You are out of breath, gasping for air. Your legs are on fire, your vision is going blurry, and you hear head coach James Washington yelling to “get back up there.” This phenomenon is known as the end of a cross-country race. This may have you wondering, why do so many people participate in this sport?
Cross country is consistently one of the largest teams in the school, mainly because there are no cuts. Captain Sonya Chisholm explained why she runs. “I like how I feel when I finish [the race], even if it hurts while I’m actually running,” she said.
Junior Nehla Espiritu-Blackstone said she joined “to make friends and form a community.” While other athletes joined for reasons such as staying fit, P.E. credit, the love of running, being forced by their parents, or, as sophomore Brayden Ford said, “to suffer, I guess.”
Both the boys and girls AHS cross country teams are often dominant forces in the county. This year was no exception. This girl’s season “went well; there were bumps along the way, but we got there in the end,” according to captain and senior Sydney Ventuleth.
The girls finished second in the league behind Fortuna at the league championships and placed 16th at the North Coast Sections. Even with the slightly disappointing finish, they still performed excellently all year. The girls won the Clam Beach Invitational and three out of the five league meets. Besides winning these meets, the best part of the cross country season was the “forest runs with the team,” Ventuleth said.
The boys’ season finished even stronger. “We did great,” senior Gianni Orlandi said. “We won the league, went up a division, and still did well.”
Arcata moved up to division three this year, after countless seasons in division four. This added an extra challenge in sections. The boys finished 10th, a disappointment after their back-to-back top-five finishes in Division Four. Orlandi felt that several factors played a part in this finish.
“Ocean [Walker] could not have torn his hamstring in half,” Orlandi joked. “Evan [Poston] could have figured out how to go sub 16, “but whatever.”
The boys’ team ran great all year, winning the Yohshanny Rahm Invitational, a hill-filled, difficult course in Ukiah, California. That race, like many others, ended with junior Evan Poston finishing first. Poston went on to win the league championships, setting a school record on the Arcata Marsh course in 16:11 over the 5000 meters.
Cross country may seem like an awful sport, filled with boring, painful exercise that nobody would enjoy. But this is clearly not the case. The thrill of racing, the “runner’s high,” and a simple way to hang out with friends or meet new people are the things that draw people to cross country and encourage them to come back.
