MELBOURNE, Fla. — Isabella Babilonia is a senior cross-country runner at Viera High, making a name for herself in our county and the state of Florida. Recently competing in the Cecil Field Summer Classic Cross Country Invitational in Jacksonville, Florida, she finished first in the girls’ competition, beating her closest opponent by 1 minute and setting a course record with her time of 18:38! This was Babilonia’s third victory so far this season with many more meets to go.

Babilonia found running while in middle school and decided to give it a try. She fell in love with the sport and has run and competed ever since improving her times each year. As a high school senior, she runs about 10 hours a week or more and feels grateful to have Coach Baker at Viera coaching her and the team. The Titusville High and UCF graduate has coached multiple sports and has found success with all of them, including the Hawks Cross Country program.

This year is like no other for Babilonia and she continues to run and work on keeping her motivation high. She has goals for this Senior year such as running in college and being successful at Districts and to make it to States again. Seeing her team have a good showing at Districts and States is something else she would like to see as well.

Having a head start in college as a full-time dual-enrolled high school student, her routine is a little different than other high school seniors. She wakes up each day at 5:30 am and goes to cross country practice with her team. After practice, she has breakfast, takes a nap, and then starts on schoolwork for her college classes. She is enjoying the combination of practices and college studies.

Isabella is very humble so it is hard for her to talk about her achievements. She loves the sport so much and being with her team. Her greatest achievement so far is running in the 18’s as a senior. In addition to the other notoriety of qualifying for state finals three times in Cross Country and once in Track, she has also won Districts twice over the years. She has set school records in the 5k for Track and Cross Country, as well as the record for the 3200m, and the 1600m distances.

The sport of cross-country is scored differently than other sports. Seven girls run varsity in a race and the top 5 of those 7 are scored. The lowest points for a team in the meet is the winning team. The lowest points for a runner is the winner. Cross Country meets can feature a few schools or many, depending on the event. As with many athletes, she has rituals before a meet. She eats pasta the night before a race with her team and drinks a lot of water. On the morning of the race, she wakes up and stretches and is ready to go.

Babilonia tells herself before a race, “to race every race as if it is your last. Look back without regrets.”

There are runners she looks up to Anne- Marie Blaney, Jessica Hull, Mary Cain, and Kipchoge. Amazing runners that are great examples of leaders in the sport of running.

Babilonia was recently nominated and named National Girl’s Performer of the Week by Mile Split USA for her victory at Cecil Field, where she beat out the tough competition to earn the coveted title. As this season continues, there is no doubt we will continue to read more about Isabella Babilonia, including her track season and hopefully where she chooses to run in college.

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