We arrived at the course around 5:30 pm and the first race, JV girls, started at 6:00 pm, so the girls running that race were pressed for time. Luckily, our team is always willing to help each other out, so as the JV girls hopped of the bus and started warming up the ones running the varsity race later carried their bags to the team camp and pinned racing numbers on uniforms to help make things as efficient as possible and in the end, everyone made it to the starting line in time.
The races were all 5k’s on an H-shaped course composed of several loops. This was especially fun because it allowed people to cheer on all the races, pretty much the entire way which was excellent motivation to keep working hard and moving up throughout the entire race. Also, since the meet was around sunset, the course was lined with glow-sticks to light the way when it got too dark which looked super cool. Finally, to round out the night, we got to cheer on one of our own coaches, Rousseau, take on the college men’s racing for North Dakota while eating pizza from Papa John’s. This race was a new one this year, so hopefully we can come back next year and do even better.
- Mikayla Weiss - Junior - Girls Captain
The team has started having theme days before meets. Week 1 we had hat day, this week we did a blackout because our meet in Sioux Falls was under the lights. It’s a fun way for us to team build and have some fun the day prior to a meet. For blackout day a couple of the boys went above and beyond wearing black morph suits to practice. With the freshmen boys around, there is never a dull moment!
After seeing the Jamestown state meet course last week, the coaches have decided we need better hill training and have moved us to Lincoln Park to use the dike for training, it’s a lot of hard work that will hopefully pay off in the end.
Sioux Falls was a little intimidating for our middle school runners, who were going to be competing in their first race, because this meet did not have a middle school division and they needed to run a 5K. This didn’t seem to bother seventh grader Cooper who had an amazing race! It was his first race ever and he was the second GFC JV runner across the finish line!
Although it was a long bus ride the Augustana Twilight Meet was a fun experience having the meet in the evening under the lights with music playing and food trucks there made for a different environment than we are used to, and it made for a unique trip.
Collin Allan, Sophomore Captain