Maryn Lowry and the gift of gratitude

When the Montana women's cross country team lines up for its five-kilometer race at the Big Sky Conference Championships at the Riverside Golf Course in Ogden, Utah, on Saturday morning, coach Vicky Pounds will spot fifth-year senior Maryn Lowry and remember once again to give thanks.

The levels of gratitude she'll experience will go deep, but the most important one at that moment will be that Lowry is one of the Big Sky's top runners, and she's racing for the Grizzlies.

It didn't have to be that way. Lowry wrapped up her Iowa State running career and her undergraduate degree in kinesiology in the spring. But she was left holding two things: one more season of eligibility in both cross country and outdoor track, and a competitive fire that was still burning.

"That I was able to graduate with my degree in four years was awesome. I knew the competitive side was still there and that this is what I wanted to do. Having that little extra eligibility, I wasn't ready to be done yet," says Lowry.

She's been a godsend for Pounds and Montana, arriving in Missoula in mid-August and joining a team that had lofty aspirations -- perhaps the program's best Big Sky finish since winning the title in 2010 -- but was struggling with injuries and the proportional hit those took on its depth.

The Grizzlies ran to a fifth-place finish at last year's championship and had much of its top talent returning, and the Big Sky's coaches knew it. Montana was picked third in the preseason poll, collecting a first-place vote, coming in behind only Northern Arizona and Weber State.

But in running, even for those who are fittest and fastest and make it look so easy, it's rarely that simple. Jessica Bailey, the team's top finisher at last fall's championship, was injured, as were Samantha Engebretsen and freshman Madeline Hamilton, setbacks that cut a chunk out of the team's depth.

Enter Lowry. She immediately replaced Bailey in Montana's top three and finished with junior Emily Pittis in the top five at both the Clash of the Inland Northwest and Montana State Invitational, the top 10 at the Montana Invitational.

Along with senior Reagan Colyer, the trio has provided stability at the top while the injured Grizzlies have made their way back. All will be racing on Saturday, along with freshman Maeve Holman. Not everyone is at peak fitness, but they'll be on the course in Ogden, and that gives Montana a chance.

"It's been a huge test for us mentally. The entire team has had to be really patient all year with injuries," says Lowry.

"It's easy to get discouraged when there isn't that depth, but with the amount of hard work and support that have gone into this season, good things are going to happen on Saturday, whatever that is."

Lowry was raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, before going off to race at Iowa State. That a self-proclaimed "big-city girl" would end up at Montana may seem arbitrary, but she was just following a path she hardly knew was going to be laid out before her.

She raced at Iowa State for Andrea Grove-McDonough, one of Pounds' former teammates on the Mountain West Track Club and one of Pounds' best friends. And one of Lowry's best friends is Maddie Nagle, who made the Iowa-State-to-Montana fifth-year jump 12 months prior and raced last year.

After Lowry's junior year at Iowa State, she vacationed with her family in Victor, Idaho, outside Grand Teton National Park.

When her dad went to Fitzgerald's Bicycles to rent a bike so he could ride alongside his daughter on her runs, they met Kyle Wies, who won a title in the 800 meters at the 1998 Big Sky indoor championships for the Grizzlies and was a teammate of Troy McDonough, husband of Lowry's coach at Iowa State.

"At the time I had no idea it would be an option to run my fifth year at Montana, but I made those connections," Lowry says. "And I knew I wanted to live in this area of the country at some point in my life.

"I'm glad it's happening. Living in Montana is definitely different than what I'm used to, but I love it."

It reads like a storybook, but that doesn't mean her move to Missoula and joining an established team came without its stresses. Runners were involved, and that typically means egos that can be fragile, and she was joining a team not as a freshman but as a fifth-year senior.

On some teams she would have been viewed as an interloper, a one-year transfer coming in to shake up the roster and take away an opportunity from someone who had already been in the program and paid their dues. That wasn't the case.

"I told her on the phone that we have a great group of girls and that they were going to welcome her with open arms," says Pounds. "It's weird now. It's like she's been here the whole time. It's great how easily she fit in."

For Lowry to feel comfortable, all it took was the team's first group run, a meet-and-greet tempo effort at Missoula's River City Roots Run, a four-mile race in late August.

The first time back in a group setting after a summer away and training independently is a tense time for every runner, even returners, because fitness levels provide a hierarchy within a team. And those positions can be fluid, and egos can rise and fall with them. Spirits can rise, or they can be broken.

The unknown sharpens the edge even more for a newcomer.

