It has been a while since you have heard from the men's cross country team. This week's blog is going to make up for the last few weeks. This past Friday, everyone was on their way home for mid-term break while the cross country team was heading down to Wilmington College for a race. What a great way to start off break right?? We were all excited about this race because it is one of the fastest, if not THE fastest course, that we run during the season.

We were all prepared for this race and ready to go. We had one week off, so our bodies were more rested than usual. Coach Wilson pushed us the last two weeks because he knew that this race would bring us more confidence as a team. There was only one problem. A few of the runners on our team were still recovering from either being sick or being injured. That did not stop the motivation that we had to be in the top half of the teams. There were a total of 26 teams at Wilmington this year, which was five or six teams more than last year.

The girls race was first and that is when the problems started. It was already cold out (I think it almost started snowing!). The girls were at the starting line getting ready to run when the official said that the clock was broken and the race was delayed. When a runner is getting ready to start a race, their mind is focused on the task at hand and with the clock being broken all of the runners began to become flustered.

The girls race was underway and we were all stretching, but no one was focused on the race we were about to run. That ended up not mattering (not to say that we are never focused), but we ended up starting out the race with a blast! And the end of the race was even better! We ended up getting 12th out of the 26 teams there, which was an improvement of six places from last year.

We were all happy with the result of the race and were even happier when we realized that it was finally our break. This week has been a short week for team practice, but we are all prepared for our race on Saturday. As you are reading this (if it is Friday, October 23, 2009), we are heading up to Grand Rapids, Michigan. This race will be just as fast as the one at Wilmington and all of the guys are excited, prepared, and finally healthy for this race. Wish us luck!

To continue on introducing our team to all of the readers, I am going to talk about the best-looking guy around, Joe Pittenger. He is one of the four seniors on the team this year and this is technically his second year running. He ran when he was a freshman, but had different things he had to do for the last three years which couldn't allow him to run. Joe's life story is one that is very interesting. He grew up not knowing what he wanted to do in life. It wasn't until his senior year of high school that he knew what his life goal was. He was watching TV (which he did often) and saw the Arnold Classic. He was amazed how strong everyone looked compared to him. He

began from that day lifting to look just like the men at the Arnold. Now, if you do not know who Joe is, just look for the guy on our team who does not look like he should be a runner. That would be Joe. Joe is a very talented person, not only in running, but in other areas such as rapping and playing the keyboard. His voice is a very close combination of Jesus and Fergie. If you ever run into him, you should ask him to sing for you. All that aside, Joe is a great teammate and he will be missed at the end of this season. He is a huge encourager for all the runners no matter what is going on.

I will be on here next week recapping the race from that state up north. Please pray that none of the runners become sick while we are up there. We have two very important races coming up and we cannot afford to get sick just from being in a place like that. Also, watch for next week's runner, Kenny Alexander. He is the last senior that you will hear about before we wrap up the season. See you all next week!