Gravel dug into the bottom of junior Madilyn Albarado’s foot as she powered through the rest of her 3.1-mile race, she ran clunkily, her right foot raising her left side up an inch and then the left side dropping down again with her step. About 400m into the race at the McNeil Invitational, Albarado lost her left shoe.

“I’m just used to not stopping, and to keep going,” Albarado said. “I didn’t really want to stop or get behind, even though I already did.”

Teammates tended to Albarado after the race was over, cooling her off with water and finding her shoe on the course.

“She tried to walk around and almost fell over,” sophomore Gabrielle Bartlett said. “So I carried her, she leaned on me as we both walked back over to the [medical] tent.”

Albarado ran through concrete, grass and a puddle of mud, causing her foot to be injured just a week before she ran for varsity.

“I’ve never lost a shoe during a race before,” Albarado said. “I just tried to keep it on until the rocky part was over, but then it just flew off.”

Albarado ran about 2.85 miles without her shoe, yet Head Girls Cross Country Coach Meaghan Seales didn’t know until after the race was over.

“I tried to put myself in the perspective of coach and runner,” Seales said. “The coach’s mind is like, well, she could have stopped to get the shoe and it would have been okay. The athlete’s mind is, I probably would have done the same thing. When you’re running you don’t ever think, ‘Well, I could stop.’ You just keep going.”