Cross country running

It was the day of the Larz Anderson Invitational 2014. After the surprisingly normal day of school, the Park School cross country team headed towards Larz Anderson. We walked outside as a team and the air was dry and cold. The strong breeze sent chills down my spine and swept the orange leaves from side to side. Upon arrival, I saw the vast number of my competitors. Many of the runners were runners that had beaten me in the past season, and even as recently as the past week. These runners were…

In my whole life, it never ran through my head, that I would fall in love with running and especially that I would be considered a valuable asset for the team. When I started in freshman year, the only reason I joined was because I heard that involvement during high school would make your college application stand out. I started out…

4:45 a.m.: Caitlyn Muncher springs out of bed, grabs a protein bar and her gym bag, brushes her teeth, and heads to meet her team for their first practice of the day. 5:30 a.m.: The University of West Alabama's triathlon team loads a university van and disembarks on their way to Meridian for swim practice in Meridian Community College’s heated in-door swimming pool. 8:13 a.m.: The team arrives back on campus and Muncher quickly showers in her dorm room at Gilbert Hall, then races to Young Hall…

Death. The loss of someone can weaken us from despair or strengthen us from the legacy left behind them. The savage murder of clutter family members created vigilance in the inhabitants of Holcomb and strengthened security. However, suspiciousness among neighbors rose, mistrust corrupted long lasting friendships and fear contaminated in the veins of the inhabitants. The murder of the Clutters strengthened Holcomb from vigilance, but weakened the mistrust of their neighbors. Despite handling the…

blades of grass were still wet from the morning dew and the dirt turned into mud. The confident chattering of the nearby teams coupled with the cold stares only worsened the situation. The pressure was on: it was my schools second track meet and my running coach expected my team to beat our personal records. This ultimatum would have not seemed so daunting had my team, the Girls Throwing team, had a coach. Thanks to the stellar planning by our school administrators we were left with no one to…

Cross country is a sport that many people will probably never experience. Most believe it is too difficult of a sport for them, or that they would never make it to the finish line before giving up. However, what these people might fail to understand is that they endure a cross country race every day of their lives. Cross country races are just like an average work day. Every day people wake up and repeat their morning routines over and over again. They shower, brush their teeth, comb…

Besides teaching, I started a cross country program at the school. Unfortunately, because of the low number of boys in the school and their overall lack of interest in competing, I was only able to initially begin a girls team. Leading the team was the daughter of the man who had originally informed me about the opening at the school. But, pleasantly what I soon found out was there was a virtual all-star team of girl runners at that school in grades six, seven, and eight which translated into…

State meet with the rest of my Cross Country team. The boys team was going that year and I was in the top seven who had to run. It was nerve racking for me considering I was only in sixth grade and I was running with a bunch of older kids who are in seventh and eighth grade. It was going to be incredibly hard for me, but I took a deep breath and sat down in my seat. I had felt an uneasy feeling in the air as we took off towards my painful, hard, and exhausting running experience that I will…

Running has been apart of my life ever since I can remember, my mom and my grandmother have inspired me so much with this sport. It all started when I won my first race in third grade, that was the moment when I really fell in love with running. My sophomore year of cross country is when my running career came to a stop because of my shin hurting, at first I thought it was just shin splints because I had been running hard for the two weeks prior. Then the pain lasted for three weeks and…

my classes, by explaining what each was. Once I knew what each class was, I started to think to myself of all the classes I could engage in. Playing sports was one thing that came across my intellectuality that day. Finally after meditating, cross country was my preferential…