With more than six months of non-stop training behind them, the boys cross country team got their first taste of competition after facing off in a dual meet with the Tesoro cross country team.

Before any cross country races could be organized for the start of season, how safe hosting a race would be was called into question.

“Cross country has already been deemed as a sport we can do because there is no contact, the runners are usually spread way, way apart, so the natural traits of this sport are self are safe for this kind of environment,” said cross country coach Bob Price.

Even after cross country had been deemed as a safe sport, races couldn’t immediately get started.

“The meet took a long time to organize the meet with the league athletic directors, the league coaches, and then conference with each other to decide what the schedule was,” said Price.

Many changes were made to this meet when compared to past meets in order to be approved. Some changes included mandatory mask wearing and reduced crowds.

“All the normal protocols are still being observed. Masks are required, we restricted the crowd so that only immediate family were supposed to be there,” said Price.

“In other years, all the runners would be here all the time. All the freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors would show up and root for their teammates. That’s been eliminated this year because all the runners show up in stages. The freshmen arrive and go about their race before the sophomores even arrive,” said Price.

For the student athletes, the race was much different than the typical race they were used to, but some aspects stayed the same.

“There was less pressure and the meet was smaller, but I still had a lot of nerves,” said varsity cross country runner Gavin Lynde.

Given the amount of training, the amount of time spent waiting for competition, and the normal race-day pressure placed on runners and coaches, the meet went off incredibly well. Regardless of the results of the races, it’s still impressive that any race even happened given all of the background to the season.

With good luck, this race will be just one of many more this season that the team will compete and succeed in.