Faye Carnemolla has been a vital asset to Woodland’s Cross Country team, Indoor, and Outdoor Track and Field teams for her past four years at Woodland. Her running journey began in seventh grade when she joined her middle school’s cross-country team. Running to most is an arduous task; to Carnemolla, it is her calling.
In an impressive display of athleticism and dedication, Carnemolla competed in the Connecticut’s State Open Championship on February 22, 2025, in which she ran a 3:02:77 time, shattering the former record.
She is most known for her work in the 400 meter, 800 meter, and 1600 meter. She began her running career as a longer distance runner, running the 3200 meter her freshman year, but soon, her coaches noticed her talent for speed and started lowering her distance, allowing her to thrive in mid-distance, faster-paced events.
Anyone who has had the opportunity to witness her in her element will agree she makes it look easy, the strenuous work being put in behind the scenes hidden by the awards and titles.
According to Carnemolla, running indoor track during the winter in Connecticut is no walk in the park. Snow and ice storms, numbing wind, and biting temperatures often disrupted her training.
“It snowed right as we were supposed to be doing our peak workouts. The days we were supposed to be running 12 reps on the outdoor track, we would have to cut down to eight reps indoors,” Carnemolla recalled.
Although practices did not always go as expected, this did not hold Carnemolla back from putting in the work and keeping her training consistent.
“To keep my mileage up, when I needed to, I had to go on runs separately outside of school. Often, on Saturday mornings, I would get in my weekly long run,” she admits.
All the relentless training led up to race day as Carnemolla spent months preparing to step to that line. Carnemolla embarked on this race, driven by a single objective: breaking the school record.
“When I went to run at Opens, I knew that it was going to be my peak, just based on how I felt and what I had been doing that week. I knew this would be my only chance of breaking it,” said Carnemolla.
Among the hours of physical activity that prepped her for this race, her time was extremely calculated as well. She had to hit each one of her splits (time it takes to run an individual lap around the track) precisely every lap to ensure she would finish the race within the desired time.
“I figured out I had to come through the 800 at 27 seconds, and then I could close in a reasonable time and break the record,” Carnemolla discloses.
While she is a strong 1000-meter runner, she thrives best in the 800, as it is the race she runs all year round. The 1000-meter is only an indoor event, not outdoor, allowing her to know how to pace the 800 meter more confidently.
“I said to myself to pace for a 2:27 800, then go all out at the end,” said Carnemolla.
Much easier said than done, running 800 meters and then finding it within you to give forth even more effort to run the last 200 meters is both physically and mentally straining. Carnemolla was motivated by the competitive and exciting atmosphere, both by her opponents and her supporters yelling out to her from outside of the track.
“At one point, I became surrounded by a pack of girls, and with all of their parents shouting, I couldn’t hear my splits, so I had to rely on watching the clock after each lap to gauge where I was,” Carnemolla remembers.
All the hard work, calculating, and disruptive fans were worth it when she crossed that finish line.
“I just remember I came through the line and was disoriented. I didn’t even know what time I had run and was not sure if I had the record,” said Carnemolla.
She was not certain about her results as she was not watching the clock as she came through and was more focused on finishing her race until a friend approached her and confirmed she had claimed the record.
“Leah came up to me and said, ‘you got it!’ and I was thinking, ‘alright, that is nice’,”Carnemolla humbly admits.
Claiming a school record is no easy feat, but this was just one of the two that Carnemolla gained this past 2025 winter indoor track season.
While graduating from Woodland spring of 2025, her running career is far from over. Carnemolla has her options open for college and plans to commit to running to one of the schools she is considering.
“Ideally, I will commit to one of the schools I already have been accepted into,” she claims.
If this does not work out, Carnemolla plans to continue running for a club team or attempting to walk-on. Either way, she does not plan to stop running anytime soon, leaving us all eager to witness the next exhilarating chapter of her inspiring story.
