Plenty of 'Spring' in Greeney's Step
By Joe Reardon
October 2004

She has been asked the question so many times she just has to roll her eyes and laugh. How did Amherst-Pelham Regional’s top cross country runner, Spring Greeney, get her first name?

Well, as the senior harrier will tell you, her parents were originally going to name her after the month of her due date – April. But when she came along a few weeks early, their idea went out the proverbial window. And Greeney’s parents weren’t about to name her “March.” Instead, they opted for the season of her birth instead.

It’s during the autumn months, though, where Greeney has made a name for herself. With the season just over a month old, she’s already run away with both the Amherst and McIntyre Bay State Invitational with intimidating showings. And come Saturday, she’ll line up behind the starting line of the championship race at the always-competitive Brown Invitational.

What Greeney is really aiming for, though, is mid November and the chance for her Amherst-Pelham squad to defend the Division 1 State title they captured last fall over the hellacious Northfield Mountain layout.

“I’d love for our team to win the state meet,” said Greeney, who finished a second out of third place last year when Danvers’s Heather Wilson edged her at the finish line of the 3.1-mile Western Mass course. “Individually, I want to run as well as I can. Then, whatever happens, happens. I might be on some people’s mind right now, but as long as I know I run as well as I can physically, I’ll be happy.”

Amherst-Pelham simply dominated the Division 1 race with five top-25 finishers and a stingy team score of 39. The team returned a strong roster this season in Greeney, Cailey Condit, Niina Heikkinen and Melissa Lacey and should be in the mix this fall as well.

Greeney admits a third-place showing at Northfield would have been a little nicer. “I was a little frustrated because I got passed right at the end, but I was happy overall,” she said.

After leaving the field behind at the Amherst Invitational, Newton North’s Jess Barton stepped up on the 3.1-mile Franklin Park course to give Greeney a race at Bay State.

“There was no one around me at Amherst so I sort of chased the pace bike,” she said. “At Bay State, I was trying to hang onto the Newton North girl (Barton) for the first mile.”

Greeney held her pace through the second mile and the Wilderness section of the course to take cross the line in 18 minutes 51.8 seconds. Barton finished a strong second with a superb 19:08.5.

The fact that Greeney isn’t surprised by her wins this season has everything to do with the work she put in over the summer over the trails and hills of her rural hometown. “I’ve been healthy and I trained a lot in the summer,” she said. “It’s paying off for me now. Running in Amherst is beautiful. There are trails and a lot of hills. Wherever you run, you have to climb a hill.”

Greeney has been alternating short mileage weeks of 25-35 miles with longer weeks of 40-50. And with the hills, they’re hardly cheap workouts. Before the Western Mass championships last year, the squad did three timed miles over first mile of the Northfield course.

At the Brown Invitational, Greeney will be competing on a course that has more to do with finishing speed and a fast, early pace than the ability to climb hills. Last year, she finished 11th against a deep field in the championship division with a personal-best time and school record of 18:32. Greeney, though, said the biggest thrill was competing against Saratoga Spring’s (NY) Nicole Blood.

"It was pretty cool to run against a legend,” she said.

Now, a year older and with an even more impressive resume, Greeney knows she’ll be looked at as one of the favorites to capture the Division 1 title at the state meet over the Gardner Golf Course. Greeney refuses to put pressure on herself. She talks of letting go of the “uncontrollables” and running as hard as she can.

If all goes well, Greeney may just add that state title to her resume.