XC Picture II

Mr. Fichter

I had a surprisingly good time at the XC banquet tonight. Yeah, Loughran talked for an hour, but Grizz got his say this time. The food was pretty good, even though the adults took most of it. The girls awards went pretty fast because we don’t have any juniors who are girls. There was a short break while Grizzly set up the guy’s slide show. During that time I helped my self to some sweet tea, yuck, which means I’ll be up all night. Anyway, the slide show was defiantly a work of Grizz. The pictures were a collaboration of parent’s pictures, runner’s pictures, and Grizzlies pictures. I think it’s kind of funny how last year, I was in one picture, and then this year, I was in 50% of them. They actually had my favorite picture ever which I’ll put up when I get. It shows off my white legs, as well as me coming hard on Sparks back at our only home meet.
I was a little worried Grizzly would take a HUGE amount of time speaking, but he actually kept it short in comparison. He called us all out individually and said his experiences with us. I can’t say I’ve smiled that much in a long time. It’s true when I say XC has some of my best memories, I mean my emotions flew every which way. Pride in my team and self, sorrow for the end of the season, and loss of seniors whom I love, happiness for all the amazing times we’ve had, and a very light laughing feeling, for all the dumbass things we do. : )
I was surprised by Grizzlies speech about me. “This man has heart. If you’ve ever seen him finish a race, you know it, and if you’ve ever watched him race too.” : ) Immense warm feeling. He said a lot more stuff I can’t remember word for word, but it all made me feel really good as a runner. 18:54. Byah! Me Dad also pointed out one thing. When Grizz called everyone else he called them by first and last name. When he got to me it was “Mr. Fichter.” Now, for the really cool part. He always has awards for most improved, best character basically, and MVP. Clopp of course got MVP coming in first every race, and Adam got the best character. But the coolest part, my heart raced and I got excited when I heard it. “Now, we have a split for the most improved. If you look at the times for these two, from last season and this one, they always pushed each other and were neck in neck the whole season, finishing within seconds of each other.” : D!!! Yes! I knew it. Goldie and I had been racing like that for 2 years now. "Mr. Fichter, and Andrew Goodstein, split the prize for most improved." YES!!! Guess what our prize was…. guess…. : D!!!! NIPPLEBALLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love Grizzly.

So, I have one thing to say: Thank you XC team, and coach Bair, for the most amazing season of my career to date.

Good night!!!

Region II

Byah! I just ran an 18:54 in the region II meet today at Albemarle. Oh yeah! Season PR as well as my season goal. I got 5th again, I thought Spark had me, but he was helping me out by pushing me. Thanks Spark! This race was similar to last times Albemarle, cept I passed Goldie at the 2 mile. I went out way faster than I meant to, I mean I was up with Banksta. Whoops.

Well, my mom said our region was the best, no kidding. We have Albemarle, Brentsville, and Handley. In the Region III meet Clopp would have won by nearly a minute and I would have been in the bottom of th first quarter of runners. Thanks Milestat. But I got 111th out of 125 and Banksta got 108 or something and Mohammad got like 98. Over all, we got 14th out of 16 teams with a score of 300 something, Brentsville won with a score of 37. They shouldn't be allowed to compete with us. Jerks, going and winning both races. Even Spotswood only got 9th. Well, Clopp got 6th so he's going to states, Ott got 3rd, figures.



I'm happy with my end to the season. Most people peaked early, but I peaked at the very end. Works for me.

~Artemis Entreri

I Tried.

I tried, I really tried to go after Ash, but I didn't get him. The last 200m I saw him and heard his name and started moving, but when I topped the rise he was just finishing. Oh well. That was, for the most, the worst part of the day for me. I ran a pretty good race, 19:12, which is a 10 second PR for me. I beat Spark and Goldielocks, and, we're going to regionals. I have no idea how the hell we managed to pull that off. But we managed to beat FD by quite a few points. Gardenboy came up to me later and in his very words said "Man, you were haulin' ass up that last mile." Pity we lost to TA though, by only one point too. I think that was my fault. In my final sprint, I gained tons of distance on two Wayne kids and I almost caught them, but they beat me by .1 or .2 seconds.

