Cross Country

Hello and welcome back to my blog!

Everything comes to an end - including the fall sports season with the sport Cross Country. In this entry I want to talk about the sport and my experience with it.

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Cross Country is a running sport in which teams and individuals run races on outdoor courses over natural terrain. The distance of these races are 5 km (~3 miles).

As I really enjoy running, I've decided to join the team, which turned out to be an amazing decision. A lot of people recommended to join this sport as there is a good atmosphere among the participants.

Every day after school, we had practice after school for about 2 hours. Our meets took place on Wednesday after school. We met up at the school parking lot and then took the school bus to the high school where our meets took place. Per race were approximately 40 participants. After both the boys and the girls team finished their races, we packed our stuff and headed back to the our high school were my host parents kindly picked me up.

As I have arrived in the US quite late and needed some time to get all papers signed, I joined the Cross Country team quite late and therefore only experienced 3 of these District Meets. Even though running a Cross Country race is very demanding, both physically and mentally, I kind of enjoyed is. Especially the feeling afterwards as I always felt proud to make it over the finish line in a decent time. My overall best time for 5000 meters was 23 minutes and 34 seconds, which is not bad. The feeling during the race isn't really my favourite as everything hurts: your legs, your stomach and you just feel very exhausted.

With my time, I qualified for the Top 10 on the girl's team. The Top 7 girls ran in the following regional and state championship meets and as I was on positions 10, I served as an alternative which means that I would run in case the people in front of me would get sick or could not run for any reason. Therefore I was able to go on the field trip to the State Championship Meet.

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On Friday morning we started our trip to the State Championship location. After we loaded the bus, we started heading to the north of Virginia. In the afternoon, we arrived at the course "Oatlands" and did an easy run to get to know the course better and be ready for tomorrow. I really enjoyed the course, and the scenery around it was beautiful. However, it is hilly in some parts and there is a very steep hill in the last mile which makes the course kind of difficult and exhausting. After our last training session together we went to the hotel, got ready and went out for dinner.

In the morning, we ate our breakfast at the hotel and then headed to the race location. When we arrived there, we set up our tent and started our warm-up. The girls' race took place first, followed by the boys' race. Fortunately, no one was injured, so I didn't have to run myself and cheered on my teammates. After both the races were over, we packed up our things and our tent and drove back to the highschool.

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Joining the sport Cross Country was an amazing decision and I had a great time being on the team. The people on the team, including the coach, were very welcoming people and I made a lot of friends through this sport. I enjoyed the practices, even the hard and exhausting ones, as well as the meets. My favourite part was definitely the trip to the State Championship Meet where I got to support my teammates.

Even if the season and therefore the training is over, I will definitely continue going on my daily runs. This sport, especially during races, showed me how much my body and I are capable of and tought me not to give up, even if things get hard and difficult.

I am very happy and thankful to have been able to experience the Cross Country Season and I can look back on it with a lot of good memories. Thank you for all the support and the good vibes!

Best wishes and see you soon in my next entry!

Julia