New Haven Runner Hits Her Stride
Taft is rated first in the 600 for the state of Connecticut, and fifth in the US
Cops used to stop Paris Taft as she ran through New Haven’s neighborhoods at 5:30 in the morning—they were worried about her.
They would point to a grown man following closely behind her in a car.
“Do you know this guy is following you?”
She did.
“That’s my dad,” she would tell them, smiling.
Her father, Jonathan Taft, still gets up to follow her on her three-mile run, rain or shine every week day morning, to make sure she’s safe.
And those early-morning runs have paid off: the 17-year-old track star from Hill Regional Career High School has hit her stride. For the second straight year she has won a state championship, and last month the junior captured a New England title. She now has a national ranking, and weekly letters of interest from colleges and universities.
Now, on misty mornings, police officers just smile and wave at the familiar sight of the father-daughter pair.
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