“My main advice [to high school runners] would be to have confidence in yourself, especially at their age, they don’t even know their potential. Not to be scared of working hard and committing yourself to the sport. Continue to enjoy it. In a race, don’t be afraid to say, ‘What can I do today? I just want to leave it all out there.’”
“As a head coach, there’s so much you need to balance, but the biggest for the athletes is that balance of being upbeat and positive but still having an intense, serious approach to the sport. I’m serious about my sport, so I want you to be, too. But cross-country is so unique, because you get so many different runners from so many different paths. … It’s important in life to have your fun, but then also, some days you have to get down and work.”
L: “One person that’s inspired me is my dad, because he was really good at sports in high school, and I’ve always wanted to follow up on him and be good at something. … His main thing was just do it for yourself. Running is a big mental sport; you gotta be really headstrong when you’re doing it, and he said, ‘Try not to think about it. Just go for it.’”
R: “My middle school coach, Mr. Alspaugh, was the one who got me started with cross-country and encouraged me to run all summer and all year long to do really well my eighth-grade year. He then encouraged me to help lead the team and make other kids better, too.”
“[Coach Gary Loubert] is everything. He’s the man. He’s always there for me. Sometimes he’s not happy with what I’ve done, but I can find other ways to make him happy, and he’s taught me a lot.”
“It was during the summer of 2013, and we just started—we didn’t even know each other, did we? It was seventh-grade year for us. We wanted to join cross-country, and they said they were doing a ‘square’ that day. And we had no clue what it was. It’s a six-mile run. So we were nervous, and we ran together, and, well … Almost about halfway through—or we thought it was about halfway through—it wasn’t. It was one mile in, and we died. We just stopped. We were walking. We were so out of shape. … We also got pretty lost. Our coach comes around to see who’s still running and picks us up, and we got picked up. And he’s like, ‘Why are you still out here, ya losers?’ He was kidding, he was kidding. … It was our first impression of cross-country, and it wasn’t a good one.”
[They told me the “Square” is not a fun run. It’s not shady, it’s hilly. Then they told me about the “Megasquare”—a nine-mile run.]
Hooray Run 