NEW ULM — On Tuesday, Sept. 9, Minnesota Valley Lutheran junior Natalie Matzke completed a cross-country meet at Baylor Park in Norwood Young America in 19 minutes and 42.24 seconds.

Not only was it far and away a personal best for her, shattering her previous best of 20:56.1, but it also broke the MVL record for girls cross country by 42 seconds.

“It felt amazing,” Matzke said. “I had some family members that came out to me and were congratulating me. I pushed myself so had that I was kind of dying honestly, but I just forgot about it because I was so excited. I was just smiling and freaking out, but then I was also like, I’m so exhausted and so tired. It felt really good.”

Matzke said she was extra prepared for the meet because the previous one had been canceled.

“I was pretty upset from not being able to run the last meet because of a tornado,” she said. “The varsity girls weren’t allowed to run last week because there was a tornado warning in the middle of our race, so we had to stop. Pretty frustrated about that, so I was really ready to run.

“And the weather was just incredible. Perfect temperatures, not humid, but you could tell it might start to sprinkle, and it was cool out and cloudy and it was just a beautiful course, one of my favorite courses.”

Matzke said she was pretty sure she had broken her previous best, but wasn’t aware she had broken the record when she finished the race.

“It felt great, I thought I was going to do amazing,” she said. “I just felt really good … I didn’t know I was going to break the record, but I knew I was going to PR by a lot. I was planning on trying to break the record by the end of the year, so I was pretty excited about getting it so early on in the season.”

Matzke’s times have dramatically improved from a season ago, a testament to the work she put in over the offseason.

“[There’s been] a huge improvement,” she said. “My first meet of the season I ran almost a minute faster than my PR from last year. And then I PR’d by almost a minute again. So I’ve been improving a lot. I’ve been putting in a bunch of miles over the summer. I love it.”

Matzke said she still had plenty left to accomplish in the season.

“I really want to try my best to make it to state,” she said. “My goal for the end of the year was to break 20 minutes, but I already got that. So I want to maybe get to sub-19:30, get a bit under that. I just want to keep improving and keep getting faster.”