"I could feel this sense of anxiety of who's going to run what, because nobody knew what anyone had done over the summer," says Lowry.

"The race started, and we immediately got this feeling that we've got a good group. We didn't expect to go that fast, and I don't think anyone running individually would have. We realized that we run well together."

It wasn't long after the race that she struck up a friendship with Pittis. A 14-mile run, two athletes of similar abilities, neither of whom likes running in silence. Walls, if they were even there to begin with, came down.

"We got to know each other pretty well on that run," says Lowry, "just to know what the other is about. I could immediately tell she was all about the team. There is not one person on the team who is in it for individual glory, which is awesome.

"Emily and I just vibed really well on our first run, and every single workout after that we've been stride for stride."

They both had the same time at the Clash of the Inland Northwest, finishing second and third overall. One second separated them at the Montana State Invitational, five seconds at the Santa Clara Invitational.

Lowry -- along with her two younger brothers -- was a competitive swimmer growing up in Cincinnati, but as the costs of fees and travel continued to rise, John and Cathi Lowry, a lawyer and an employee of a pharmaceutical company, respectively, sought out something new for their children.

There was a neighborhood track club, and even at the age of 10, Lowry knew she had found her calling. Her dad, a high school runner himself before a career-ending hamstring injury led him into cycling, started helping coach the team, and her two brothers joined as well.

"It just sort of clicked," says Lowry, who gravitated toward the type of events that other kids that age avoid: those that hurt the most. "I ran the 800. No one else wanted to do it, and I don't know why I wanted to do it. Maybe because I was the only one doing it.

"But I knew in the fifth grade that I wanted to run in college."

She heard from some smaller schools by the time she was a sophomore at Walnut Hills High, but she was eyeing larger programs and opportunities, the type she had to proactively seek out herself.

"No one was knocking down my door, but a lot of them were super interested once I reached out to them," says Lowry, who made up her mind as a junior that she would race at Minnesota, trading one big city, Cincinnati, for another, Minneapolis.

Then she visited Iowa State as a senior, in the relatively small town of Ames. "Immediately I was like, that's where I want to go. I'm pretty sure I committed the very next day."

She raced for the Cyclones at the 2015 NCAA Cross Country Championships and was a member of ISU's Big 12 championship team in 2016.

On the track she went to six Big 12 Championships for indoor and outdoor, racing everything from the 800 meters to the 3,000. She had PRs as a Cyclone of 2:12.25 for the 800 and 4:31.77 for the 1,500 meters, the event she'll focus on for the Grizzlies next spring.

When it came time to move on, she only had eyes for Montana, where she is in her first semester as a graduate student working toward a degree in exercise science. The long-term goal: to become a chiropractor.

She made connections with both Montana State and Colorado State, but kept them on reserve as safety schools, a Plan B.

"I knew Montana was where I wanted to come. I talked to Vicky on the phone and that sealed the deal," says Lowry. "I knew I wasn't done running. There was still this really competitive edge to my life, and I wanted to finish out what I set out to do at the age of 10.

"I just wanted to improve on what the team here already had in place and had going. I just wanted to add to the already good vibes."

Pounds says, "Obviously she's been a big part of our success. And being a fifth year, she brings a lot of leadership and positivity to the team. Even to me, she'll say things that are refreshing to hear, words of encouragement and positivity."

So when the Grizzlies line up on Saturday morning and Pounds sees Lowry, she'll be thankful once again. Thankful that Lowry will help Montana in the race, but, if you'll recall, the gratitude goes deeper than just a performance that lasts for less than 20 minutes on an otherwise empty golf course in October.

Like most coaches, Pounds finds that 90 percent of her mental energy goes toward dealing with 10 percent of her athletes, those, shall we say, who are not always the easiest to work with. Frustrations can mount, and some days can be more difficult than others. Like earlier this week for example.

"As a coach, sometimes you feel like you give, give and give until there is nothing left to give," says Pounds. "Maryn sent everyone a quote her mom had sent her. 'Success through gratitude.' It was just what I needed to hear.

"It's about taking time to focus on the things you're grateful for in life and on this team. And Maryn is someone I'm thankful we had this year. We lucked out with what she brings athletically to the team, but there is also this wonderful person who gives a lot to the team and makes it the unit it is."

University of Montana Athletics

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Players Mentioned

Jessica Bailey

Reagan Colyer

Samantha Engebretsen

Madeline Hamilton

Maeve Holman

Maryn Lowry

Maddie Nagle

Emily Pittis

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