This weekend the Principia College cross country team ran a fierce race at the NCAA Division III Midwest Region Cross Country Championships hosted by the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. The team was grateful for fans who drove up from Illinois to cheer them on despite cold weather and snow. The competition was tough, and the course was muddy and slippery; the only area on the field that was not covered in snow was the path for the runners. For many, it was their last collegiate cross country race, so all their hard efforts from the season paid off on this exciting day. The team was unified in the barbaric effort that it took to complete this race. The team arrived on Friday, but the officials made all teams warm up on the roads which were icy rather than damage the course for the next day's races.
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The men started Saturday off with an 8 kilometer race with temps about 34 degrees. All the men ran well and some, along with many other competitors, had a few tumbles on slippery turns. Since the 252 runners had to run multiple loops it meant that some of the turns were churned by spikes over 750 times! Still, a couple managed to run personal bests. Freshman
Stevie Keyes beat his lifetime record by 1 second with a time of 29:20, and senior
Skylyr Cieply beat his lifetime record by 27 seconds with a time of 32:15. Several others were close to their best times.
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The women followed with a 6 kilometer race on an even sloppier course and 257 competitors. By the end of the race the women ran around turns that the men already tore up, and it meant that much of the course had been churned up by the equivalent of over 1,000 pairs of spikes. This made for even more difficult conditions for the women. Still, freshman
Amy Mayo tied her lifetime best with a 28:48. Sophomore
Katie Wood beat her season record by 19 seconds with a time of 29:08. The effort left the team feeling satisfied with the season and grateful for each other's hard work.
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For those that check the results page you might wonder why some runners are not listed. Only seven individuals from each team are allowed to race regionals. Still, the entire team travels in case an alternate is needed. We are fortunate to have hard working and humble team members that train through the end with the expectation that they will not be running. However, sophomore
Cassidy Proctor was needed to run in junior
Afton Leslie's place. Freshman
Lindsey Huffman was set to run as Principia's number two runner. However, she wanted to honor the commitment that senior
Emily Staunton made to the team through her tireless spiritual, emotional, and physical work. Emily put in more miles than anyone else on the team during the summer. The team recognizes that no one expresses more joy for the hard practices than Emily. In her three years on the team, Emily was always ready for her teammates with words of encouragement and spiritual inspiration. Lindsey asked permission to give her opportunity to race to Emily to celebrate her gratitude for Emily. This was agreed upon and co-captain
Emily Staunton completed her final cross country race with a smile on her face.
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There are other seniors too that ran for the final time in a cross country race for Principia. Seniors
Natalie Storm and
Skylyr Cieply competed for the first time this season and brought much joy to the team!
Sammy Keyes ran for two seasons and on a muddy day was filled with gratitude for his time as a cross country runner.
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Because of opportunities to study abroad and the multiple talents our team members possess that many other organizations on campus desire, it is really special to have seniors run for four years. This year we had two.
Ava Lesko was a captain for multiple seasons. Her spiritual dedication along with her organizational skills will be missed. Ava also ran a lifetime best in every season she competed. While everyone wants to do that, it is surprisingly not accomplished as often as people expect due to variety of reasons including many outside runners' control. When you train to peak at a race and the conditions are sloppy, your lifetime best effort is not always rewarded with a lifetime best reading on the clock. Runners have to appreciate their effort not their times.
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The other four year senior is
Abe Ott. Abe has inspired many of his teammates with his willingness to run at we refer to as the "edge". His hard work paid off in receiving first team all-conference honors his last two seasons and was also a SLIAC sportsmanship award winner. He too will be missed for the inspiration he brought to practice every day and the leadership he brought in multiple ways including dedication to training during the breaks. Coach
Sedge Southworth will miss the long drives with Abe riding shotgun.
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Thank you to all the fans that keep reading the updates and those that cheer us on at meets! You will be able to follow many of the runners as they continue through the indoor and outdoor track and field seasons at Principia, and we expect that many will return for the 2020 cross country season next year.
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