Tweet

Jennifer McGranahan enters her third year as the assistant cross country coach and assistant distance coach for the Hokies.

With a line-up featuring five freshmen, she helped the 2010 women’s cross country team to a fifth-place finish in the NCAA Southeast Regional Meet where Paige Kvartunas won All-Region honors with an 18^th place finish. Kvartunas became the first Tech woman to earn All-Region honors since 2008 and the Hokie’s fifth-place at Regionals was their highest since 2007.  Michael Hammond won his second straight ACC title and earned All-American honors in the indoor mile and also garnered All-America accolades in the outdoor 1,500-meter run. Hammond then went on to finish 13^th in the 1,500-meter at the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Eugene, Ore. Sammy Dow and Jason Cusack each broke school-records in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.  In 2010, Will Mulherin earned All-America honors at the NCAA Outdoor Championships and set the school record in the 5,000-meter event at 13:50.76.

McGranahan comes to Tech from Pensacola, Fla., where she served as a personal trainer for her own business, Swiftly Running, and head coach for a specialty running store, in 2008 and 2009. She coached the My First 5k, the Pensacola Double Bridge 15k and the My First 10k programs, in addition to creating and implementing new 12-16 week training programs to help adults progress their running fitness.

From 2006-07, McGranahan was a graduate assistant coach for the cross country and track and field men’s and women’s teams at the University of West Florida. She was charged with the day-to-day training, recruitment of athletes and travel arrangements for the Argonauts. She also was a graduate assistant for the exercise science department and taught the lab, “Exercise Testing and Prescription” to undergraduates.

While at West Florida, McGranahan worked at an internship with the Wellness Center at NAS Pensacola. She implemented training programs for active, dependent and retired personnel as assistant to the head trainer at the base.

Prior to her time at West Florida, McGranahan served as the head girls’ and boys’ cross country coach at St. Mary’s High School in Colorado Springs, Colo., and worked at The Country Club of Colorado as aquatics manager and youth swim coach from 2003-05.

In 2002-03, McGranahan coached at Carmichael Training Systems, a coaching service that improves all levels of an athlete’s endurance and aerobic development, in Colorado Springs, Colo.

As an athlete at the University of Florida, McGranahan was an All-SEC and All-Regional cross country runner. She also achieved All-SEC honors in the 5,000 and 10,000-meters in track. She was also the top Gator runner at the 1997 NCAA cross country meet, finishing 31st, and placed second at the National Junior Cross Country Championships as a freshman.

At Pensacola High School, McGranahan broke the meet record in the Vulcan cross country meet, clocking a time of 17:10 in the 5k race. 

McGranahan received her bachelor’s degree in sports management from the University of Florida in 2002 and earned her master’s in exercise science from University of West Florida in December of 2007.