Cross Country Runners Push Through Thunderstorm
WHS Lions Pride Original Story:
On Halloween, October 31st, the Cross Country Team had their regionals meet. With a day full of rain and lightning forecasts, the runners were courageous and faced the day head on.
The team went to school, anxiously waiting for the noon decision, to see if the meet would continue as normal. “I was feeling complete dread, I was worried we would get there, and it would start thunderstorming, and we wouldn’t be able to run… I was really relieved when it didn’t rain. At first I didn’t want to go, because I was so worried about that but after the fact I was glad I had run,” senior Morgan Carter admitted.
Senior Chelsea Long kept thinking, “Please cancel, I don’t want to run on Halloween.”
“I really wanted to run, just because it’s senior year, and I wanted to run in the rain… It was really exciting,” senior Lydia Mayenge commented.
But Liberty High School announced that the meet would go on. Fortunately, the weather was holding off, and it only sprinkled during the event.
The Walkersville Cross Country team has already run this course twice this season. This year’s seniors have run this course a total of seven times over high school [1]. Carter shared, “As a senior that was a really bittersweet moment, because it was my last meet, and it was a meet we’ve been at so many times. As I was running, I was thinking about all the memories we had at that meet. So many great things have come out of running. I am so grateful I was able to make all these friends and develop a love of my body through running.”
Overall, the Walkersville boy’s team came in ninth, and had the third smallest time spread (from 18:05.4-20:39.8, 2:34 second spread) out of 12 schools [1]. The girl’s team did not end up placing, due to not having enough qualifying runners. But the girls still kept a positive attitude.
“I think it went really well, I was worried about the wall, because it was just so muddy. But when I was running I just focused on being strategic. I was worried about slipping and falling but it went really well,” Carter recapped. The wall refers to a steep hill that runners trek up twice during the course.
“Overall, [it went] pretty okay. A solid six out of ten,” Mayenge remarked.
“I did like how it was a lil’ muddy… It was a nice note to end my cross country running on,” Long reflected.
Fall sports teams are ending their seasons; and especially for the seniors, the 2019 Cross Country Regionals meet was an adventurous one to remember.
Citations:
[1] https://www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/meet/157991/results/657858
