.

“I notice the different attitudes,” Schmit said. “Some of the runners talk while others don’t. They all deal with their nerves in such different ways.”

Being at the state meet was extraordinary, Schmit said.

“The competition is incredible and it is just breathtaking with the stands full of people,” she said. “I didn’t know so many people were into track.”

Personal goals that Schmit has set for herself this year are to go back to state and to better her times and distances.

Schmit’s personal bests are 32-feet, 8 1/2 inches in the triple jump and 15 feet, 9 inches in the long jump. Schmit’s best time in the 100 is 12.5 seconds which yielded her sixth in the state in her sophomore year.

Coach Ferber said that Schmit’s long and triple are looking good and that she could make some waves in these events if she could add 6 to 12 inches.

With only a month to go until finals, Schmit has a shot to once again enter an elite arena of athletes here in Minnesota at Hamline University.