"Once you're beat mentally, you might as well not even go to the starting line" - Todd Williams

These last two weeks have been a big roller coaster for our cross country team. Two weeks ago, we were at Otterbein, which is a very fast course. We ended up getting ninth out of 16 teams which is good, but we made some mistakes. As you can see in the picture below, I took off way to fast and was leading the race for a good two minutes. When I finally realized that I needed to slow down into a good pace, I fell back pretty far in the race because of all the energy I had burnt. Coach has told has throughout this season that we have to keep a strong mind while running. This also means that we need to be smart. Our team did well at the race, but running is also an individual sport which needs a lot of brain power to do.

Coach's words stuck in our heads as we went into this last weekend's race - the All-Ohio Invitational. The All-Ohio race is by far the most dreadful race of the season. For the past few years, this race always tends to be around 90 degrees and humid. This year, we thought we were going to luck out when we saw the forecast being much cooler, but then the All-Ohio reclaimed its victory in a different way - it down poured. When we arrived at the race on Friday, we were glad that it was not hot out, but we had a surprise waiting for us. This race, is located at a golf course just north of Columbus. This means that the course has a lot of hills. For one thing, hill courses are already on the low end of a runner's favorite type of race. Then, by adding the massive amounts of rain that came that day, it made the course quite muddy. The combination of hills and mud equal a race that is about two minutes slow. Coach continued to remind us that our minds our stronger than our bodies and that we are able to push through the obstacles that get in our way.

The race began and we were already covered in mud. As always, the first mile was fast because of the adrenaline pumping through our bodies. The second mile came around and we had a party because a majority of it was a flat run or partial downhill. Then, the third mile came and this is where Coach's words came back to us again. The third and forth miles of this race were mostly running uphill and weaving in and out of different places. Our minds had to be strong in order to complete the ultimate goal that we had started. I am glad to say that Coach Wilson knows what he is talking about when he told us that we have to keep our minds strong. During the week of practice leading up to this race, Coach showed us this clip of a boy who was running and continued to fall down. The moral of the video was to always get back up when you fall. The third and forth mile was were that video popped into my head. I realized that I had gotten this far in the race and there was no reason to finish any slower. We ended up getting 30th out of 38 teams which isn't the greatest, but we were happy about how strong we ran both physically and mentally.

This week, the teammate I am going to tell you about is Nate "I'm too sexy for you" Winters. Nate is from Hilliard, Ohio, and is beginning his second year of running with the team. He is an excellent runner and I hope that he becomes our captain when Mark and Dustin are gone. He is our second fastest runner and is very encouraging to all of us during practices and races. Besides being an outstanding runner, Nate is a member of the Waffle Friday Wall of Fame (he ate 10 waffles). If you don't believe me, then listen to his life story.

When Nate (left) was younger, his mother would always cook him waffles for breakfast before school. He loved waffles so much, that he began to eat them for all three of his meals. When he was in fifth grade, one of his friends challenged him to a waffle-eating contest to see who truly was the waffle king! They began eating as fast as they could, one waffle after another disappearing before everyone's eyes. Nate was doing so well and actually had one waffle to go in order to be crowned king of his school. There was one problem, though. He realized as he was taking the first bite into the final waffle that he forgot his school project at home. This project was due

in ten minutes and Nate lived five minutes away from school. He had a tough choice to make, give up the rightful spot as king or fail the project in school. Since Nate is an excellent student in school, he decided to quit the contest and run home to get his project. This was the first time that Nate knew that he would be a runner. See Nate was born with dark black hair and always had it. Both of his parents also have black hair. Well, knowing that he only had now eight minutes to get his project turned in, he ran home as fast as he could. Nate ran so fast that his hair caught on fire and turned that beautiful black hair into a fiery red color. Nate ended up getting back to school in time to turn his project in and not miss any class. His friends saw his great efforts and felt bad that he could not finish the waffle-eating contest. They ended up signing him up for a waffle-eating contest (this is actually true about him being in the Wall of Fame) and he ate 10 whole waffles to redeem his victory!

Next week, you will get to enjoy hearing about the life of Joe Pittinger! He is more than muscles, so come back next week!