Andrea LastName

Like many others I have been part of many things throughout my life. Some things I was involved with for many years and others just for a couple of months. One of the activities that I was involved in for pretty long was cross country. I started freshman year of highschool after a friend had recommended it to me at a Christmas party the year before. I hadn’t thought much of it, but when the summer rolled around, my mom mentioned it and I signed up. Just to stay in shape. I tried to get some of my friends to sign up with me and although they agreed to do it, they never showed up. That was no matter though because plenty of other people whom I recognized decided to join too and I didn’t feel like a stranger.

Right away XC was good. It started with early morning summer runs at the park which I really enjoyed. Sure, waking up was hard and I was late to the majority of the practices, but via these runs I discovered how much I appreciated the activity. By the time the summer was over and the season had started, I was too injured to run. I had unfortunately run without stretching properly and acquired a stress fracture. Even though I was no longer actively running in XC, this new hobby became very important to me. By the end of freshman year, I ran in 3 races. The season felt short but I made close friends that stuck with me ‘till the end of Highschool and I had become enveloped in competitiveness .

For the rest of the 3 years I remained a part of the team. During sophomore year, I was determined and competitive; I made the varsity team and it was exciting. Junior year, I was still very involved with XC and races continued to be very exciting. Also, Junior year, I became less concerned with improving my PR and instead began to focus on the team’s success. Unfortunately moving into senior year, corona regulations prevented me from being able to run with my closer friends on the team. I also was not as competitive anymore so I pushed myself less. I had a more carefree attitude by then. There was less adrenaline surrounding the races but still plenty of pleasure from being a part of them. My memories from this era of my life are all wonderful, in fact even as soon as now, when I look back on high school, the most prevalent memories are those of XC. I will try to get back to running now that I'm no longer a part of the team, and while I'm sure I'll enjoy it, I know that the feelings I got from that Highschool XC experience is something I'll never be able to recreate.