The track shimmers in the 110-degree heat at Central Coast Section Finals as Alexa Lowe (’22) enters the triple jump ranked fifth. 

The competition wore on and the heat took its toll as jumpers underperformed one by one. On her second-to-last jump, Lowe exploded down the runway and landed over a foot beyond her personal record, ultimately earning her a second-place finish and a spot at the state meet. 

Lowe, now a senior competing in Division III track and field at Carnegie Mellon University, has been jumping, hurdling and sprinting competitively since middle school. While her track journey began with joining the Harker team in middle school to spend time with friends after school, she began to see the value the sport brought to her life as she continued to compete into high school. Now in college, she still relies on track to bring balance to her lifestyle.

“It’s a good reset and structures your day,” Lowe said. “Having practice every day is really good for keeping healthy living habits, like socializing with friends, getting out of the grind of work, and it’s just really good for structuring your daily life and staying positive, social and active.”

At Harker Upper School, Lowe competed in the triple jump, long jump and 300-meter hurdles before adding the 400-meter hurdles and the 4×400 relay to her lineup in college. She decided to compete in hurdles due to her experience in mid-distance sprinting and her background with jumps. In her first 300-meter hurdles race, Lowe broke Harker’s school record. 

Even now, her love for the sport remains rooted in the same thing: the people around her.

“My favorite part is the team environment, how everyone’s working on improving themselves, but we all support each other,” Lowe said. “In middle school, when I started, I was not super good. It was fun because I had my friends and we ran the relays together, and it was just a fun time to hang out.”

In college, Lowe grappled with a longer time commitment and more intense training. A typical week of training means 2-hour practices every day from Monday to Friday and meets on Saturday that require leaving the campus as early as 5:30 a.m. and not returning until 9 p.m. 

“The main thing that surprised me was how much time it would take,” Lowe said. “But at the same time, I think I’m closer to the team now in college than the team overall in high school. It’s a blessing in disguise that you get to spend so much time with these people. You really bond with them, and it’s a great way to meet people outside your major, outside your regular circles.”

Track can come across as an individual sport, where each athlete competes alone against the clock or the mark. But for Lowe, that has never been the full picture. At meets, athletes often spend hours cheering for teammates whose races or jumps occur long after their own events have finished.

“What makes track sustainable and uplifting is the team around you,” Lowe said. “When everyone celebrates everyone’s successes, that’s when we’re having the most fun. I like meets because they’re team events, when the team actually comes together. You see people from all different events that you don’t usually train with, and you have a good time supporting each other and doing something that’s a break from school.”

In her sophomore and junior years of college, Lowe took a break from the sport to explore other college opportunities, including Carnegie Mellon’s Formula SAE team and a semester exchange program at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne. Returning to the team this year as a senior, she found that the time away had changed how she approached competing.

“Coming back, I realized that success is not so much about winning,” Lowe said. “I came back not to win, but to improve myself to see how far I can jump or see how fast I can run and do the best I can to enjoy this team environment. Success is doing your best, having fun with people and spreading the energy to other people.”

The sport has shaped Lowe’s mindset outside of track, where working through setbacks like bad days and injuries has improved her attitude while handling adversity in everyday life.

“Track has made me have a more positive mindset in approaching challenges,” Lowe said. “Even if you feel tired or you feel like you’re not at your strongest point, you still have to do your best. There are always off days, and you can’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t do what you really wanted to do. Life moves on, and you just have to face the next challenge and not dwell on the past.”