Hey everybody! Congrats to all who ran this past weekend.

The XC season is finally here and it has been going great so far. I, and I’m sure many others, are happy to finally race and show how a long, tough summer can transition into some fast early season times.

My Stanton teammates and I opened the season with the very competitive Katie Caples invitational on September 7th. My father and coaches gave me some race strategies and basically told me to kick some ass.

After the team and I warmed up, stretched, and had a little pre race inspirational talk, we were ready to race. The first mile was a comfortable 5:10, and the next two were 5:35 and 5:28 with a 32 last .12. The 16:45, 6th place performance was not the best race, but I didn’t sweat it too much because I knew I had the whole season ahead of me. I was extremely proud of my team; we had many strong performances which gave me a ton of hope for the season. Shoutout to my bud Wesley Norton from Stanton for beating me by 1 second! We’ve been running together for years and he’s finally caught up to me. Also, congrats to the beasts that beat me: Brandon Marquez, Noah Kemp, Austin Decker, and Andrew Cacciatore. I’ve had the chance to meet them all and they’re all awesome guys.

Now for the fun part: last weekend. The Lake City Alligator Invite was a meet I had been looking forward to since the end of track season. I knew, if it was dry, the times were going to be quick. And that they were.

I woke up that morning at 4:18AM and left for the bus soon after. After the 1.5 hour bus ride going west, we arrived with the high hopes of a high finish. We did the usual pre-race routine of jogging, stretching, and talking once we were ready. When the gun finally went off, we all knew what we had to do: run our hearts out. I went out the first mile in 5:01 and was just ahead of my bud Wesley. By the end, Wesley and I had gradually picked off people and were in good position. I finished 8th with a new 5k PR of 15:57 and he finished 10th with his 5k PR of 16:03. Also, watch out for the sneaky Brandon Battle! Our 3rd guy trained his butt off this summer and it showed in Lake City with his 16:39 PR. An abundance of our runners and many other runners ran great races. Congrats to everyone.

Our next race is Bale N Trail at Bartram Trail High School on October 5th. It should host some fast times, like always, so we’re all looking forward to it.

I wish you all the best of luck for the rest of season,

Eric

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