Cross country: Karen Saxena
While Karen Saxena holds a familiar role in the math department, this year she will be a new face at the track, as the new head coach of cross country.
Running has played a significant role throughout Saxena鈥檚 life. 鈥淚 started running cross country in the ninth grade,鈥 she said. 鈥淚 am still running with a club, mainly doing age-group racing now.鈥
Saxena is a veteran coach, getting her start almost 20 years ago. 鈥淚 coached since my kids were small,鈥 she said. 鈥淥nce I stopped working at my company, I started coaching for the spring track team when my daughter was in middle school at Fletcher.鈥
Saxena鈥檚 coaching philosophy is a mix of the two values she finds most important. 鈥淎 love of running and a love of competition. I think those two things can really go hand in hand,鈥 Saxena said.
For Saxena, the main goal of her first season as a head coach is to build consistency and to depart from the tumultuous state the team has been over the past few years because of frequent changes in coaches. 鈥淸The team] has had a lot of transition in the past few years,鈥 Saxena said. I鈥檇 really like to have a good, consistent season and show improvement through the season.
Saxena has high hopes for the upcoming season. 鈥淚 think we can go far if we can really pull together as a team and the captains are really helping with that,鈥 she said. 鈥淚 want to see how far we can go with the talent we have.鈥