Just a few days ago, I found myself at Burtner Farm, my home away from home, running the last flagpole workout of my high school running career. Arctic winds nipped my ears, fingers and nose, and made the rain soaking through my cotton shirt ten times colder. As I wheezed to get to the top of a hill, only two thoughts prevailed in my mind: “This sucks” and “Why?”

Why was I doing this? Why was I spending the first frigid, miserable afternoon of Fall running circles around a God-forsaken field, when I could be snuggled up in fuzzy socks and my pajamas at home?

As I finish up my ninth running season, I still have yet to answer that question.

After two seasons of running in middle school, I decided to keep running cross country in high school. As someone who was born a preemie three months early, my lungs are smaller than that of an average teenager. I figured running would be a great way to keep my lungs and my body in shape. I also didn’t need any hand-eye coordination, tons of expensive gear, or the strength to bench my body weight. I’m not going to lie, running cross country may be one of the hardest things I have done in my life. There are no shortcuts, my shins and knees have taken brutal beatings, and hard work is the only way to ever improve. But in the end, running cross country has been the absolute greatest part of my high school experience. The friendships that I have made are unreal, and nothing is more soothing to the soul than a long run after a bad day in school. There are few things out there that are more rewarding than finishing a race (and nearly puking up your pre-race banana) and knowing that, regardless of the place you finished or if you medaled or not, you gave it your all.

It’s a common misconception that running is about who wins, but in reality, it’s a team sport. You need a strong seven runners to win a meet, not just a strong number one. There can only be seven varsity runners on a team, and yet our team this year is the biggest it has ever been. I come to practice, along with 26 other girls, even though I know that I have no chance of ever getting one of those competitive varsity spots. I used to get discouraged if my time was never as fast as someone else’s or I didn’t place in a race, but now I don’t. I run to be a part of a team, to make friends, and improve week in and week out. I run cross country, despite all the hard parts, because I gain so much more than I sacrifice. It’s the people, my crazy cross country family that is always there for me, through every workout and every race, and every step of high school.

The HHS Lady Navy is a peculiar bunch. We bond through summer practices, belting out musical numbers, harassing the freshman boys, flattering tips out of people at volleyball games, carbo-loading at team dinners, team sleepovers and dying red streaks into the back of our heads, Coach’s impossible ball core, car rides to the Gorge, tons of ice packs, workouts at the Farm and a ridiculous infatuation of Spandex and pre-wrap. These girls are the people that know what it’s like to push yourself to your physical limit. They know exactly how you feel when you tear through the finish chute at the end of a race, because they have felt it too. We train together and we race together, we have pasta dinners together and we fall to the ground from exhaustion together. We’re a family.