The GHS cross country team ran its second meet of their still young season earlier this month. Taking place at a beautiful shady course, Walnut Grove Park, the group used the week before the meet on Sept. 2 to prepare themselves.
Cross country could easily be considered one of the hardest sports. Combining the two difficult factors of distance and time, runners have to be able to go a distance of 3.1 miles at an astonishing speed. On top of the already full plate for these runners, many courses the team runs during the year also contain steep hills.
“I think an important quality a cross country runner needs in order to be successful would be self-mastery,” junior Nathan Sheldon said. “Cross country is such a mentally and physically demanding sport that, in order to get better and be successful, you’ll need to be able to push yourself past your limits in order to do so.”
In a sport like cross country, hard work is not the only vital factor. Consistency is a demand. Practices for cross country progress through the summer to build strength and consistency.
“In the summer, we meet three times a week to run as a team to prepare for the fall season,” Coach Bryce Brunswig said. “Once fall practices start, we practice five days a week. A typical practice involves a warm up jog, warm up drills and stretching, a workout or recovery run, cool down drills and stretching and oftentimes core and push ups.”
Competing alongside Bellevue East, Omaha Mercy and eleven other schools, the team used their time wisely to prepare for the Walnut Grove event.
“I think that, through running, people can learn a wide variety of life lessons such as perseverance, the positive outcome of hard work, overcoming challenges and many more,” sophomore Kelsey Van Waart said. “I personally love running because of the ways it shows you how you can work hard and the results are easy to measure and see your progress.”
The Sept. 2 meet brought many accomplishments for the cross country team. The team beat many personal goals and many runners, such as senior Kalena Ronspies and others, were able to beat personal records and learn even more about the running experience.
“That was one of the best meets I’ve ever had,” sophomore Amelia Onwhiler said. “It was a ton of fun to get to run as a part of the varsity team, and I think that running with varsity runners really pushed me to have the best race I possibly could. My personal record is 24:08, at Walnut Grove.”
