On Friday, Aug. 26, the cross country team drove to Wildflower Country Club at Temple to compete in what was their first cross country meet of the school year.

The varsity and JV teams went to Belton to compete in their first major meet of the season. Many schools ranging from 1A to 6A schools attended the meet. The varsity members ran the three-mile event, while JV members ran two miles. To prepare for the race, many cross country members have been training with brutal runs early in the morning.

Both Lloyd Page ‘17 and Zach Shrull ‘19 were runners in this meet, with respective times of 18 minutes, 32.6 seconds, and 18:01.4 in the three-mile event. They each have had their own experiences in cross country so far. For them, as rewarding as winning an event is, the practice that it takes is painful.

Other members such as Caroline Gillispie ‘18 ran the race in 21:04.3 and Charles Larrouilh ‘17 ran it in 18:22.10.

“Probably [the hardest part about cross country is] the really long runs, or the times when we run later, because it gets really hot out, and six miles makes it hard to go through it all,” Shrull said.

Shrull is not the only one who has these feelings; his fellow runners feel the same. Page has his own mentality when he is running these practice runs.

“Keep going, keep going, and just keep running,” Page said. “It’s painful, it’s honestly painful to run for many years even when it is so easy to call it quits.”

The practice all shows during the meets, especially when the runners cross the finish line.

“It feels really great knowing that you practiced all week,” Shrull said. “Finishing it knowing that you finished well is pretty great.”

It’s not just crossing the finish line that is the most rewarding according to Page. For Page, the most satisfying part is seeing his times go down every year.

“In freshman year I ran a 5K in about 21.5 minutes and now it is 18,” Page said. “Each year as it goes down is really rewarding.”

These are the rewards that make Shrull and Page love cross country, but what made each one originally join cross country is different.

“I chose to run cross country because all my friends are doing it, and also because I did it in middle school, and I really enjoyed it in middle school. Also my mom ran, and she was kind of an influence to run cross country,” Shrull said.

In the end, the most important thing is just doing well. The cross country team will be running again on Friday, Sept. 2 at Walter E. Long Lake.