R: “I really like Alexi Pappas, mainly because she’s just different. Not many people know her; she’s not too big. She’s not like Mary Cain. I know that she’s friends with Jordan Hasay, and I really like Jordan Hasay, too. I just really like their friendship. And I like how [Alexi] does the steeplechase.”
L: “My inspiration is my boyfriend. He’s here today to race. He got me to keep running, because I wanted to quit.”
“I brought a flag just so that, when my teammates were running by, they could see that and know that we were out there supporting them.”
“Did you make the flag yourself?”
“Yes I did.”
“Out of what?”
“A few years ago I ran a 5K—my town has a little festival, and they had a 5K, so I turned [the race’s] shirt inside-out and made a flag out of it. The pole is a broomstick.”
“Who would you say is your biggest running inspiration?”
“My sister really got me to start running. She was the first person in our family to really start running, and everybody else in my family after her just kept running.”
“After Portage, we had team bonding. The girls went and had a sleepover at a girl’s house, and then the boys decided just to do their own thing. First what happened is we tried to go scare the girls—it didn’t really work. We really didn’t do much, and we just kinda said, ‘Oh hey, what’s up?’ and left. After that, we went back to the other guy’s house, and I left, but the other guys slept over. The next morning, they woke up, and their cars were just covered with tampons. They were all over the street, in everyone’s yards. This kid got a whole bunch of paint chipped off his car.”
“So when you next saw the girls team, how was it?”
“It was really upsetting. We made some fake threats that we were gonna call the police, just to see what they would do. We still haven’t gotten them back yet. Tell them to watch their backs.”
“I lost my shoe during the first 200-400 meters of the race. Finished in 27:18.”
Hooray Run 