Redshirt sophomore Megan Hogan’s whirlwind last year and a half reached a new high last Thursday, when the New York native won the 10,000 meter College Women’s Championship at the Penn Relays with a time of 33:55.23. She outpaced her closest competitor by 44 seconds.

Hogan, who started running competitively after transferring to GW last year, missed automatically qualifying for the USA Track & Field National Championships by .23 seconds.

“It’s a huge meet and a big deal to win,” GW cross country coach Brian Bell said. “She just ran away with it.”

A basketball player for much of her life, Hogan has made a smooth transition into long-distance track running this season. Still, it presents different challenges. Track is, as Hogan described it, “you against yourself,” something she said she has become comfortable with during the spring season.

For much of the race, Hogan did not realize she was leading so handily, but as it went on, she said she picked up on some hints that it might not be as close as both she and Bell expected.

“In the beginning of the race I could hear people cheering for people behind me,” Hogan said. “Later I couldn’t, until I started double-lapping them.”

With at least one year left in her career at GW (if the academic junior attends graduate school at GW, she will be eligible to run for the Colonials the next two years), Hogan said her short-term personal goal is to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Trials in June and then make the Olympic team, though she conceded that the latter is “far-fetched.”

After graduating, the interior design major said she wants to run professionally on the side of her career. For now though, Bell said she serves as an “invaluable” example of what happens when someone works hard, both for her current teammates and recruits considering coming to GW.