Our episode guest is Samantha Langolf, a senior at Port Huron Northern High School. Sam had a breakout season for the Huskies last fall, dropping from a 21:23 in her first meet to a 19:17 PR at the state finals to become the fifth-fastest girl in school history; she returns this season with the second-fastest time from 2024 in the Blue Water Area. Langolf and her teammate Haley Sharp also helped lead PHN to a second-place finish in the MAC Division Championships. Sam also ran PRs in the 800, 1600, and 3200 during the spring track season, and was runner-up in both the mile and two-mile at the Blue Water Meet of Champions.

Samantha’s accomplishments are noteworthy in and of themselves, but are all the more impressive when you realize she left her first official high school cross country practice as a freshman in an ambulance. She passed out, and after the initial assumption that she’d had a seizure, she was unable to run until doctors ran tests and figured out what was going on medically. A University of Michigan heart specialist diagnosed her with POTS, which stands for Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, a condition where the heart rate increases excessively when standing. It's more common in women, especially between the ages of 15 and 50. While the exact causes are still being researched, POTS can sometimes develop after viral infections, surgery, or trauma: experts aren’t sure what causes it. POTS is a form of dysautonomia, which means it's a disorder of the autonomic nervous system, the part of your nervous system that controls involuntary functions like heart rate, blood pressure, and digestion. The body has trouble regulating blood pressure and heart rate from lying down to standing, which can lead to a significant increase in heart rate without a corresponding drop in blood pressure. Some of the symptoms include lightheadedness or dizziness, fainting or near-fainting, fatigue, heart palpitations, nausea, headaches, brain fog, exercise intolerance, gastrointestinal issues, and more, so you can see how challenging this disorder would be for anyone, let alone a distance runner.

Samantha will share her experiences in running, her perspective on this disorder, how she maintains her health and focus in competition, and what her goals are for this season as a Blue Water Area athlete.

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Coverage of Blue Water Running is sponsored in part by Elite Feet of Port Huron. If you need running shoes, spikes, or apparel, they have a friendly and knowledgeable staff to help you find the right fit and have spent years supporting local athletes in the Blue Water Area. They are located at 327 Huron Ave in downtown Port Huron.

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