(from looking at this picture you would never guess that about 3 seconds later I heard voices inside coming from inside the house and immediately sprinted back down the steps, lol, also this was taken in Savannah, GA)
Hello everyone! I hope you're having a fantabulous day! Last Saturday I ran my first ever high school cross country meet! This was super exciting and even though I've run cross country every year since 6th grade, it was actually a bit of a new experience. The high school that I was planning on going to (let's call that the Purple Team) has already started school and their team had obviously already started training, and my dad happens to be the coach of the Purple Team. I ran for PT (I actually like calling it 'PT' lol) in 7th and 8th grade, and if I hadn't tested for (let's call my new high school the Green Team) the Green Team and gotten in I would've still been running for PT. (my brother Abe actually runs for them currently and Reu will eventually) It's a bit of a complicated situation but basically GT is the only school in the area that hasn't started school yet, so we don't even have a cross country team formed yet. This year is only GT's second year with a Cross Country team and they're not very serious about the sport, so I've been allowed to run a few races as an individual instead of with my team, but still wear the GT uniform. This past Saturday was the Big Valley Invitational, which is traditionally everyone in the area's first meet of the season, and I was allowed to run in it!
Firstly, this happened to be my younger brother Abe's first EVER Cross Country meet (he's in 7th grade) and he ran in the Junior High race and did SO WELL!!! Congrats to him!
With this being my first high school XC meet it was also my first time racing a 5K alone, and I actually started getting nervous for it at least a week before hand. :/ I was really nervous until the night before when I just basically told myself that it was just a race and worrying about it wouldn't actually accomplish anything. I woke up Saturday morning (at a crisp 6AM, cringe) feeling (oddly) calm and ready. My mom can assure you that the little over an hour drive there was filled with my favorite pump up music and by the time we arrived I was excited! (I was at least a little bit nervous until the gun went off but that goes without saying.) It was rather strange to be alone but actually kinda nice because then I didn't have to worry about waiting for anyone or being late to the line.
I won't give you all of the details of the race because that would just stress us all out and quite frankly I want to postpone feeling those feelings again for as long as possible, but just know that I felt strong and good! I crossed the finish line at a time of 21:55 and overall placed 29th out of 148 girls in the high school varsity race! I actually ended up getting a medal for being the 8th single A girl (there are 3 divisions - single A, double A, and triple A - depending on the size of your school) which was SOOO unexpected!!! I was thrilled because I had been trying to not think about placing or medals or anything since I was the youngest out of 4 grades running... but I made it!!! (as you may be able to tell, I'm still quite excited!)
The finish lines at big invitational meets are always interesting to watch, in my opinion, because of all the energy that's going on. It's such an interesting atmosphere if you think about it, because it's made up of a bunch of teenage girls who have just used practically all of the energy in their body to run as hard as they can for 3 miles. If you've run a good race, by the time you cross the line there should be next to no energy left, which can make finding anyone you know rather difficult. As soon as I finished, I could barely stand, and I kept looking around to see if I could see anyone from my family, or even my old team to go to. Alas, I couldn't see anyone, but soon enough (it felt like ages to me but now I'll bet it was really just 30 seconds) my family came and engulfed me. I've been told that my face was white as a sheet, and I believe it! After that it was really just the confusion of finding all family members, cooling down, and watching the rest of the races. Again, I won't give a lot of details about the awards ceremony, but it was awesome! It was a little strange though, because when they called my name for 8th place, people clapped as you would for someone you don't know, but nobody cheered like I was on a team... it was a little erie. I don't think I'll stop being excited about it for a very long time so I'll just end the post here. I hope you enjoyed and be sure to look at some of the race pictures below! Bye! xD