After their first meet was canceled and the team was unable to participate in the second one, the cross country team ran in their first meet on Sept. 7 at Blue Lake Park for their district preview.

Because of the cancellations, the cross country team’s first race was against themselves. “Not really ideal,” Coach Mikel Rathmann said. “It got something on the board, some measurable time to kind of start our season off, and get some competition albeit against ourselves.”

This season, the boys team is 2-2 in dual meets, and the girls team is 3-1 in dual meets. With three new teams added to the league, making state will be tougher than it has been in past years. “Boys lost to Canby, which is a pretty good team in our league that we are trying to keep up with,” Coach Rathmann said.

In June, they had regularly scheduled practices throughout the month, but once July hit, they only had a few. Even though they didn’t have set practices, they still got together to run a few times which helped once the season started. “I felt like people came in with a better base training this year,” Coach Rathmann said.

Along with all of that, the team also goes on an annual trip to Bend, Oregon for a cross country camp. During the trip, they go for runs, play games, watch movies, and eat a lot of Swedish fish.

A typical practice for the team starts with a warm-up. “Usually steam engines are just warm-ups, to get legs moving,” freshman Evan Laxer said. “And then a 12-minute warm-up, jogging around the farm or around the streets around campus.” The team then moves on to either a workout day or an easy run day. Workout days consist of speed training or tempo run, while on an easy run day they do a 45-minute run. They finish the practice with a cool down and stretches.

During the cross country meet at Meriwether Golf course on Sept. 16, five members of the boys cross country team ran the course in under 18 minutes — the first time this has been done since 2018 within the team. “To have five under 18 there was really exciting,” Coach Rathmann said. 

Additionally, the team has traditions: saying a prayer led by Coach Rathmann before each race and having four team dinners throughout the season, each before the team’s Wednesday league meets.

Along with these traditions, the girls cross country team participates in secret sisters, where each member of the team secretly gets another member a gift. “It’s a fun little reward after the meet. You get ready to go home and you get to pick up a little gift with some of your favorite treats inside of it,” senior Marieka Kaufman said.

The bus rides back from meets are a highlight for junior Sean Snow, as they sing songs by Katy Perry and Taylor Swift. “We get the entire team singing on the bus ride back,” he said.

The cross country team has a goal of making it to state this year. After they make it to state, Coach Rathmann would like to see the boys jump into the top 10 at state, and for the girls to move up from 8th in the state as well. 

Each team member also has their own goals, such as achieving a PR in each race. 

As well as achieving a PR, Kaufman would like to work on her mentality. “I’m trying to focus less this year on how I do compared to others and more on cheering on the rest of my teammates and watching how they improve,” she said. 

Cross country members have also set individual goals on their running time. “My individual goals are breaking 17 minutes for a 5k,” Snow said.

Snow, Rathmann, and Kaufman all said their favorite thing about cross country is the community within the team and how it is very strong and supportive. “Whoever is not running is screaming on the side of the course,” Kaufman said.