I love how Spark races. I managed to catch him with half a mile to go, and when I passed him, he said go ahead, and I was like, hah, no, you're coming with me. He did, for a little while, but I guess I had more left, but when I did pass him, I heard from behind me, his very distinct voice yelling, “Come on Entreri! Get those three ahead of you! Get 'em!" That's pretty inspiring, that even though he knew he had nothing left, he was yelling with all his excess energy to spur me on. I’m partially amazed that he doesn’t complain that he used to be like 4^th on the team until he got injured. Hell, I’d be pissed off if I went from running 17:00’s to barley breaking 20 because of an injury I couldn’t control.

Hah, this made me laugh. I was talking with A-shroad’s dad after the meet and I think I remember saying out loud something about getting out of class at 10am. He just asked if that was all I cared about and I responded “yup, what chance do we have of getting fourth in the region.” He was like “Oh, well you know, trip a few people, I could even hide in the woods in full cammo and just start taking people out. Ahaha, I wish.

I’m content, 5^th on the team, 10 second PR, we’re going to regionals. Oh yeah

Night All

Artemis Entreri

Districts

Here we go. Districts are tommrow and I'm so nervous I'm shaking. Maybe I shouldn't be worrying, but I'm 5th and the top five runners count. If I screw up,it could mean we don't go to regionals. I would love to go to regions and only the top four teams go. My target that I have to beat this race is from our rival school, Ash, I think his name is. Supposedly his seasons gone downhill at the end. Goldielocks and I will have to hang on to him until he dies, if he infact does die. I think we could take him in the last mile.
Wish me luck. I'll probably need it.

Well, at least we get out at 12:30 tomorrow. That means I get to miss out on half of gym. Yearah.
*********************************************************************************

I want to take a pole. How many runners, here, who read this, play guitar. Almost every person from every team I know is a guitar player.


***************************************************************************
Time for another one of these.
Inside me: Utter calm
Outside me: Fear beyond reason.
Songs: Something by Sayward Lawrence, Spiders I think it's called. Something like that.
Stranded, Mohair.
Goals: Break 19, but on this course there is a slim to nothing chance of that.
I don't want to really beat Goldie anymore. We had our good race. But yeah, beat Goldielocks.
Get Ash!

Alb-Ema-Rle

Well, today was the Albemarle invitational hosted by Panorama farms and it was amazing in every single respect. We left home at about 10:30 this morning and arrived around 12:00 maybe. I wasn’t really paying attention. When we got there we did the same as always, “freshmen! Carry the tent poles and set up the tent!” As it turns out, we forgot the side curtains for the tent so the sun would have ended up being on us the entire time. The guy’s team, being guys, took the tent top and propped up only one side of it to make a lean-to. Hah, it was awesome, but as I suspected, a gust of wind blew it away shortly after.

Now, it was time to start walking the course. Grizzly had just decided that he was going to run the open 5k. The team had been waiting all season to see what he could actually do. Wow, that man really can move. I heard someone yell to get of the course and I turned around to see this guy tearing down the path. “Ok,” I thought, “there is the fastest gu- HOLY CRAP! THERE’S COACH! YEAH COACH! WOOOO!” He was really, really moving. Beastly. And soon after, my previous coach came tearing along. Now this was truly amazing. She, yes she was in 4^th place over all and the first woman to come through the mile. Wow.

There was plenty of time to kill before varsity guys had to run so we sat around and drank water, and ate, and such. I was really, really nervous before my race, I was afraid since I was running the A race and I was 7^th place that I might just come in last on our team. I worried my self into a corner, to a point where I was dreading the race.

When I finally got on the line, I was right beside Goldielocks and we were scheming about going after NKB and such. Well, yesterday Grizzly passed around our “nipple ball” and we all said our goals for the race tomorrow. I decided to say, “I want to have a fair race with Goldielocks.” Well, the gun fired and off we went, together, I had no idea that we would be like that the entire race. The first 800 meters was fast but had a tense feeling, but once we topped a rise, people just took off. We crossed the mile mark in a 5:56 mile. That. Was. Fast. Well, I though, I’ll try to lose him on this straight away, he just kept on going with me.

