Elizabeth Funderburk is in the home stretch of her senior cross country season. The Colquitt County High Lady Packer races for the GHSA 7A championship Friday.

MOULTRIE – Some don’t want the pressure breathing down their necks; others do. Those who do usually end up champions.

Perhaps the best piece of advice Mell Wier passed on to Elizabeth Funderburk during her long Colquitt County High cross country career was to “Get in her hip pocket.” It was this fall prior to the Wingfoot Classic in Cartersville when they saw published comments by one competitor about how she didn’t like anyone running close to her. So that’s who they targeted from the starting block to the opening mile, staying as close as legally possible. Sure enough, coach Wier said, that kind of pressure “broke” this runner.

Funderburk only wishes she could get fellow runners in the area to keep pace and give her some kind of challenge. From looking over the GHSA Class 7A field for Friday’s girls cross country championship run in Carrollton, Wier said Funderburk has a good 30 seconds on the second-best favorite.

It’s like her senior season’s just getting started. But it already did way back in August, and not only has Funderburk spent that time in high-level meets from Cartersville to Tallahassee, she made an advanced run on that Carrollton state track and breezed through it in first place just like at everywhere else.

“It was a good race to give me a lot of confidence for state,” said Funderburk. “I feel I know how to run that course better.”

It wasn’t the state championships, but maybe Funderburk could take the approach in her mind that it was the first weekend of November? After all, she only came close to first place one time the past three years, last year being a forgettable disaster.

“Obviously, it’s hard to get that mentality that you are about to run for a state championship,” she said. “I tried to run it like I would for state.

“One of the main things I’ve been focusing on in racing is to stay relaxed. It’s easy for me to just get out there and want to run fast and beat everybody. I haven’t really been tested. Usually you need more speed at the end of the race if somebody else is right there.”

The best case scenario for her, she said, is for the test to not happen now, that she can instead build a big lead as she moves through the course. She’s keeping up on the times of not only the best runners in Georgia, but all over the nation.

“It depends on your personality,” said Funderburk about how favored status affects runners. “I like going into it knowing I’m the best, but with cross country it’s hard to compare with all the different courses. You have to look at a bunch of different factors.

“I still think about (last year) sometimes. I think about it more now, the lessons I learned, not that it’s definitely not going to happen again.”

Funderburk also took the proverbial weight off her shoulders of deciding among all the college suitors where she wants to go after graduation in 2018. She committed to nearby Florida State University with a course she’s run every year and has triumphed on.

The race is still to be run in Carrollton, the scheduled starting time for girls 7A at 12:45 p.m. If everything goes according to the numbers, Funderburk said she will feel some relief, perhaps then something will nudge at her about how and why she didn’t get this championship already.

“It’ll be another check on my list of things to do,” she said. The list doesn’t end with GHSA finals.

“I’m running in the Foot Locker regional (in Charlotte). One of my goals is to get top 10 and go to nationals (in San Diego). (Last year at regional) I did O.K. considering it was two weeks after state. I was kind of shaken up from that, trying to recover. I felt I ran a good race. I went out slower than I usually do, but I was passing a lot of people at the end.”

The weekend after state is when the USATF Meet of Champions takes place in Fayetteville. Funderburk did not do this last year, but said it will be a great chance to see all the best girls in Georgia in one race. Plus, she said it will be a good warm-up for Foot Locker.

“I’m kind of ready to move on,” she said about seeing the end of her Lady Packer days approaching. “College is a whole different level.”