Over summer most people were relaxing at home, sleeping in till noon and eating all the junk food they can find. However, this is not the case when it comes to the cross country runners, since the beginning of June the team has been putting in the work. Waking up at 6 a.m. to beat the heat and going on around 8 mile runs most of the days. Although some of the time they could run up to 11-12 miles.

The grind did not stop when the year started, they still run most days out of the school week. As of recently, they have been holding practices after school.

Some of these athletes are doing all the work while still recovering from injuries, one of those recovering is junior Kylie Miller. She has not been letting her hurt foot hold her back, she has been going to the practices, and stacking up on miles right alongside the rest of the team. This non stop mentality has been with her since she first started running all the way back in elementary school, this repetitive training is what the doctors attribute her hurt foot to. As well as doing cross country, Miller along with most of her teammates, also run track and play soccer; however, Miller stopped playing soccer after her freshman year.

This cumulative mileage is what Miller has said took a toll on her body. However despite her hurt foot Miller still expects to do well this year, “I’m looking to break 19 minutes at state, that’s for 3.1 miles (A 5k run).” By the looks of it, she has a good shot of doing it, because even still recovering from her injury she placed 2nd at the teams first meet and then placed 1st out of 65 teams in the team’s second tournament.

Some of her teammates have not been making such a speedy recovery from their injuries. One of those injured is Taylor Lovel, who has just gotten back to her spot as number two on the team after injuring herself 3 months prior.

The reason Lovel has taken so long to recovery, is because of the severity of her injury. She has an issue in her body that made one her muscles stop working, so her knee had to start over compensating. Lovel said that “It made it really painful to even put any pressure on my knee for a while.”

Even with a few of the teams best runners recovering from injuries the girls head cross country coach Bryan Idleman believes; “If they continue to progress like we did in track, then we are definitely in the mix for state.”