Griak xc meet

This weekend I was fortunate enough to travel with the Bisons to my first cross country meet. We left Friday morning and returned Saturday night to go to the Griak Invitational in Minneapolis. It was definitely a lot of hours on a bus but worth it! I was super excited to go and I'd heard quite a few stories about this race. It's huge! There were a few hundred people in each event and the entire course was lined with people cheering. The girls ran 6km and it was all marked out on a golf course with constant rolling hills. I was prepared for the worst, hearing that it was "uphill both ways," and although it was very challenging there was nothing too crazy. I was super pumped as I lined up with the girls, wearing my new Bison singlet. The start of the race was like no cross country event I've ever been in. It was so crowded and because of being unable to see where I was going as well as all the adrenaline, the first kilometer went by so fast. I lost sight of my team mates early on and it wasn't until a bit later I that I caught up to one of them, got passed by two that started out a bit more conservatively, and regained that invisible elastic band with another one. It was a great boost to try to hang on to some of these faster girls once I've got them in my sights. I probably started out a bit too fast because I felt myself fading pretty bad later in the race. The last two kilometers were probably the worst but I kept pushing through it and finished strong. I'm not sure what to think about how I raced or where I ended up because I don't have much to compare it to. At least I know that by the end I had left it all out there because I felt like I was going to fall over for about half an hour after the race! According to the results that I've now found I placed 282 out of 413 in the division with a time of 26:49. That put me 7th out of the girls on my team. Afterwards we watched the guys race and ran along the course to cheer them on, just like they did for us.

Whether or not everyone had the race they were hoping for, I have a huge amount of respect for every person on the team. Congrats to all! It's a great group and I feel lucky to travel with them. I love how accepting everyone is of us rookies even though there are a lot of us this year. I look forward to more opportunities to get to know these awesome athletes. It's great to hear some of the stories of the older people and get tips about the races. On Friday we leave for Saskatoon. Another long bus ride, but I'm sure we'll pass the time with weird movies, girls-only story writing, throwing a tennis ball around the bus, and more interesting adventures. I think by now I have met almost everyone on the team. As awkward as some people think it might be to ask people their name and start a conversation, it would only get worse in a few months from now when you realize you still don't know someone! Overall, this race was a good experience.

Anyways, the results can be found on the Bison site, the Minnesota site, or flotrack. For some reason none of these work on my computer right now so I'll try to post the link later.

XC, University, and Random Endeavors

I'm back! It has been a while since I've last blogged; I know I said I would keep at it but life has been quite busy lately! But busy in a good way. There have been many changes, and I'm loving every minute of it. There are so many awesome things going on right now, so I'll try to keep it fairly brief and give an update of what I've been up to.

Bison Cross Country

I have been running with the xc team and it has been great. I always love xc season and I was really excited to start running with this group. Practices have been going really well, I love killing myself out there with these fast girls. I have a lot of respect for everyone on the team and have been doing my best to make as many new friends as possible. Last week was the Bison Time Trial. This was a race with just the team to see where everyone is at and to help determine the travel team for the five away races of the season. It went quite well for me. The pace seemed to start really fast but I settled in and took about  1km of the 4km course to catch two of the other first year girls that had gotten ahead. I kept the next few people in my sights to stay motivated and although I was passed by one of the older girls near the end, I finished 7th. I was happy with this and don't think I could have done much better. My secret goal was to establish myself as the top rookie which I was excited to accomplish. There are seven other new girls that I mostly knew from high school running, so it's awesome to spend some more time with all of them. After the time trial the whole group also had an awesome potluck. I'm still not sure what will happen with the rest of my season but it's lots of fun so far!

University

In general, I am actually loving university. I hate to admit that I am actually really into school for once. My mom laughs at me when I get home and start reading textbooks all the time. It's kind of weird, but so far I like most of my classes. I don't mind that they are huge and even the one taught by video lecture isn't bad. I was told in a few weeks I would start hating it all but I'm doing pretty well at staying on top of things. We'll see if I still think that when I have 4 midterms the week of my 18th birthday. As enormous of a campus it is, I always feel like I am surrounded by friends. Somehow I have several friends in every class and I can't go anywhere without running into people I know. It's great, I've merged some random friendship circles, reconnected with old friends, and made a bunch of new ones. U of M has felt like home to me for the past few years, and I since starting classes I have never felt confused, alone, or out of place. As much as I loved Westgate, I think I was really ready for all these big changes.

Random Endeavors

So since quitting my job at Tim Hortons of over two years I have not regretted it. I think I would have been too busy and stressed. It's great to focus on other things. I have also involved myself in more volunteer activities. At orientation I took a leap I wouldn't normally consider and signed up for the Shinerama fundraiser for cystic fibrosis. It was an interesting experience of collecting donations downtown and meeting some older students.

 I am spending my non cross country practice days running with a different group. That is, I'm back at Westgate coaching mainly the grade 7 and 8 teams. It's similar to what I did last year but I'm going to more of their practices and meets. It's tons of fun. The little girls need that extra encouragement to keep running, and the little boys need to learn they don't need to win warm-up.  When I compare them to some of the university guys it's easy to see where their egos started to develop.

I have also recently become part of the Triathlon Manitoba board as an athlete rep. My dad has been on the board forever and this has been something I've been thinking about for quite a while now. I'm excited to be involved in this way. There's another volunteer project through school I'm considering, but I'll have to see how crazy life gets.

One last thing is that we have a German Exchange student living with us right now. It's lots of fun and Luisa is great to live with. She is quite easy going and seems comfortable after such a short amount of time. Before school started we spent some time showing her around Winnipeg and it was fun pretending to be a tourist in our own city. I am learning some random German words from her which can be pretty funny when my pronunciation is bad and I keep repeating the few words I do know. We took a picture on the first day of school like when we were little. It had always seemed so lame but I felt like I was missing out on something when the two girls took a picture, so I had to get in one too. Even though I didn't actually start school the same day. But I think it's pretty cute. I am already missing the warm weather!

I think that's it for now; if I do get to race any more meets I will be sure to post updates, as well as anything else exciting that happens!