As the cross country season came to a close, I remembered all of the great memories I made, like winning the pumpkin run, having a great girls' and boys' season, my slenderizing belt and getting to spend every single day with the splendiferous girls team.
On the first day of practice everybody's face was lit up with excitement, thinking of the season ahead. When the annual cross country camping trip came around the corner, we all started packing our bags for the overnight.
Every year the cross country team goes up to Lake Clitherall where Coach Kvebak's dad has a cabin. We swim, eat, sleep out in the open night sky, run, eat, and did I mention swimming already? While playing sharks and minnows, and Red Rover in the lake, I cut my foot open. I stepped on a shell, and my foot was gushing blood. I say it was pretty cool.
So as the season went on, we succeeded at certain meets and didn't do so well at others. One meet we did very well at was the Milaca Mega Meet. This meet is called the Milaca Mega Meet for a reason. It is the largest cross country meet in the world.
When the race is going on you can hear and feel all the feet pounding on the ground. Well the success this year was for the boys' team. I'm sure all of you have already heard this before, but the guys' team took first place, winning the meet. We were all very excited.
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The season kept going on quite swell (my mother notes here that "swell" is a completely inappropriate adverbial form) and the time finally came for Midstate. Both the girls' and boys' team had very realistic visions and hopes of winning.
So the day came around and we all acted like it was a normal meet. Except that it wasn't. We all ran very well and both teams won the meet. We basically kicked serious butt. Taking home the hardware for both girls and boys was fantastic.
Our annual pumpkin run followed the Bemidji meet. There are about 5 or 6 teams and we carry around huge pumpkins. "Why?" you ask. To get as many signatures from random people as you can, of course!
We get a list of strange things -- women in business suits, people wearing argyle socks, people wearing a Vikings jersey, people willing to sing random songs, people willing to admit that they have false teeth, folks with grey hair that you help cross the road -- you get the idea.
Some people give us weird looks -- like when we dance in the middle of the street to get them to stop, or when we scream, "Sign our pumpkin! Please!" As we waited for the results to come in to see who won, the other teams were screaming "So and so cheated! Disqualify them!" I mean grow up, you babies. It's just a game.
When Coaches Zunich, Kvebak and Jordan finally walked through the doors, everyone got quiet. It was a tie. Between my team and one of the guys' teams. The tiebreaker was which out-of-state signature was closest to Disney World. Or Disneyland. I forget which one.
But it was between my team's North Dakota, and their team's Arizona. After keeping us waiting for what seemed like forever, the coaches announced the winners. And the winners are! Drum roll please! My team!
We all started jumping up and shrieking, and hugging one another, and more shrieking. The prize for all of this was knowing you kicked everybody else's butts, and cool T-shirts that we haven't gotten yet.
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After the excitement of winning the pumpkin run, we started to prepare for sections. That didn't go as well as we had planned...In my opinion everybody ran their hardest and tried their hardest and did awesome. But my opinion doesn't really matter. The boys ended up placing eighth and the girls placed 11th. Not so good. Overall it was a great season, with no reason to be ashamed about what happened at sections.
Next year I hope to return to another great season that might be better than this year's. I remember Coach Freeman saying to all of us at the end of sections, "Girls this has been the best season of girls cross country I have ever coached." Give or take a few words.
Although our season ended sooner than we would have hoped, I know there was truth in those words. I know that he is proud of all of us. Even those who didn't race on the section team. I hope that next year he gets the chance to say the exact same thing again. After we make it to State, of course.
Berit Ramstad Skoyles is a freshman at Detroit Lakes High School.
