"There's No Water Pressure. I Swear To God."

I just got back from the William and Mary invitational in Williamsburg VA which was quite amazing. The race was, well, bleh but everything else was great. We left at about 10:30 am on Friday which meant all the runners got out of class which was a perfect start to the day. Goldielocks and I got the back of the bus and we played cards and such for about an hour. It really didn't take very long for us to get bored. Bug stopped us for lunch around half way there. It was a McDonalds I think. Yuck. Goldielocks, Grizzly and I went to the Blimpie across the street. The rest of the bus ride was rather uneventful. Sparker, Mohammad, Goldielocks, Jewl, Jew-Balie, Clopp and Gardenboy played silent football or something and though up all of these horrid punishements for the ones who lost. It was really amusing watching spark play Mr. Commissionermissioner.

Pretty much within a minute of arriving at the course we were out and running. It was nice to have an easy workout that was done after we finished the course. When we finally got to our hotel we were assigned out rooms. I got a room with Gardenboy, A-shroad, Jew-Balie, and Spark. Naturally we all fought for the shower and naturally, I got last. The room was too small to pack 5 guys in. It had two beds and hardly any floor space after we piled all of our stuff. After rushing out of a 4 minute shower I ran to get on the bus to go get dinner at Olive Garden. As it turns out, 3 other teams or so got there right before us so we had a nice little wait. We were finally called in to our relaxing (not) dinner. The second any food hit the table, it was gone. Everything settled once we got our food.

After the dinner Coach took us to a Food Lion/ Rite Aid to get food for the next day if we needed it. Clopp somehow managed to find Halloween costumes that fit him and everyone else. So everyone just had to get them. I didn't need anything so I decided to wait on the bus. But I saw Clopp running around scaring people so I figured I would hide under the seats and scare him. When he finally came running down the lane I grabbed his leg and he screamed louder than anything I have ever heard. He laughed at me and told me to stay there and do it to other people. As it turns out, second time isn't a charm. I tripped Gardenboy and he freaked and started kicking me. Smooth.

Once everyone had got back to the hotel we ran around like the bunch of teenagers we are and scared eachother and pigged out. The girls team brought out a game they had made up at camp and A-shroad tried to get us all to play. I had no idea what it was and walked blindly into it. Hah, well at least it was fun. I'll explain the rules. All the guys count off odd and all the girls even and once thats done everyone sits in a circle boy girl. One person sits in the middle and they call an even and an odd number. Depending on who is even and odd the opposite has to try to kiss the one in the middle on the cheek. The cheek Mother. But the odd number has to defend the person by kissing the attacker on the cheek. The first round didn't go so well. Gardenboy only heard defend so the second Lizzard tried to kiss A-shroad he just shoved her out of the way into a wall. As you might expect everyone laughed and Gardenboy just asked what he had done wrong. After this first mishap though, everything else went fine. We probably played for an hour. It's a surprisingly fun game. Try it some time.

We were finally called to go to bed. I think our room was up till 11:30 or so. Talking about, well, everything. A couple of times Spark "flying tuna'ed" us as he called it and A-shroad did it a couple of times too. Gardenboy turned the air conditioning all the way up figuring it would be hot. Hah, not the case. Jew-Balie took all the blankets off of my side and I froze half the night. We all slept pretty well though. The next morning we went out and got bagels and took out leasiurely showers.

Finally, it was time to go to the race. Since I was one spot off of varsity I was the alternate and ran JV which as it turns out was at 9:00 am. The first race of the day. Ugh, the start was ok but the middle was horrid. Gardenboy and I went out quite fast with a 6:10 mile. But that wasn't fast enough for the course we were running. When we finally hit the woods Gardenboy pulled ahead and got caught inbetween huge packs of people. I had similar difficulties. People just bunched up in front of me and either slow jogged or walked. WALKED! ~Sigh~ my mile dropped to a 7:20. When I finally got out of those God-forsaken woods I took off as fast as my legs would take me, trying to catch back up. John had gotten a substantial lead on me. Probably about 200 meters. The last mile blazed, I moved and moved. When the finish finally came up I slowly started to push my pace and with that small effort on the second of the 4 turns to the finish I caught 16 people. Once I hit the second to last one I took off into a full sprint at Gardenboy. Comming around the final turn I finally got him. I got him! Just barely, he came in 4 seconds behind me.

The people at the chute weren't very compassionate. "Keep running" and "Move! Get out of the way!" What the heck? You go run a 5k and I'm gonna yell at you to keep going. Jesus. Apparentally my time of 19:49 just wasn't enough. I came in 1st out of HHS JV, but I came in 106th for the race. The other races went as well as they could. Our JV girls did as good as they could, Varsity girls got Cathrine in the top 25, Varsity guys got Clopp in something like 15th. Over all the I came in 7th on the team which means I have my varsity spot back.

We raced back to the hotel to take showers before we had to rent the rooms again. With our amazing luck, there was not enough water pressure to get the showers to work. All the guys excapt Goldielocks and I decided that the pool was the best decision for getting clean. ~sigh~ I waited for them to come back in the hall. The girls had the same trouble it seems. I figured they might be the ones who had enough brains to realize swimming in the middle of September wasn't a good idea. But no. "Oh! Lets go get in the pool!" I heard one of them say. Oh god. I am surrounded by xc runners. Yeah, I got drafted. I jumped in the pool. In the middle of September. It would have been great, except the water looked like it hadn't been cleaned in months. Ah well.

The bus ride back wasn't so entertaining. I had a head ache and it was too hot in the back. I'm actually still flushed and hot 3 hours later. I managed to sleep in a bus seat for a little while. When Goldielocks woke me up we had stopped for dinner at a small shopping center. Goldielocks and I went to this Chinese resturant which was very good. But trying to eat it on the bus wasn't the best idea. The rest of the ride home was rather subdued. People talked and played some cards. But over all it was the end of a long two days. I managed to drift off to dream world while still being conscious with my eyes open. I was just stairing out the window and was letting my thoughts drift. Suddenly about an hour later I "woke up." It was an odd feeling. We got back and carried the tent and coolers inside and such.

And now, here I am. Catching up with my life.


It was a good weekend. Xc team, you guys are amazing.
Clopp Cathrine
Mohammad DV-Scott
A-shroad Lizzard
Jewl Helen
Goldielocks Silent Hill
Spark D-Love
NKB EmmaD
Gardenboy Comfort
Jew-Balie Meg-Down
Duda