Cross Country Memories

I stood huddled next to hulking seniors that towered over me.My thumb had mysteriously started bleeding and kept my mind from focusing on my gut twisting and turning from anxiety.

I distracted myself by looking at my teammates in front of and behind me,I stretched as best I could while being cramped by giants.I stretched out my calf one last time before I heard the words

"Runners to your mark"

POP

The gun went off and the stampede ran down the straightaway I was immediately boxed in and could feel the slowness of the pace,one of my fellow teammates also got caught but darted agilely through the sludge of people.I tried my best to follow suit.

However,he was more aggressive then I and he managed to escape,but I could not and by the time we hit the sharp turn I had to almost stop because of all the congestion.I saw another teammate up a head and made him my goal as I started pushing my way through the traffic of runners.

I managed to break free completely by half a mile in and a few hills later,I never caught my teammate and lost him as I was trudging up a hill.And for some bullshit reason there were fucking hay bales scattered on the course so as I vaulted them I continued to try to make up for lost time by picking up my pace.

After the bales there was a steep drop and by steep I mean STEEP.I was running vertically downhill at almost a full sprint until it eventually turned into a small valley.I kept on passing people by running on the outsides of the trail while getting whipped by overgrown branches.

I eventually caught up to the 2nd of three freshman in this race including me.Joshua C.

"You got this"

Mentally I said yeah you too but with my labored breath I said something more like

"Heahhhh hoo ha"

Me and josh had originally planned to stay together,you see josh has a competitive flair if you will and he really likes to beat me.However,today wasn't josh's day and in my head I thought

I can go faster

And so I did,we ran up a hill and eventually josh got lost in the crowd behind me as we hit the first mile of the race.

I caught up to one of my friends who is in fact a giant senior,Zane.

You see Zane joined cross country junior year so he's not as fast as the other seniors but he has great spirit,he's got that bear pride that my school encourages so much.

Me and Zane make our way up a hill and are greeted by a middle aged man blowing bag pipes,kinda strange considering we are in the middle of the U.S of A.

We eventually loop back and by a mile and a half my lungs are burning,and snot is running down my face.I unfortunately have very bad allergies.

The second mile of the race was a blur but me and Zane did it at about 6:30 mile pace,much slower than my beginning 5:40 mile pace thanks to the hills.

We hit the second mile and Zane is tiring,it's slightly cheesy but in my head I chant,

"My legs are pistons pounding the earth,unstoppable forces of nature"

And yes that's what I said word for word,but hey whatever gets the job done right?

I run up another hill and now I'm on a flat stretch of dry dirt,It's a giant loop and the only thing motivating me is that I only have half a mile left.As I continue to pass people I eventually catch up to that darting upperclassmen that I talked about in the beginning.

Me and him have similar speeds and it flip flops who beats who in our cross country meets,but most of the time he beats me.I stay about ten seconds behind him and can't manage to catch up until we dash up a hill and the finish line is in sight.

As I'm reaching a distance that I'm able to touch him he dashes off at a sprint and I can't keep up,it had just rained and the finish line is a literal swamp.

I trudge through the mud and do my best sprint towards the finish,In my mind I'm rejoicing until I see the time counter at the end of the course.

1 9:3 0

My slowest time all year.

By almost a minute.

My joy is severely dampened as I cross the finish line and shove my way to a water station.

This race,was a bitter sweet one.

It turns out the course was longer by a tenth of a mile,and considering the hills and stupid hay bales our coach tells us it wouldn't be an exaggeration to cut a minute off of the time we got.I have mixed feelings about this but ultimately I'm happy and I kept up with some upperclassmen in a varsity race so I can't complain.

Zane finished twenty seconds behind me,and josh had a bad day he finished nearly a minute behind me.

Overall our varsity team got 3rd,and our JV team represented by my fellow freshman got 2nd thanks to Noah who normally is around 5th for our JV team got 1st and brought up our score by a lot.

On the hour long bus ride home I put in my headphones and played some upbeat 90's

Not a bad day,not a bad day at all.