Nos. 73, 74 & 75 [Runners]

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No. 71
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“[Steve Prefontaine] just wanted it more. He wasn’t afraid to lead. If he wanted to win it, he was gonna win it.”

“What do you love about running?”

“It’s just so much fun, and you get to meet a bunch of really great people, and it’s a great community.”

“What’s the best piece of running advice you’ve ever received?”

“Run your own race.”

“As for the teams we’re facing, just go and get them. Be better than them.”

“Do you remember what got you into running?”

“When I was younger, I had a really mean, bad baseball coach. He made me end up quitting that sport, and my sister ran, and I said, Well, I don’t want to deal with him as a coach, so I might as well try something else. That’s what got me into running. So if it wasn’t for that guy being the way he was, I wouldn’t have gotten into running.”

Nos. 70, 71 & 72 [Runners]

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No. 70
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“Perry. It was out in the middle of nowhere, by the side of a highway. It was right next to a mobile home park in the middle of the woods. I mean, it was all uphill and downhill. And it rained the night before, so it was all mud, and we were crawling up and down the hills. This one hill, we went to the bottom, and it’s all mud, and you have to get on your hands and knees to crawl back up. … No one PR’d that day. We just went there and had fun.”

“Did your coach give you any advice before the race?”

“Use the hills. Use the hills to your advantage. Yeah, and he said just be careful not to fly off into the bushes. … After the race, we went to that [muddy] hill and did it a couple more times, just crawling back up it.”

No. 69 [Runners]

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No. 69
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“Traverse City West and Central have like 50-inch TVs in their hallways.”

“So what made you start this exploring of schools when you got to the meets?”

“We had to go to the bathroom. We don’t like going in the Port-a-Johns, so we went into the school to the bathroom. We just expanded off of that.”

“Is there something you have to do before every race, like a routine?”

“We can’t be negative, whatsoever. We have to do pushups if we are.”

“I always have to wear compression shorts. In those short shorts, I don’t need to be blinding people.”

“Gotta work on the thigh tan in the summer, ya know?”

“Yup, that’s my next project.”

“Do you like your home course?”

“Everything but the hill.”

“I like it because we practice on it, so we’re conditioned for every other place that’s out there. No one has a hill that bad, so we’re ready for whatever.”

“No hill like the Ogemaw hill. What keeps you running every day?”

“I did it yesterday, so I can do it again today.”

No. 68 [Runners]

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No. 68
Photo by James Rogers

This group finds substantial fun in growing together as teammates. A couple of them run cross-country to prep for wrestling season. I was given a couple inspirational quotes:

“Pain is weakness leaving the body. When I start to hurt while running, I think, Hey, that’s weakness, and it’s leaving my body!”

“Sweat is fat crying.”