Okay, so maybe I’m a little bit biased. The freshman roommate Myers-Briggs test did wonders in pairing me with this week’s Campus Celebrity, and we’re still roomies now in the spring of our junior year. But, so what? The fact that I’ve woken up to this face for two and a half years doesn’t change the fact that this Celebrity is the 2014 SoCon champion in the 1500m run and has shattered four school records in women’s track & field events during this season alone.
Sarah Paddon hails from the exotic location of Laguna Beach, CA, and no, she does not know Lauren Conrad. What made her come all the way across the country to Davidson? “I wanted to go somewhere new, somewhere warm, and I spent a lot of time with my family in North Carolina while growing up. Plus Davidson has Division I running, which I was obviously very interested in.”
What really makes this Campus Celebrity stand out is her unbelievable work ethic. Granted, all of us here possess some degree of diligence (otherwise we’d never survive Davidson) but Sarah takes it to the next level. A bio major, Sarah manages to complete all of her school work, juggle double labs, run 55 miles a week AND sleep ten hours a night.
I know. I don’t think she’s human either. When I asked her how she juggles all of this, Sarah explained that she gives herself a deadline of ten o’clock, and if she doesn’t finish all of her work by ten, then that’s on her. She knows she has to sleep to get the athletic results that she wants, and plus, “I don’t check Facebook every twenty minutes.” Oops.
As far as track goes, Sarah has been making headlines for her entire Davidson career. She claimed the Southern Conference champion title this past weekend in the 1500 meter run with a time of 4:24.5 (translating to a 4:42 mile), crossing the finish line four seconds before anyone else and breaking her own school record. Sarah’s win is Davidson’s first individual championship at an outdoor meet since 2009.
Sarah currently holds the school record in the 800 meter, the 1500, and the mile, and is part of the team that holds the Distance Medley Relay school record as well as the 4×8 school record. Besides running, Sarah enjoys watching the Vampire Diaries every Thursday as well as spending time with her pet tortoise, Moses.
After Davidson, Sarah’s running plans include the 2016 Olympic trials enjoying light jogs with her future husband, dogs, and children. When asked how she felt about being this week’s Campus Celebrity, Sarah responded that she thought “Chandler was being an overinvolved mother, and also #blessed.”