“The beginning of the race felt like a war movie… It was really intense,” Junior JV runner Matthew Mori said.

This past Friday the 15th was the day Woods cross country runners competed in a meet at Spring Creek Park. This was only the second meet of the season giving less time for preparation and training. Due to the recent events of Hurricane Harvey, many practices had to be cancelled and meets were postponed, which brought on some early challenges for the team. Spring Creek is certainly not a leveled area by any means which would be the ideal terrain for long distance runners.

Instead,”80 people were all enclosed on a five foot wide trail on a hilly path that had loose gravel for a long portion of the race,” junior JV Men’s runner Matthew Mori said, “After the gravelly section then came the hills which were not fun at all… it was tough to go up a hill and keep a fast pace for a long distance.”

In a typical cross country practice, the runners running over three miles, which is all they usually have to run in their 5k meets. This exercise builds up stamina, endurance, and overtime speed when only performing the five miles at races. Because of this, overcoming terrain like at Spring Creek can be more smoothly conquered. However, since this was only the second meet, it proved more challenging to get through. Despite that, the Wildcats zoomed through.

“The hills suck and it killed me,” junior JV Men’s runner Daniel Escobar said, “But other than that, our team did well, everyone ran good races.”

Similar accomplishments despite the environment were achieved by the ladies as well with the team placing second out of fourteen teams.

Junior three-year varsity women’s runner Amber Byrd said, “It was a very tough race and there were a lot of long hills; it was our first time this season on such a difficult course.”

Byrd herself placed 25th out of the 109 girls competing, adding a spot for Cy Woods in the top half. Overall, the disadvantages of the hills and gravel did not stop cross country runners from coming out successful in the end.