For the past 4 years I have spent 2 hours 6 days a week running with my NNHS teammates during cross country. I have indulged in the traditions of pasta parties, pumpkin carving, and every pre-race tradition that the program has to offer. This week I put on our bright orange jersey for the last time as a cross country athlete. I must say I shed some tears, as this team has basically been my family for the past 4 years. While I still have track season to go, I want to indulge in some nostalgic memories of mine from the past 4 seasons. These stories, laughs, and memories are what have made my high school experience so special. So without further ado, here is my cross country appreciation post with some of my favorite memories!

First up is Freshman year! The biggest meet that Naperville North hosts is called Twilight.

 This race is my personal favorite because almost all of the races are run in the dark! Freshman year was especially unique because of the sunset that covered the sky that night. This picture is probably my favorite of all of them because I remember it so vividly. I am not only going to miss this meet, but I am going to miss sprinting around the course cheering for my teammates! Twilight showed me how supportive everyone is on the team and reminded me to stay in the moment and realize how special a single sunset can really be.

Next is sophomore year! This picture is from when we won State for the 4th consecutive

 time. It was a really close race, and we didn’t know if we had won until almost 20 minutes after the race had ended. While I did not run in the race myself, this day showed me how strong of a bond that all of my teammates and I have. The seven people that ran that race did so knowing they had a team of 60 other girls supporting them, and that every single person on the team had worked for that trophy. This reminds me of how cross country conditioned me to work as hard and push others at the same time in order to not only achieve my goals, but help others around me reach theirs.

In spite of Covid, cross country still managed to weave its way into my Junior year. This picture was taken when the team carved pumpkins to line the NNHS course. Due to many teams refusing to host meets, several of the races were forced to be held at North, and everyone was begging for something to change up the monotonous course. This resulted in our annual pumpkin carving tradition to be put on display!  I carved a runner into mine and my friend, Anna carved in the letters XC for cross country. This still stands as the best pumpkin I have ever carved (haha I’m not very artistic), and this year showed me how to deal with adversity in even the most unprecedented of times.

Finally, Senior year has definitely been my favorite year of cross country! This picture is at the top of a mountain in Eagle Harbor, Michigan. My teammates and I ran 4 miles up this massive hill, and it was by far the hardest race I have ever run; however, it is one of the best memories that I have because my coach, Mr. Iverson did it with us after having a double knee replacement a year prior. It really reminded me of how tough and relentless cross country has taught me to be. 

This sport has given me more memories than I could have ever imagined. It has given me friends I will never forget, priceless laughs, and lessons in self-motivation and determination that will go unmatched by anything else I will ever encounter. It fostered my passion for running and encouraged me to live in the moment, work hard, and do what I love, so from the bottom of my heart, thank you NNHS cross country for some of the best people, lessons, and memories that I will never forget!

“You only need the light when it’s burning low, only miss the sun when it starts to snow,”. This chorus taken from “Let Her Go”, a popular song by Passenger, disguises a breakup as a more relatable life lesson to listeners of all ages. The lyrics convey how people often take their present situation for granted by always wishing for a better circumstance. This lesson pops into the lives of many people, whether they realize it themselves or are repeatedly reminded by friends and family; however, this numbing repetition often pushes that scenario in one ear out the other, until provoked by larger changes. Personally, those changes emerged on March 13th, 2020 and continue to taint my everyday life, a whirlwind of normal activities now filled with Covid precautions. 

As 8th hour concluded that Friday in March, I collected my things and nudged my way through the chaotic hallways of North in order to head to the locker room to get dressed for track practice. As everyone remembers, those frenzied corridors were not only due to the fact that it was Friday, rather the district had announced school was shutting down for two weeks because of a new concept called the Corona Virus. Expecting to stretch normally, I changed clothes and headed upstairs to the athletic hallway, but my teammate, Anna, flagged me down and pointed to the large gathering of teammates surrounding my coach. Little did I know this would be the final team meeting of my sophomore track season. Usually, practice was never cancelled. The track and cross country teams’ will to improve in both running and life reaches farther than things like rain or snow, and we take pride in that, even by calling ourselves all-weather women; therefore this determination only intensified the feeling of shock caused by all the immediate cancellations. The track team’s ability to work together in such an individual sport is another strength of ours. It is a rare occurrence that Mr. Iverson gives a speech without explaining that “Amazing things happen when the eightieth person on the team is working with and to be the seventy ninth person and when the seventy ninth is working to be the seventy eighth…”. This meeting was no exception. “You all know a main part of our mission statement is working together to make each other better; however, we have never had this situation before, so it will be difficult, but we have to figure out a way to work together without being together,” Mr. Iverson said, laughing at the irony of his statement. My friends and I exchanged concerned glances due to the fact that our strong team unity had somehow been dismantled. 

Eventually, those two weeks turned into three months. I originally assumed that upholding my motivation would be simple; however, this was far from correct. As I ran down the streets of my neighborhood, the pounding of my feet became louder and louder with each day that passed where I didn’t have anyone with which to run. I found myself surprised with the amount of self doubt I was experiencing. I realized that I was only focusing on things that were going wrong, like the inability to hit paces or psyching myself out, rather than what was going well. Without someone there saying, “You got this!” or “Stay strong!”, I discovered that nothing came close to the encouragement of teammates to extract me from that mindset. Self doubt proved to me that I allowed that appreciation for my teammates slip by in the monotony of in-person practice, and now those opportunities to express it had disappeared. Overall, this unprecedented part of my life opened my eyes to the fact that I can’t overlook the impact of a “Stick with me, I know you can” from a teammate because that is what generates positive workouts and environments. More holistically, I can’t focus on the “Sun when it starts to snow” or the “Light when it’s burning low”. I have to appreciate what is going well in that moment because those things not only assist one in overcoming challenges, but are the aspects that are greatly missed when they fade away.

I think we can all agree that Covid taught us something about ourselves. Personally, it showed me how every moment is a gift, and I need to treat life that way. Especially with Senior year flying by, it can be easy to get wrapped up in the stress of college applications or the crazy amount of homework that everyone is dealing with, but if Covid has taught me anything, it is that I should strive to realize that I am going to miss those moments once they are gone. My Senior year mindset has been boiled down to this: the goal isn’t to just push through to graduation, rather it is to make myself realize that I am going to miss sitting in classes with my friends or going to football games while I am actually experiencing those situations because that is how to guarantee the best memories with no regrets.