Many MHS students run cross Country because they want to stay in shape or simply love to run. As the season begins, coaches and players start to practice for their upcoming meets where they have to face some of the hardest challenges while trying to make goals for themselves for the end of the season.
Athlete Jake Williams, a member of the boys cross country team, shared his goals and challenges, “My goal is to run a sub 17:30 by the end of the season and come top 5 in a meet.”
Jake also shared that the most challenging runs in cross country are the long Sunday runs. Though he said, “I like to run because it’s challenging and I feel accomplished after a good run.”
But for coaches, it’s much different. Boys Cross Country coach Kurt Rutz pushes his boys to become great runners. He decided to coach cross country because while in high school he wanted to pursue coaching cross country. He attended Westminster College in Fulton MO. His goal for this season is to improve the boys’ times .
He said, “Every year we look to improve and do better than we did last year.” Last year they were third in the conference, but he looks to improve and become a higher seed. His goal for his team is to qualify for sectionals and ultimately be able to have some players to get to state.
Coach Rutz also makes sure that his practices run smoothly and that the runners are ready for their upcoming meets. The team will either have an easy run or hard run depending on the day. Their easy days occur when there is a meet the next day. They usually go out for a shorter run than normal so they are not too sore for their meet.
Rutz stated, “They do diame drills first and then they go out and do their run.” While, on hard days it’s a much different pace. They run up to 10 miles during their workouts on these days.
Girls Cross Country has a new coach with new goals as well. New coach and MHS English teacher Grace Martin decided to coach cross country because while in middle school she was on the cross country and track team and was able to make it to state all three years.
“I realized that the people that you run with are really special people, you learn a lot about them and love the culture of cross country which made me want to keep coaching,” Martin said.
Martin’s goal is for the runners to have some sort of improvement during the season. She wants them to reach their goals they made at the start of the season like making state or to run a mile without stopping.
Martin said that the most challenging thing is the mental aspect of the game. She wants to make sure her runners are in their best shape both physically and mentally for their upcoming runs.
