Our hawk runners took flight this season and never came back down. Their first practice was August 11^th at Rendezvous Park in West Fargo. All runners participated in 7 meets this season including EDC. This averages to about 1 meet every week.

The season wrapped up last month with State Cross County taking place Saturday, October 22 in Jamestown. We had a team of 4 runners at state including Nathan Cook(9), Owen Rohr (10), Gavin Bjur (9), and Brooklyn Herrick (9). Approximately 20 other team members went to the meet to cheer on the runners.

This year was Brooklyn’s third time going to state and second time representing Horace. She placed 17^th out of 173 in the varsity 5k at state.

Junior varsity coach Callie Navarathan shares her insight into the preparation and outcome of this season. To train, athletes completed a variety of workouts including, long runs, hard VO2 workouts, short easy runs, and weight room lifting 1-2 a week. Sophomore Evie Sappington one of the captains this year says she thinks the increased weight training helped with injuries throughout the season. The athletes were also expected to run on their own time during the weekends.

Coach Navarathan is very proud of how the season went and the effort put in by the team. “They put in the work and it showed!” she exclaimed. Most runners even had personal records in 1 or more races.

Jeremy Hestbeck another captain who was present at state says the environment was very welcoming even if you were not running.  This is reflective of Cross Country as a sport overall. In his words, “It is like a big family that’s helping each other, and the other teams are super supportive.”

We are so proud of the athletes who worked so hard all season.

For more details into Cross Country check out this article:

https://hhshawksquawk.org/652/activities/why-wouldnt-you-join-cross-country/