On Wednesday, September 17, the girls’ cross country took first place in the District Mini meet at their home course, Thomas Harrison Middle School, against the teams of Robert E. Lee, Turner Ashby, and Waynesboro. Senior Nicole Downey contributed to the win with a final place of fifth place in the meet.

Downey is a first year runner on the girls’ cross country team, although she has been consistently running for years now. She was a member of her middle school cross country team at Skyline Middle School for all three years. Downey didn’t continue her cross country career into high school until this year, but she has also been running in the distance races in spring outdoor track since her sophomore year.

“I’ve been running on my own almost every day all through high school so I thought I should probably just join cross country,” Downey said.

Downey has been running on her own for so long because of the benefits she finds for herself in the activity.

“I love how [running] helps me clear my head and when I’ve had a bad day it makes me feel so much better, plus I love being outside,” Downey said.

Downey knew she was going to join the team this year since the beginning of the summer, and so she began her training then.

“I started training in June. [Since] I’ve done track since sophomore year… that’s helped me get to know the team and know how to warm up, race techniques, etc. Summer running six days a week also helped so much so finally racing has been fun,” Downey said.

Downey’s goals for now are to continue improving personally, keep up her team, and hopefully go to states. The cross country team has five more regular season meets before their conference tournament, then regional tournament, and state tournament on November 14th and 15th.

“To make it to states would be so exciting, since it’s my senior year and that would mean I’ve gone to states in four sports,” Downey said.