Sweating and sprinting, Lillian Gray runs as she has never run before. She has complete mental and physical focus and determination while running the longest two miles of her life, every training session and early morning practice leading up to this moment. But how did she get here, to this finish line, how did she find the passion to try to be the best?

Was it her dad’s past in running marathons?

Was it going on runs with her sister?

Was it starting running in the fourth grade?

Was it the early morning runs almost every day?

Was it the mental strength?

What propels track star Lillian Gray to keep going? A list longer than the race she’s pushing herself to finish.

Was it the freedom she can only feel from running?

It was all of these.

She takes no breaks, never strays from the path of dedication and hard work, she sweats success during 6:30 a.m. runs, pure dedication and passion for the sport gets her through even though “after running thousands of miles the mental side of it still is such a struggle because your brain wants you to stop after every step you take.”

But she never stops. She runs until she physically can’t anymore. She runs as she hears the steps and the breathing of the runners beside her, the wisps of wind blowing past her ear, the birds chirping a song that never seems to die down, and the surroundings in a constant state of blur.

She doesn’t stop or slow and she’s steady on the track, eyes straight ahead, as she at last crosses the finish line, as she breaks McCallum’s two-mile record of 12:41, as she overcomes all the mental blocks that once stood in her way, as she can finally slow her strides, as she can finally let her heartbeats calm, as she can smile knowing she did it.

Editor’s note: The digital media students wrote 300-word stories that emulated the feature profiles written by Brady Dennis for the St. Petersburg Times in the mid-2000s. Shield co-editor in chief Alice Scott prepared a master class on Dennis’ stories for the newspaper staff, and adviser Dave Winter was so impressed with the lesson that he changed his feature profile assignment based on what Scott taught the staff about Dennis’ stories. As a result, we have a collection of wonderful short profiles—including this profile of cross-country and track distance runner Lillian Gray—that are well-crafted, powerful and straight from the heart.