Out of the Starting Blocks

This afternoon Carter had his first run with the cross-country team so there's no turning back now!

Officially, practice doesn't start until Monday, but today, tomorrow and Friday, any student can participate in an "open run"... similar to open gym, but they just, well, run. As it turned out, not many students were in the mood to run today.

For the boys, Carter and 2 of the 3 classmates who plan to do cross country were there. These 2 were the ones who coerced, well suggested, Carter join the team so I half expected to hear tales of them speeding off in the distance and leaving our favorite beginner in the dust. But, as it turned out, they haven't been training much either so those 3 are pretty evenly matched. Good for them but not good for the team. Right?

The boys did not make the whole 3 miles today without walking. I have a witness who saw them walking on the bridge -- less than a mile from their finish at school. Hubby was driving by to go to the chiropractor and yelled out the window, "Finish strong, boys!" That got them moving again.

I will understand this sport more next week when practices start. I mean what do you do at practice twice, yes twice, a day besides run? I suppose conditioning or cross training of some sort? I'll be interested to see. Also, I wasn't sure if there was a varsity and JV team. But apparently there are less than 10 boys total going out for high school cross country at Assumption so Carter may automatically be running varsity. Good lord.

I think there is a lot more girls going out. Double good lord. Ha. Maybe Carter can't catch them anyway! But it could be an incentive.

So this will be an interesting new fall sport for us. Nothing at all like soccer or football. Hubby did run it one year in high school so he at least has a glimpse of what it entails. But of course, a lot can change in 30 years.

One thing that hasn't changed: Probably still a good idea to get a good jump out of the starting blocks (they don't even use those, I know)... and finish strong!