“I started running two seasons ago.
I was lifting weights (at the school) during the summer, and I was sitting on the couch afterwards waiting for my mom to pick me up, and my friends on the cross country team walked by.
They were like ‘hey you should join cross country’ as kind of a joke because they only had four guys for a varsity team and they needed a fifth guy.
So I thought about it. I’d never really run a mile in my life. I was like ‘what’s the worst that can happen, I get slower?’.
So I showed up the next day to practice. I don’t know if they actually expected me to show up, but they were very excited, and so was the Coach Amy Kline.
I came from never running, so I was kind of in shock. It was really hard. The first meet, I think I got like 30 minutes (in his first 5k race). I was really slow at first.
I kept shaving off my minutes. The first season I shaved off like seven minutes, I think I ended with 22 at sectionals.
I did track and basketball that year too. I wasn’t as serious in off season training as I am now, but I did run some.
I had a busy summer but would just try to get runs in. I would run down our road a lot.
The next season came pretty fast.
We actually gained two more people this season (freshman)
It was really fun. Since I got the basics of running down from last season, I really enjoyed fine-tuning my running skills and working on different things I didn’t do before.
I think my pr was around 20:30 (this year), which I am really excited about
I love it, running is my main thing now, and I’m super grateful for my XC team and coach Klein taking me under their wing. I can’t thank them enough. The thing I love about running is that the only way to get better is to be persistent.”