The race meandered on for a few hundred meters, we passed people, went around bends and topped and dipped into rises. “Do you see Spark?” I asked him “No, oh wait yeah.” He replied. “Let’s go get him” I said. And there we went, slowly gaining on him. He was having a horrible race, I could tell when we finally caught him and he said something along the lines of you guys have to help pull me through this. This part of the course was down hill leading up to a huge up hill for the second mile marker. The three of us traded off leading the pack subconsciously until Goldielocks and I started to pull away. We shot up the hill as fast as we could turn our legs over at that point. I recall we came across the 2 mile mark in 12:07.

The race really started to hurt here, Goldielocks and I were at our absolute peak, we hit the wall, it wasn’t possible for us to go any faster. This was the best part of the entire race; we both wanted to beat each other and would try to pull ahead but never could. The rest of the race was a huge trade off, I would pass him on the down hills and he would race me up the hills. We were neck and neck the entire last mile until we hit the final 500 meters or so. There was a giant down hill and I pulled ahead of Goldielocks. The two of us have been running together long enough that we each know each others styles and our strengths and weakness’.

I was thinking, if he’s going to get me anywhere, it’s this last hill, I have to start moving. Sure enough, he started to take me on the hill; but I just got pissed off. I stayed with him to the top and once we hit the small dip that led into the final 200 meter stretch the two of us took off. We both thought he was going with it, that we were going to be neck and neck. No, no he decided, it’s his, I don’t have enough left. Oh yeah, he was still moving, of the 12 people I caught, he got 7 or 8 of them. 19:22! I saw as I crossed the line. That’s the fastest 5k I’ve ever run. The city-county race I just ran was either a 3.0 or a 2.9. That may not sound like much, but it can make a 50 second difference.

“Yeah,” he said as I met up with him once we passed through the chute. “That was a fair race.” Yes, I got my fair race with Goldielocks, and we’re both pleased with it. Without him I know I couldn’t have done anywhere near as well and I’m pretty sure he couldn’t have.

After a JV race and the awards, it was finally time to leave Panorama farms and head on home. The bus ride back was pretty nice; we stopped at a DQ part of the way home and got dinner. Once we got back on the bus it was already dark. Goldielocks and I had wanted a dark bus ride back all season and we finally got it. We did this really cool thing that you can do when it’s dark enough that you just see a silhouette of a persons face and maybe a little light shines off their eyes. You stair at the person across from you and slowly change your face, either by doing something like smiling, or widening your eyes and such. Your imagination starts to take over and it can get pretty freaky.

The rest of the ride we talked about gory horror movies and the like.

Best meet of the entire season. Oh yeah!

Songs: Over My Head, The Fray. You Only Live Once, The Strokes.

Outside me: A blue bandana and Professor Blues.

Inside me: Immense happiness.

Goals: I’m not sure I have any, I still want to break 19, but Goldielocks and I broke all of our other goals today.

Night

~Artemis Entreri

Step It Up.

H'ok so, yesterday I ran the fastest race of my life and did close to the best I ever will this season. And guess what Grizzle said to Goldielocks, Spark and me today? “Step it up.” He said. “You guys are all really close to fifth place.” Meets are scored by the place your top 5 runners places. Whatever place they come in is added to your score, so the lowest a team could get is 15. Well, I am, in fact 7^th and Spark is 6^th, but we all finished within a 6 second group and managed to hold a pack the entire race, so we’re all kind of the 5^th place runner. I don’t know what Goldielocks would say about that because he truly is 5^th and I’m 7^th and I want to be there and he knows he has it. But still.

Hah, step it up. Well, I still haven’t been completely done after races. I always have something left….or I’m like Wolverine and I recover super quickly. Hah if only. Well, Albemarle is supposedly the race to run the best race of your season; it’s one of those courses that the people who made it refuse to admit it’s not a 5k. It’s also almost all down hill for the first mile; the top runner a couple of years ago ran a 4:4? first mile split. Well, Damn.

Well, henceforth to Albemarle we march….cept, we’re kinda…. On a bus.

Music: Eric Clapton: Live at Montruex. It’s amazing.

Inside Me: Do you want to know? Didn’t think so.

Outside Me: Complete darkness. Well minus the computer… and the T.V that Clapton’s on…. and all of the flashy indicators in my room.

Goals: I don’t have anymore except to, finish out all of my workouts with Goldielocks.

