Submitted
Emma Minor recently participated in a cross country event after the heavy rain and wind damage brought in by Hurricane Helene.
By Emma Minor
Cedarville High School
Standing at the starting line, anticipation and nerves boiled in my bones, adrenaline pumped through my veins and I thought to myself, “What did I get myself into?”
I was at Centerville’s Saturday Night Lights Cross Country Race (SNL), which is historically known to be a fast, dry course, where almost everyone sets a personal record (PR). Everyone running at SNL expected to run fast this year per usual, but Mother Nature had different plans.
With Hurricane Helene brewing down south, Ohio received long, powerful, torrential rain and wind storms lasting days. Power was out, fields were flooded, and trees and branches scattered the road. Cross country, however — we continued to run. The night of SNL it was obvious, that thanks to these storms, this would not be the fast, dry course we were all used to.
This year SNL was going to be essentially a mud bath.
The rain poured down soaking my uniform and drowning my hopes of running fast. The sun had set and I could barely make out my surroundings in front of me. But I could already tell we were about to run, or should I say swim through mud the entire race. Then, the gun went off, the sound ricocheting in everyone’s ears. Immediately each runner was in a mud bath.
I could feel the ground give way with each step, my foot melting into the earth like quicksand, each stride kicking up mud, caking my entire uniform. Not 10 seconds into the race all the girls around me were screaming. They were screaming for both comedic relief and sheer terror. This was not going to be a fun run, and screaming may be the only thing keeping us all sane.
The race became a reality very quickly.
At points, the mud would be up to our knees, swallowing our feet and, unfortunately, our shoes whole. Countless girls crossed the finish line shoeless and sorrowful, not to mention barely recognizable thanks to the mud. Not even 800 meters into the race the girl in front of me cried out, “Well there goes my second shoe.”
Her cry of indignation about summed up my emotions the entire race.
Despite the awful running conditions, I ended up placing very well that day. