Cross Country GMC Championship 2017

Our final cross country meet, the championships, was being hosted on October 21. Our team consisted of at least 50 girls and 50 boys. Out of the 100+ kids, the top 7 girls and the top 7 boys were selected to run for varsity. I was one of them.

The girl varsity race was held after the boys varsity race and there were more than 70 girls running for varsity. Coming in even the 30 or 40 would be a huge achievement, as your are running against the best of more than 10 cross country teams. I hadn't expected anything better than 25th place. The top 35 of each race got medals.

The course was only 1.5 miles, which was one of the shorter courses in the county. It was one big lap around a mile long field, and then you run around the huge baseball field and run into the finish line. We were all given a paper to pin onto our uniforms that had some technology in it to track when we pass the finish line. I was number 1581.

When the gun shot, we started running and I pushed and pushed ahead. My coach had told us varsity girls that the strongest team there was Monroe. He said that we had to keep all the purple Monroe runners behind us. And that is exactly what I did. I started off with at least 4 Monroe runners in front of me and by the time we were half way through the field, I had plucked them off. There were still 2 Crossroads(my team) runners in front of me and they had been the top runners since the beginning of the year. I wasn't focused on beating them, but I was focused on beating the other teams in front of me. We ran and ran. I could see only a few people in front of me. The finish line was in sight. I gave it all I had and passed the finish line. I was handed a medal!!!

Mom and Dad came and told me how proud they were. I could barely talk, that was how exhausted I was. My legs felt like jelly so I collapsed on the ground. We went and checked the places and times. I had come in 7th! That was far, far better than I had ever hoped. I had dropped over 2 minutes and was 7th out of over 70 people running varsity! My coach was super happy. It was a great way to end the season.