~Entreri

City County....Again.

Well, I should be leaping and screaming with joy and yet, I’m not. I came in 32^nd at this year’s city-county meet which is decent. I managed to beat Jewl, but I think he just didn’t want to race. I ran a 43 second personal record bringing my time down to a 19:01. What the hell, I wish I’d known that. My goal for the season was to break 19 minutes. I ran 19:01. Damnit. Well, it’s still a really good time. I was also out sprinted by Spark and Goldielocks which sucks but they had a good lead on me already. Goldielocks must have run an 18:55 or something because there were 6 seconds in between me and him. It’s a very rare occasion that I’m out sprinted by someone I truly want to beat, but I gave it all I had, and all I had wasn’t quite enough. Oh well, I’m 7^th on the team, I’m probably going on to the after season, I’m still varsity and well, the seasons not over.

****

Songs: Manic Depression, Jimi Hendrix

Crosstown Traffic, Jimi Hendrix

Outside of me: Sweaty uniform, pumpkin pie and my music

Inside: God damnit, why couldn’t I go faster.

Current pains: Every muscle I can’t think of.

Goals: Break 19, I was so close. Out sprint Goldielocks again.

~Entreri

City County.

Well, here we are, the city county meet is tomorrow at the fair grounds. Watch us come in like last, except for Bway because they just suck at everything. We are racing beast teams. That's all I can say, beasts. Ott, B-heigh, Little Ott, all beast runners. I'm just going to try to hang on to S-wood and the Knights 5th runners because they are somewhat near me. ~Sigh~ We 're screwed.

Wish me luck. Like it will do any good.


****
I have now, just now, just this second decided that I will put any current happenings in my head right down here. Separated by asterisks or something.

Songs: 1.) All Around Me, Flyleaf
2.) Breathe Today, Flyleaf
3.) Walking With a Ghost, Tegan and Sara.
Thoughts: Wow! She has pretty eyes.
Outside me: My room.
Inside me: I don't know. Organs?



Entreri

"You think the is a f'ing game?! Man, This is my life!"

Today for XC we were practicing at the park and when we were streatching, Spark and DV-Scott were screwing around. Grizzly caught them and made them do an extra 20 push-ups on top of the 30 we had already done. They asked what was wrong and Grizzly just said "you guys were acting like....well." and A-Shroad cut him off and said "Sophmores?" Yeah he responded "You guys are acting like a bunch of sophmores." As we streacthed, we watched the local college team out running. I would guess they were fininshing their work-out, and as they passed us one of them said rather loudly to his team mate "You think this is a fucking game?! Man! This is my life." We waited for them to pass and couldn't help but laugh. What the heck. AA type character in college or just some idiot?

All A-shroad could say was "Sophmores."

Well, that was my short story for the.....till the next time I have one. Hah that was also the best part of XC today. -Sad that a warm up is the best park of a practice.- Grizzly seems to have a habbit of over estimating our abilities at the park and sets huge workouts for the conditions. Today we had eight fast four-hundrerds sepreated by eight slow ones. Oh god. I was supposed to be running them in eighty fours. Hah, I came across my first one in a 106. Great. Goldielocks burned the second one and I tried to follow him. I think we ended up with a 94 or something. After about five Grizzly realized that we would be hard pressed to do eight of those and said run six and see how you feel. I barely finished my sixth sprint but I chose to do a seventh and it was horribly slow. A 106 maybe?

On the bright side. I'm on my way to a guitar lesson Right Now and I have no homework.

Joy.


~Entreri

"This is going to be sweet. Ya-ez."

Well, this is the first time I haven't been pissed after a race. I'm not quite satisfied, but I'm not pissed off. I did manage to in fact beat Goldielocks but I only ran a 20:09. I'm going to guess this was a slow course because even Clopp didn't break 17 mins. On a lighter note, I finally found out how I run my best race, now all I have to do is adjust speeds. I've always gone out as fast as I could and held the pace and slowed down as needed. This time I went out at a decent pace, slowed down, and then burned all I had the last mile. I realized with half a mile to go that I had a lot left, but this was only an experement.

