Coral Park High School standout overcomes nerves to become a champion runner

For the first big cross-country race of her high school career, Coral Park’s Penelope Sosa looked at the mass of humanity competing against her — most of those girls seemed to be a half-foot taller than her and 40 pounds heavier — and she called her dad.

“I told him to take me home,” said Sosa, who withdrew from the race before it even began. “I saw all those tall girls, and I thought: ‘Oh Lord, I’m going to get trampled.’ ”

Three years later, Sosa has cast aside her doubts. Sosa is already a state champion in track — she won the 3,200-meter race this past May — and she is among the favorites to capture gold in the Class 4A cross-country state championships on Nov. 12 in Tallahassee.

Sosa, now a senior, is the first Coral Park girl to win gold in any track and field event, and her third-place finish in cross-country last year is the best showing in school history.

But before Sosa could vanquish her opponents, she had to conquer her nerves.

As a freshman, she withdrew from the aforementioned Spanish River Invitational — just the second overall race of her prep career and her first major meet — because of anxiety.

During her sophomore year, she was leading the GMAC championship race by about 40 seconds when calamity struck again.

“With about 100 meters to go, she had to stop to throw up,” said Mark Formosa, Coral Park’s boys’ cross-country coach. “She finished second.”

Sosa, a 17-year-old Miami native, giggled when she was asked about those events.

“I’ve always had anxiety,” Sosa said. “From the seventh grade to my sophomore year, I would throw up during every race, always with less than 300 meters to go.

“I would eat several hours before the race. But I would be so tense that I couldn’t digest correctly.”

Sosa is the only child of two loving Cuban-born parents: her father, Arnaldo, and her mother, Gricel.

Neither was a big-time athlete, but Arnaldo used to run and do judo, and Gricel would bike through the mountains of Cuba. And when Sosa withdrew from the Spanish River race, she heard about it all the way home.

“I got so much crap,” Sosa said with a laugh. “They said they were going to take the sport away from me. That race was so hyped up that it put a lot of pressure on me. I didn’t want to let anyone down. It was my bad, but I’ve never done that again.”

Sosa, who is 5-1 and weighs only about 90 pounds, is no longer intimidated by the size of her opponents or the size of the field, which can be about 120-strong during a state-championship meet.

A big reason why Sosa overcame her anxiety is because her coach, Juan Rodriguez, gave her a book: “Psycho-Cybernetics,” by Maxwell Maltz.

Rodriguez was a high school baseball player in 1985 when Steve Hertz, then the coach at Southridge, introduced him to the “Psycho-Cybernetics” book.

“It helped transform me from a .300 hitter to leading the county at .549,” Rodriguez said. “I knew it could help Penelope, too.

“Her motor goes really fast, not just physically but also mentally. She didn’t think she was as good as the other runners. That’s why when she would get toward the end of a race, she would stop and throw up.”

Rodriguez said he talked to Sosa’s father and discovered that he had gone through similar feelings of inadequacy when he ran.

“I didn’t trust my own ability at first,” Penelope Sosa said. “When my coaches had faith in me, I wondered why. How did they know I could do this?”

Las year, Sosa battled shin splints and would only last four or five miles on her training runs. This year, she is doing eight-mile training runs, and her improved endurance is leading to better results.

Sosa ran a school-record time of 18:47 at the state meet last year, 21 seconds behind Timber Creek champ Amber Schulz, who also returns for her senior year.

This year, Sosa’s goal is to cover the 3.1-mile distance in under 18 minutes.

College coaches have noticed Sosa’s combination of athletic talent and academic brilliance (4.9 weighted grade-point average, 3.75 unweighted). She attends Coral Park because it’s a magnet school for biomedical engineering.

Sosa, who is interested in becoming a physician, has already visited UCF’s campus and is also considering Baylor, North Carolina State, Penn State and Penn.

Set to become the first person in her family to go to college, Sosa nearly blew her chance to go to UCF.

“I kept getting calls from an unknown number, so I kept hanging up,” Sosa said. “I thought it was spam.

“When the UCF coach finally got in touch with me, he said: ‘I’ve been trying to reach you for months.’

“Now I answer every call.”

Sosa also answers the figurative call on the cross-country field.

“Penelope doesn’t focus on opponents,” Sosa said. “She competes against the clock. She sets the pace and has a great kick. Even though she’s not as tall as the other runners, she has a sprinter’s legs and great energy.

“I wouldn’t bet against her.”