Frosty & Fanatical

Fanatic: A person marked or motivated by an extreme, unreasoning enthusiasm, as for a cause. 

Never let it be said that cross country doesn't have its share of excitement and loyal fans -- especially at the state level of competition!

Today was the State Cross Country meet at the Ridges Golf Course in Wisconsin Rapids. It's a nice central location for most school districts and especially convenient for us, less than 5 minutes away.

As usual, we offer up the Austin Shuttle Service for out of town friends trekking to Rapids to see family or friends compete. This year we only had one taker -- some friends from Madison. They park at our house and hubby drives them over and picks them up. Then they don't have to ride a shuttle bus to some parking lot. Hubby also dropped Carter off at the start of the day and me off before the girls ran.

Carter had to get there early to get his "makeup" on. He and the other freshman cross country runners and an 8th-grade runner braved the 40-degree temps and made friends with body paint. Above, you see Carter got the C for Cara, one of our two Assumption girls running today.

Haley was the other runner and the guys later painted her name and letters on their backs, too, but then couldn't figure out how to stand in order without one of the names being spelled backwards. Nope, they didn't think it through! Still, it was great to see such dedication to their teammates.

Haley (left) ended up finishing 19th overall for the girls Division III run and Cara finished 58th. Not bad!

None of our boys made the cut this year. But before the girls race, their coach put his arms around Carter and a teammate and reminded them, "This is what it's all about, boys!" I hope next year we'll see a few of them fully clothed and running with a race number on their bellies instead of paint.

Either way, I'm sure we'll all be there to show our school spirit in one form of Royal Blue or another.

Go Royals!