I also found out that drafting is Awesome. I had never made it work right for me and I always wondered why people did it. I couldn't feel anything. But today I heard from Bair how to actually do it. You have to get in stride with the person and be at a certian angle to their body. Well, I tried that and hey, it worked. It felt so amazing, there was no wind resistance and I felt like I was floating on the air instead on thumping on the ground. Oh yes, I'll be using this a lot more from now on.

Eh well, still not satisfied, I ran almost 30 seconds slower than I should have. But hey, it's a slow course and I was experementing.

~Entreri

Run.

I went out for the first free run since summer I would guess. It was really nice being able to just go run for however long I wanted at whatever pace I wanted. It was surprising, the difference that is, between earlier in the year and today. I ran at a much, much faster pace and tacked an extra mile on to my normal runs. It was also the first time in a long time that it was almost to cold to take my shirt off. Almost.

For you runners who read this post, I have a question for you. When you run do you ever have a song or a musical count going on in your head? I remember when I was in 8th grade and I was in Concert Ringers I was always keeping counts in my head. One-two-three-four, one-two-three-four, one-two-three, one-two-three. and this year I always seem to have an AC/DC or Black Sabbath song running through. Well, just a line really. I actually have one more question which applys to runners who compete. Have you ever been running a workout or a race and though about stopping but never manage to? What stopped you? Was it a thought about someone/something better after everything was said and done? Or did you keep saying I'm going to stop at the next turn and never actually do it?

Ah, just random thoughts for the night.

Night?

Artemis.

Run Mark!

Practice was at the farm today and, well it wasnt much of a practice. We were supposed to run the course twice but a storm got in the way of that. Right after we finished streatching I looked out to see a HUGE cloud, but it was 6 miles away or so. When we hit the line I turned around and BAM! That cloud was right behind us! It was HUGE! I mean like..... HUGE! I figured well, five minutes and it will be on us. We started running and I turned around and holy god! It was right on top of us! Mark had just started running and when I looked back the cloud was piling over on it self. It was a giant wave of blue black ocean water. We jokingly yelled for Mark to "run" and to "get away from it!"I turned around again and ~flash!~ lightning struck. Well, that was enough for Grizzly. Practice canceled.

That was my excitement for the day.


Oh, and guess what. You people win. I'm going to homecomming. : *************************************************
Over the last week or so there has been one song that I have listened to, on repeat, all the time. I think the fact that I have played it over 300 times warrents an add to my favorite list. Is the suspense killing you? Ah, well, I figured as much. : \ Anyway the song is All Around Me by Flyleaf.

My hands are searching for you
My arms are outstretched towards you
I feel you on my fingertips
My tongue dances behind my lips for you

This fire rising through my being
Burning I'm not used to seeing you

I'm alive, I'm alive

I can feel you all around me
Thickening the air I'm breathing
Holding on to what I'm feeling
Savoring this heart that's healing

My hands float up above me
And you whisper you love me
And I begin to fade
Into our secret place

The music makes me sway
The angels singing say we are alone with you
I am alone and they are too with you

I'm alive, I'm alive

I can feel you all around me
Thickening the air I'm breathing
Holding on to what I'm feeling
Savoring this heart that's healing

And so I cry
The light is white
And I see you

I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive

I can feel you all around me
Thickening the air I'm breathing
Holding on to what I'm feeling
Savoring this heart that's healing

Take my hand
I give it to you
Now you owe me
All I am
You said you would never leave me
I believe you
I believe

I can feel you all around me
Thickening the air I'm breathing
Holding on to what I'm feeling
Savoring this heart that's healed


And for those of you who play guitar and want a tab, I can't seem to find one so leave a comment or talk to me and I'll write you one.

The Universe is Screaming In My Face.

Well, first of all, I got my goal at the meet. I ran a 19:53 but I'm still not satisfied. My splits weren't to good either. I'm pretty sure my first mile was a 6:03 and my second was a 6:04 so that means my last mile must have been a 7:46. Ugh, I really need to work on this negative split thing. I managed to beat Spark, but he was hurting really bad. Bad enough that he was in tears when he crossed the line. That kid could out run me with a broken leg.

After the race finished, we were instructed to run a mile cool down. Well, I did my mile and it was easy. So I figured I'd take a couple of sprints. Why didn't someone one freaking tell me I had that energy left. I ran a mile worth of sprints with no breaks. Damn. I'll have to fix that.

