By Amelia Smith and Emma Schaumloffel
As cruel as it was, we began our week with round two of the 300’s workout. The weather was slightly better than it was prior, but only slightly. This time around, we maxed out at 12 reps, keeping the pace consistent with the first time. Despite the better weather and fewer reps, the workout was difficult for most, and we were all toasted by the end. Still, we had to do D-flex and a cooldown.
The real reason that the 300’s workout was brutal was not so much the workout, but the fact that we had a meet the very next day. Unfortunately, Monday was the only day we could fit in a workout, so on Tuesday we made the 20 minute trip to the Jaffrey Rail Trail for Conant’s Homecoming meet, legs already tired. Nevertheless, we gave it our best. The course was an out and back, following the rail trail for 1.55 miles, before turning around. Though it seemed like it should be a fast course given how flat it was, we found that the times didn’t reflect that. While it surely was in part due to the 300’s, there must have been something else that made that course produce the times we saw. Regardless of the slow times, the Mascenic girls won, placing 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7, as did the boys, placing 2, 3, 4, 5, and 16.
Finally getting a break (sort of), Wednesday was a long run, 60-70 minutes. Embracing the warmer temperatures for once, we dragged ourselves down to River Road to go for a swim off Bankee Bridge. As we hadn’t been swimming as much as we’d hoped this season, and long runs have a tendency to be monotonous, swimming in the perfectly cool water was very pleasant. We even got visitors, with the kids and dog of the family neighboring the bridge went for a swim with us. We ran up the infamous Grinder (but slowly this time) on our way back to the school. Upon arrival back, we did our usual strides, yoga walks, and jump rope. It was also on this day that we discovered we were the winners of the Chicken Legs’ poster contest, great news for our shorts obsessed team. You can check out our winning pic on Chicken Legs’ or our (mascenic_xc) Instagram(lol).
Thursday was a pretty typical race prep day, as we were preparing for Monadnock’s Moonlight Madness. We began with a 30 minute warm up, before meeting at the track for some race instruction. At the track, we discussed some race strategies for our upcoming meet, including some demonstration (poor Gracie was the model for technique), before heading off for a 10 minute cool down and to do foot walks.
Friday was the day most of us (not me) were looking forward to: Monadnock’s Moonlight Madness Meet. Last year, we had gone to the same meet and had so much fun, and we were excited for the same this year. Despite gloomy weather at home, the 45 minute drive to Swanzey cleared the skies and the mood(as did Smith’s “Snoop Dogg” outfit). The evening definitely didn’t disappoint, as we began with the distribution of light up scrunchies(courtesy of Skye and her mom’s Amazon Prime) and a nice course walk, as we had gotten there a bit early. We also chatted with our friends from various teams before heading out on a warmup. Soon we took off racing. As expected, the course was fast and gave a great opportunity to race well. The girls team ended up performing fantastically, as Erin won the race in 19:17, and we placed 4 girls in the top ten. The girls’ team ended up winning by 16 points, which was very exciting, especially since we were missing one of our teammates(rip Gracie).
The boys race also went out fast, which was exciting to watch. We were running all over hell and creation to see the guys wherever we could (I think I ran faster than I did in my race). It is also important to note that while watching their race, the girls team was having a great time listening to music, cheering them on (absolutely screaming at everyone), and some were even drinking the chocolate milk one of our friends had brought (despite it being lukewarm at this point). Our boys had some strong competition, and with only five of them, they did their best to work their way through the challenging field. While they didn’t end up placing in the top 5, they learned a lot from racing in such a highly competitive environment. We ended the evening with some Crumbl Cookies that our friend Addie from Newfound brought us, before riding the bus home (which was fun in the darkness of our bus with the light up accessories).
