For 11 years, junior Meg Dyrhood has practiced gymnastics five days a week for three hours.  All of that work has finally paid off as Dyrhood travels to San Diego, California to compete against the best of the best at Nationals.

“When I was six years old, my neighbor Sarah was a former cheerleader and I though that all her flips were cool, so I decided I would just copy whatever she did,” said Dyrhood.  “After a while my mom thought it would be a good idea to get me some more formal training and I’ve stuck with it ever since.”

For Dyrhood, the realization that she had made it to the national level did not set in right away.

“Well, it took a little bit for it all to sink in, but I was excited and felt like everything I have worked for has paid off, finally,” she said.

The road to nationals includes ten regular season meets, as well as state and regionals.  At those meets, Dyrhood competes in four events.

“The season is from October to May.  I compete in vault, bars, beam, and floor,” said Dyrhood.

Getting to nationals is no easy feat because to qualify, the gymnast has to first qualify for state, then qualify for regionals, and place in the top 13 all-around at regionals.

“I will compete in all four events and will also be competing for not only our region, bur Arkansas too.  Our region consists of seven states, region three.  There are eight total regions,” said Dyrhood.

Dyrhood will be one of two from the state representing the third region.

“My region, region three, is one of the strongest regions.  Also, there are only two of us from Arkansas going.  It’s me and my biggest competitor,” said Dyrhood.

Nationals will take place May 5-8 and regardless of the results, Dyrhood plans to continue on with gynmastics.

“The plan for now is to hopefully be able to continue on with it in college,” said Dyrhood.  “I won’t know where I’m going until the middle of next year due to the  rules for gymnastics in the NCAA.  I will go wherever gymnastics takes me.”