On Monday, we began the last week of the cross country season. The girls were still excited after their win on Saturday, and we spent a moment recounting the day. Then, with cold and rainy weather, we embarked on a 40 minute negative split. We were missing the boys, as their season was done, but added a few new faces, as our Valhalla Running Club training overlapped MOCs training. With a pleasantly large girls group, and a couple boys, we did our negative split on River Road. Afterwards, we did footwalks to complete the day of training.
The dreary weather lightened only slightly as we moved into our Tuesday easy run. Making sure to keep this week’s effort manageable we went out for a simple 40 on the trails out behind the school. Skirting around(and falling in) the puddles that litter the trails, we spent our time shooting the breeze and trying not to dwell on the fact that MOCs was in 4 days and that for many of us, that would be our last High School Cross Country race ever(yay).
On Wednesday, we did our traditional pre-MOCs workout, 10x200s. Once again, we were joined by our Valhalla members, including Conant’s Bella Nero, who’d also be racing on Saturday. We warmed up, did d-flex, then began the workout. For the first five, we did them at our given pace, then took a short break. After that, we did five more, with each increasing slightly in intensity, as long as it remained smooth. Upon completion, we cooled down, then did d-flex inside.
On Thursday, joined once again by the ever lovely Bella Nero, we took to the woods and showed her the trails during our long run. Though called a long run we were given the range of 40-50 minutes(defo not long). Navigating our way through the ever present cobwebs, we took to the trails once more. As always we followed up with strides, yoga walks, jump ropes and a lot of talking afterwards.
On Friday, we did a rather simple pre-meet practice. It began with Smith talking(as per usual) about the meet, the course, and the game plan(which was honestly just to run hard since it was the last race ever for most of us). We did a 30 minute easy run, with strides at the end. It was a very quick day of practice, although many of us talked for a bit afterwards(which happens most days).
Saturday was our last meet of the season, and the last meet ever for our seniors. In preparation of mud and loose footing, we all changed our spikes, ready to take on the course. The weather was much more promising than the previous weekend, a cloudy 55 degrees with a slight breeze. With a box right in the middle, we knew we had to get out hard, and we did just that. We ended up placing 11th, which was higher than our ranking of 12th, but lower than we’d hoped. As Smith says, however, many teams pour their emotional, mental, and physical selves out at States to win the championship, then struggle a bit at MOCs. While we saw many great races, with Erin O’Shea coming in 28th, we definitely saw a bit of struggle as well. Nonetheless, we were very proud of ourselves, each other, and this season, and it couldn’t have been a better senior season for me and our 4 other seniors.
To draw the season to a close, Mascenic Sports Awards was held on November 8th at 6. Dressed to the nines in our suits, ties, and/or dresses, we joined the other sports for a ceremony in which athletes would receive recognition for their athletic abilities and be given special awards. More important than any awards though, we got free pizza and cookies. On top of the free cookies, when we met as just the Cross team after the ceremony, we got cake! At this same time, Smithers gave a more in depth speech and coaches and senior gifts were passed out.
-Amelia & Emma
(Amelia: self-proclaimed hater of running and author of blog)
