Howdy! My six weeks here have been really quick. Maybe fastest month and half of my life this far. Everything has been going at least fine. School is getting easier language-wise and I have got many new awesome friends. I have been able to get to know many new people through my fall sport, cross country. I have had pretty much fun with it and I'm really happy I chose it to my fall sport. I decided to tell more about it and to post a bunch of pictures of our cross country meetings here too! Almost all pictures are taken by Julie Reynolds, mother of one runner from boys' team. Thank you for that!
This far we have had four meetings. Two last week and two this week. Three first ones were smaller and there were 4 to 5 different schools running. Yesterday was bigger invitational and we competed with 16 schools. Distance that we run in meetings 5k or 3,1M. Courses are pretty different but usually we run mostly on grass. There is always parents, siblings or friends watching and cheering for us. I really like it! Usually even other teams cheer for you and it makes you feel better and stronger. Personally I have not been so big fan of running a long distance but running here has changed me in that thing.
During first weeks my legs were quite tired and they felt weird because I wasn't used to run like this everyday. I have learned to enjoy going to run and keep going even when it doesn't feel so good. I have also noticed that my endurance has improved already.
Our first meet was in North View High School in Brazil. It was thundering and lightning so we weren't able to start running when we should have started. We were waiting in our school bus almost an hour. When we finally started the weather was quite nice and actually the waiting turned out as a good thing because it had been so hot during the day that it was little bit cooler when sun wasn't shining so much.
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| Runrunrun |
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| Waiting means time for team selfies! |
The second meet was just two days after the first one. It was called Greene County invitational. Our team was second team-wise and we had three of us in top four individually. The weather was hot hot hot so times were not so good and it actually felt horrible haha.
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| Waiting for a gun in Greene County |
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| Me and Mariah finishing, my face tells everything |
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| All Greene County Team |
Our next meet seemed to be easy one to win and so we did. It was hot weather and the course was really sunny, no shade at all, so times were not the best but again we had fun together and that's the most important! Boys did well too. There were five Lakers in top 5. I like better when we girls have our race before boys because then we are able to just relax and we don't need to care of getting too tired if we just want to run around and cheer for boys. Cheering for each other is really important here and it really makes difference. It feels good when also other teams cheers for you. It makes the whole competition to feel like big family meeting.
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| Boys running... |
First Saturday meet and big invitational was in Martinsville, an hour from our school. There were about 15 teams which competed against us. I really liked the course, it was fast. Before I was excited because this was the first morning meet and I think I prefer running in the mornings more than after school. It felt good. Weather was also cooler. The big amount of runners made all of us also push harder. We were 3rd as a team and I am so happy and proud of everyone! Boys did great too, they were 6th.
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| After race cheering for others |
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| Cool down, it was raining which made "cooling" easier (not quite actually) |
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| Too necessary snapchats :D I love this team! |
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| Happy girls Liz and Mariah in award ceremony |
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| Clay and Billy |
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| Individually 25 best ones got a medals. Clay, Billy and Gavin from boys' team |
The weather is getting cooler and we are still running in our little uniforms which are not so warming. That means: run faster - "The faster you run, the faster you are done!". After this meet we were really nervous. We wanted to win, of course! But we were not sure if we did. When our coach knew the results he did not told us... that's mean! Just kidding! In award ceremony when we heard the results we were pretty happy :)
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| Liz is awesome runner and awesome person as well :) |
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| Shayley finishing |
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| Still not knowing about the results... |
Sixth meet was Washington Invitational. Just saying; it was not in Washington D.C. (as someone like me maybe thought in some point) but it was in Washington, Indiana, about an hour ride with bus. The weather was even colder but all of us did good: everyone set new PRs. The course was like 150 yards too short, but still if we add something to our times we can be happy! And we got a trophy, yayy!! Afterwards I was so tired. Usually when we go to our Saturday meets we have to wake up like 6am because race starts about 9am. Everyone has their pillows in the bus and the athmosphere in the bus is quite sleepy. I have been trying to learn to take a nap when I come home and I have learned it. I wasn't able to sleep during day usually. But it helps and then I have the rest of the day to be more energetic and awake haha!
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| Girls' team and our coach |
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| Boys' team and their coach |
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| I don't know about this! They are... well... funny!! I think this is good picture to stop with... |
This was really cross country concentrated post but it actually is one of the most important free-time-things to me here. I really enjoy running and spending time with all those great people in the team! I am sorry I haven't been posting for a while. Actually I was going to make this and I was writing this already a week ago but technical problems lol... I will try to write about something else soon!
- Maija -
