The runner cares about the earth and loves Latin culture.

It seems like a constant every spring: the Bainbridge girls track 4×400 relay team has one of the best times in the state.

This year is no exception.

The quartet of Hillary Pritchett, Zena Hemmen, Elizabeth Brackett and Alana MacWhorter scored the best time in the state the first week of the season with a 4:08.5.

But to MacWhorter, it could be better.

“It feels really good, (but) I’m actually a bit surprised,” she said, “It’s not that unbelievable of a time yet. I know we can improve so much more.”

Still, MacWhorter feels achieving their stellar performance this early in the season is exciting.

“It’s like, ‘Wow!’ I guess we are that impressive and we really are that good,” she said. “It’s nice to have that pillar to stand on in the beginning of the season and know we can improve from there.”

The senior knows what it takes to get it done.

MacWhorter is a four-year varsity track member in the 200 meter run, the 400 and the 800, along with all the relays. She’s also a member of the 4×400 relay team that won a state title in 2004 and finished second last year despite beating the previous years’ championship time.

MacWhorter is also a four-year starter on defense on the girls soccer team, which made it to the state quarterfinals in her junior year.

Why MacWhorter succeeds is simple: She wants to.

“I’ve always been pretty driven in school and very determined and competitive with sports (since) I started playing basketball and soccer when I was little,” she said. “One of my most important and vital skills is my aggressiveness and competitiveness in soccer and that just carried over to track.”

She is a leader on her teams as well.

“Those are probably some of the greatest experiences I’ve had, and the (best) memories I have from high school is being that leader figure and being able to speak out to my team and help them,” she said. “It’s nice to have someone positive and inspiring that’s older, that people can look up to, and I’ve been very fortunate to have the traits to fulfill that role.”

Head track coach Andy Grimm said she fits comfortably in that role on the relay team.

“I think she’s a great leader,” he said. “You always look within a group in whatever you’re coaching a kid, and you could see as a freshman that she was going to be that person down the road and this is finally her year.”

Her parents have helped as well, letting her express herself her own way.

“They were very liberal and very laid back,” she said. “They let me be as loud and as charismatic and crazy as I wanted to be, and run around as much as I wanted, which has helped form the person I want to be.”

But MacWhorter doesn’t succeed on just the track or the pitch.

She carries a 3.9 GPA and has constantly appeared on the honor roll, is the vice-president of the National Honors Society and is a board member of the Bainbridge Ometepe Sister Island Association, thanks to her fascination with the Latin culture and language and her social awareness fostered by her parents.

She is currently in Nicaragua for two weeks to work on building a stage.

MacWhorter became involved with the association on a trip to Ometepe last year in the middle of track season.

“My parents are really open-minded, and I’ve taken on that trait,” she said. “I’m really interested in Spanish (culture) and I want to continue that later on, so I thought it was a great experience, which it was.”

To her, it was an experience that helped enlighten her and remind her that material items aren’t the end-all to a good life.

“It helped me look at it like, ‘All you need is simplicity,’” she said. “Down there you see how simplistic life can be, because you’re living with a host family for two weeks without any electricity. It’s mind-blowing and eye-opening and definitely has an effect on everything.”

Born in Hawaii, MacWhorter traveled back and forth between Hawaii and Bainbridge in her youth as her father, an organic farmer, worked to build his business on both islands.

“It probably helped to give me my determination and drive to get things done, but also (living in Hawaii helped me) to just let it happen, and enjoy it while it’s happening,” she said.

Her father’s love of organic farming helped inspire a love of the environment, and in turn, a love of biology.

She’s interested in majoring in biology or environmental studies in college and is writing her research paper for her humanities class on global warming and “the environmental awareness that needs to happen in America.”

It’s a topic that has become near and dear to her heart.

“It’s been really neat doing this research, because I had no idea how (bad) the extent of (the damage is),” she said. “It’s really bad right now. It needs to have influential people changing how we look at that in the future. I think it’s something that I’d love to get into.”

She is hesitant to say she’ll be a leader for the cause, however.

“That’s pretty big to say that I’ll go be a leader for that,” she said. “But something else in the biology range is something that I definitely see myself doing when I’m older.”

As MacWhorter finishes her prep career and moves on to either Willamette University in Oregon or Pitzer College or Scripps College in Claremont, Calif., she’ll continue her passion for biology and her athletic career.

She’s driven to do it.

“I think it’s such a neat dynamic for kids to have growing up and especially in high school, because those are the transformative years,” MacWhorter said. “To have somewhere to express yourself is a great thing to have in your life.

“Thespians have theater, artistic kids have a way to express themselves… I don’t think everyone has to have sports, but it’s definitely a way to express yourself and interact with others.”