By Dave Johnson
W&M Athletics
 
Two weekends ago outside of Charlottesville, Kyra Holland covered a 6K race in 21 minutes and 3.9 seconds. That was her best time in four years, a span that has seen plenty of setbacks. Yet Holland, a fifth-year senior on William & Mary's cross country team, was only so enthused.
 
"Um … yeah?" she said when asked if she was happy with her time. "It was an OK race, but I don't think it was a good indicator of what I know I'm capable of. So, yeah, it was OK."
 
Holland's take is understandable given what she has come back from. She missed the entire 2022-23 season — cross country in the fall, indoor track in the winter, outdoor track in the spring — with a tibial stress fracture.
 
Add to that a nasty battle with COVID and discovering she had immune system issues that left her susceptible to several allergies.
 
"It was not pretty," Holland said.
 
Holland came back in the fall of '23. At the CAA Championship, her time of 22:17.9 was fourth on the team and 32nd overall. In outdoor track last spring, she made the school's top 15 list in the 5000m with a time of 16:27.99.
 
"She's a very driven person," said Scott Jones, assistant coach for cross country and track & field. "She works really hard and as a coach, we want people who go the extra mile and don't think anything is impossible.
 
"But you also have to learn when to pull back. She's really done a great job this year of being very effective with her training but not overdoing it."
 
By design, Holland did not run the first two races of this cross country season. Then came an Oct. 4 trip to Greenville, North Carolina, for the Pirate Cross Country Invitational. She finished first on her team and second overall with a time of 21:07.1. Two weeks later, she improved by three seconds.
 
Again, nothing to text home about in Holland's mind. But she recognizes progress.
 
"I definitely think this is the most consistently good I've felt across a season," she said. "It's the healthiest I've been in college.
 
"In my freshman and sophomore year, I would have a really good result but then get sick or injured. This is the most consistent I've been, and I'm really happy about that."
 
Because she missed the entire 2022-23 season, Holland was eligible to redshirt and compete as a fifth-year senior. That worked well with her double major of public health and environmental policy. 
 
But it's Holland's first year running without her twin sister, Hannah, whose eligibility expired last spring.
 
"It's a little disconcerting," Kyra said. "I'll say something to her about the team and a race, and she'll be like 'How would I know, I'm not on the team.' But I still see her a lot."
 
Away from running, Holland is serving an internship with the Voice In Sport Creator Program. The platform's mission is to create a safe space for girls and women in sports and encourage them to stay involved. VIS data shows that half of female athletes quit by their 17th birthday.
 
"They try to fill in the gap with health care or mentorships that can keep girls motivated to know they belong in sports," Holland said. "I write articles that get posted on the web site, and my focus is nutrition."
 
Holland also is into creating jewelry. She and former teammate Emily Morris started a business called Matoaka Handmade, and have a monthly stand for 2nd Sundays Williamsburg.
 
"The year I was injured and having all those health problems, she was also injured and we would hang out," Holland said. "She's in ceramics, so we started accumulating a lot of stuff we made. And then we were like, 'Hmm, we should probably sell this.'"
 
Friday's trip to Elon will be Holland's final CAA Championship. She's hoping it will be better than her first as a freshman, and that's a pretty high bar. She finished third overall at 20:11.8, tying the best-ever finish for a W&M rookie.
 
"I would really like to surpass my freshman year self because I know I'm a stronger and better runner than I was then," Holland said. "The time doesn't matter as long as I score the fewest points for the team.
 
"It's really exciting to be in a place where I think we stand a good chance of winning the meet this year, which is something we've always wanted to do. This year, I think things are actually coming together and it sounds more tangible. We're so close."