MOBRIDGE – All you need to know about Heidi Olson can be summed up in one lap.

The Mobridge-Pollock standout had just lost her lead in the 1,600-meter run on a Tuesday afternoon in Groton. She would be forced to track down an opponent who appeared to have all the momentum on the final lap.

Then Olson flipped the switch.

Out of nowhere Olson found a late burst of energy and stormed back to win the event.

“I just have a drive. It kicks.” Olson said. “Like in that race, it was like nah, I’m not really feeling it quite yet, hit that 100, I’m like ‘oh, I’m winning this race. I’m not losing.’ It’s a switch that flips. I just have to go. Even in practice, there’s something about losing I just can’t do. I just have to cross it first.”

Olson believes that her family life is where that drive and determination originated.

“It does come, I think, from the way my parents raised me, definitely,” Olson said. “They raised me to work hard, and also living in a household with three other siblings, and having a few older than you, really makes you want to compete.”

Olson has been competing since her early stages on the cross country squad as a seventh grader.

“I was pretty timid and shy and pretty much stayed in the background,” Olson recalled. “I was the youngest one. I did what everybody said I should do. I just kind of followed the leader around.”

Soon, Olson was the one leading the Tigers around. Her first ever varsity cross country win came as a freshman at a meet in Miller.

“I can still remember it. I just never thought I could actually do it,” Olson said. “You’re just a young kid and you never know what you can actually do until you do it.”

Since then, Olson has been doing a lot. She owns all of the school records for cross country as well as all of the distance races in track and field.

Again, it comes back to that competitive drive.

“She has a competitive drive that rivals the Energizer Bunny,” said Tigers track and field coach Nathan Sievert. “She wants to continue to improve in each meet that she competes in. She has one thought in mind this season and that was to make it back to state and run beyond what she has in the past.”

While that motivation has been on display this spring, it actually took hold this past winter when Mobridge-Pollock lost in the Class A girls’ basketball round of SoDak 16.

Olson, a key member of that squad, said the setback fueled her desire heading into her final prep season of track and field.

“I think being so close, but just not getting there, I think kind of leaves you still a little hungry,” Olson said of coming up one game short of the state basketball tournament. “Going into track season, I’m going to make sure I go to state, I’m going to make sure I’m up there with the top runners. I’m going to make sure that I do still get that chance, the opportunity that we didn’t get in basketball.”

Olson will be heading to the University of Montana next season to compete in both cross country and track and field. She knows it will be a challenge, but is excited for the change of pace.

“It’s definitely going to be a change. I’m not used to having a team at all,” Olson said. “Cross Country I have one other female runner, and then track I don’t have any other distance runners that are girls. It’s definitely going to be a change having a team you know I can train with. That’s definitely a big thing that I can’t wait for.”

Olson has grown accustomed to doing whatever she can to make herself better, but it’s a tough task when there is nobody around to train with or push her.

“It’s very hard. I have to be very self-motivated and self-dependent,” Olson said. “On those days that you don’t want to run, you have to flip a switch in your head, that’s says no, I have to train hard today. There’s nobody else with you that’s going to make you work hard.”

So what drives Olson to put in the time by herself when no one else is around?

“I just want to be the best that I can be,” she said. “I don’t want to look back at my career and be, man, I could have been better if I did this or this; doing the best that I can do.”

Maximum effort from Olson has never been a question throughout her career and it certainly won’t be this week during the state meet Thursday through Saturday in Sioux Falls.

“Her passion to compete has been a major factor in the success she has been blessed with this year and years past,” Sievert said.

Olson has a couple of goals in mind as she dons a Mobridge-Pollock jersey for the final time this weekend.

“My goals are to place and I want to get a PR (personal record),” Olson said. “If I can do those two things, I’m going to walk out with a smile on my face.”

It’s time to flip the switch.