A different breed....

What is Cross Country Running?

To sum it up in a handful of words: distance, endurance, perseverance, achievement.

The detailed version:  HERE

1999.... Fall of Freshmen Year

I had enjoyed 7th and 8th grade track so much, I decided to go out for Cross Country when I entered high school. Aaron & Travis were there too. I made the varsity team! If I remember right, Travis did too. I varsity lettered my freshman year, and my Sophomore year, although it was better earned my freshman year. We had 60some runners on the team both years in a school of just short of 400 students! That was a BIG team. It was a FUN team! 

I remember one race, my shoes came untied so I kicked them off on the course and finished the race in my socks!!

I remember trading team shirts with other teams.

I remember the HUGE JACKRABBIT of the OGALLALA golf course! He might of had prongs, I'm not sure.

One of my, we won't call it a regret, but a "wish I had done differently" things from my past is that I wish I would have stuck with cross country all 4 years of high school. My Junior and Senior years I decided to work instead. Great for getting my first car and whatever all else I bought, but did not replace the life lessons you learn from sports. 

My last running event before my hiatus was fall of my Sophomore year of High School in 2000. My next event would not be until after having my 4th child in 2012!

I am a runner.....

One day 15 years ago my best friend and boyfriend said they were going to go out for track. I asked, "what's track?" They said "running". Hmmmm, that really didn't sound appealing at the time, but where there was an Aaron, there was Kandi and where there was an Aaron and Kandi, there was a Travis. We were inseparable and if they were going to go out for track, they expected I was going to go out for track. I wasn't about to miss out either. So, come March, I signed up and began my first ever running regiments. I was in 7th grade in 1998 and it turned out I ROCKED at it. I could lap people in the mile! I could run the mile in under 7 minutes! I was on a relay team that set a record! I absolutely loved it! For two years I ran the mile, the 1200, the 4x4 relay and threw discus as my events. Aaron, Travis and I would run an average of 6-8 miles a day....for fun. 

My very first track meet I was finally called for my first event, the 1200. I was in position on the line at a country school track in the middle of the open plains in the middle of Nebraska. I watched lightning strike a mile or so away and watched the clouds boil low and dark across the cornfields. There was a low dipping cloud, a wall cloud, in the distance. I told my coach that I thought I saw a funnel cloud (to me back then, a wall cloud was a funnel cloud, not the coud a funnel dropped from). Coach told me it wasn't, they would call it for that (forget the lightning getting closer, but there really wasn't a lot of thunder).

I decided, okay, if you say so. My parents didn't come to this first event, so I didn't have Dad to back me. I got into position again on the starting line where we were still stalled and standing. Instead of the gun going of to start the race, an announcement bellowed over the speakers instead for all teams to pack up and load up, the meet was being called on account of weather. I hadn't eaten since a light lunch and my blood sugar was getting low at this point, so I went to try the concession stand. They had already shut down and headed out though. Another look at the clouds told me why. They were blackish-green and the low cloud was wrapping now. I went to coach again who said they had called a tornado warning but not to say it loudly. "So......we are just going to sit here.....on the bus? In the middle of open country? That seems safe." Coach said, well there isn't anywhere else to go. We will wait it out. We sat there eating popcorn for around 20 minutes until someone either decided we needed a safer spot or that the storm had moved out of our way. 

That there was my first running event experience.