Run Forrest Run!

100+ teenage girls stretch, do practice sprints and get ready on the sideline of a soccer field. Meanwhile, one lonely guy on a bike gets ready in the middle of the same field. After some brief instructions to the girls, a starter pistol fires, and all 100+ girls start chasing the guy on the bike, Samantha being one of them.

It sounds like a scene from EFY.


Samantha surprised me this year by deciding that she wanted to join the cross country team instead of being in marching band. Rachael thinks there must be some ulterior motive (read: cute guy on the cross country team). Samantha assures me that this is not the case, but won't admit that there is one single cute guy on the face of the planet.

We went to watch her run this past Friday at the Tigard invitational. I talked to Samantha a little bit before she ran and asked here what her goal for the day was. She said she wanted to to the 3-mile course in less than 26 minutes. That didn't seem too aggressive, since the last time I watched her compete she did better than that.

Cross country isn't much of a spectator sport. You have to do a little running yourself to get from one part of the course to another to catch a glimpse of the racers. During the course of a 3-mile race, you may get to witness all of about 1-minute of the action, and that only if you're willing to break a sweat.

At the start of the junior varsity race, we watched Samantha run out of sight very near the head of the pack, around number 10. At the first subsequent point where we watched her go by, she had dropped back to around number 20. I was a little concerned that she had been to aggressive in the beginning and gassed. At the next spot, she had moved up one or two spots and was still looking good. The last place I saw her was about 2/3 into the race. She was holding her own at number 17, with a pretty big pack of girls right behind her.

We moved over to the finish area, and before long, the girls in the lead started to trickle in. Then there was Samantha. She had managed to move to number 16 and had a very good kick to the end, not allowing anyone to pass her. She finished with a time of 23:10, about two minutes better than her previous best. To put that in context, the girl's varsity winner ran the course in 18:45.

Number 16 on the JV race may not sound that impressive, but I was amazed. Six weeks ago, I didn't even know she liked to run. I'm really proud of this girl. She's got a little motor in her that just doesn't quit, whether it be cross country, basketball, flute, school, etc.

As for the guy on the bike, he made it through unscathed. He'd better watch out next time, I saw some girls messing with his bike.