Anyway, in a pathetic attempt to draw people to the meet, our school had tailgating and a raffle for an ipod. Well, it kind of worked, more people came than any previous meet. Anyway, to the raffle. I had decided earlier that I was not going to homecomming and I wouldn't go even if I got a free ticket. Well, I got a free ticket and the universe is screaming in my face to go. I still don't think I want to though. But I figure it would be a waste not to. Hell, even if I just sit around for 4 hours there is going to be free food. But the music is well, all rap as I would guess and the people are, well, all popular or jerks. Fun, fun, fun.


Time for another feedback moment.

Tell me avid reader. Should I go or not.
****
New goals.

Break 20 minutes again.
Beat Spark in a fair race.
Finish a race and actually be tired.

Recollection.

I guess Friday and Saturday was my entertainment for the weekend becuase nothing seems to have happened today. School tommrow. Ugh I had forgotten about the monster called school. At least my homeworks done.
*****

At William and Mary on Saturday I looked back on all of my years of XC. I realized that I am one of the few who has run every year since 6th grade. At the moment the others are DV-Scott and Spark. Back at the end of 5th grade I had no idea I would end up running in 6th and sticking with it through all of middle school and so far half of high school. I think what made me want to run XC was when I went to pick Thom up from practice and I saw the team running as was like "hey, I want to do that." Every year since, I've had the living hell beat out of me. Waste of time? No way. I may not enjoy all of the practices at the moment. But looking back, I love every single one.

I guess I stuck with running because it's my way of feeling alive. I love the pain in running an I know it's a good pain. At the moment, I'm afraid of the pain, but that's starting to break. Last year I sought the pain and I paid for it. Now I've made a truce with my body. I deal with it to a certian degree, and I win. It's also a way of escaping everything that is wrong in the world. I've lost track of how many times I've been furious, or sad, or just a jumble of emotions and gone out for a run. When I'm done it's all gone and everything has balanced again.

****
Entreri?
Yeah?
I think we'll both get better some day.
Yeah, yeah I think we will.
****
Night
Entreri

"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

Fight, Fight, Lose!

Well, I got my fight and I lost. By a whopping 4 seconds. Ah well, I asked for it and it's really what I wanted. Grizzly said he might take 9 people To William and Mary and if thats true it's no problem to go. But to go as no.8 I would need to get overkill on Gardenboy since he's a captian and a year older than me. Meh.

Entreri

Tri-Meet

Well, I'm racing tommrow. It's only a tri-meet so I think I'll do fine. I think I'll try again to do what Grizzly said. "Go out slow and then speed up. Run negative splits." Sounds good to me. I hope I can stay with Goldie Locks for a little while too.



~Entreri

Afeared.

Well, I ran varsity. I'm not mad about how I did. Just.....not satisfied. Over all, I did very well. But it's not enough for me. I'm afraid to run. I'm afraid of the pain. I didn't used to be. That's why I ran so well. But now I'm afraid. I went out with a 6:05 mile split. I was afraid I was going too fast so I limited my self. When it finally hit me that I felt nothing we had a mile left. I ran fast that last mile, but not enough for my self. I passed 5 people on the final 3/4's of a mile and I came across in 21:24. 30 seconds slower than my best. I got 7th on the team, 5th place in varsity and I came in 84 out of 200ish for the varsity guys race. I'm still the 7th varsity but I beat the 5th and 6th varsity runners. J-man caught me at the two mile marker but I eventually ran him out and I caught up to the Mann-boy with about half a mile to go. In the JV race Jule wore my old spikes and came in 8th place with a time of 20:?? and PW came soon after with a 20:53. Both of them beat my time so they got on varsity kicking the Man-boy and J-man off. I managed to hang on the no.7. But when NKB starts running again I'm going to have to beat PW. Sadly, I think PW's done though. His knees have been giving him problems and he ran hard today. His loss is very sadly, my gain.


We'll find out Wednesday what I can do. Unless I'm sill afraid.


~Entreri

Morning Of.

Well, it's the morning of. I'm no longer excited. I'm terrified. I'm going to go and run my race and do the best I can. : | I'm off to Mr, J's with my running buddy. Wish me luck.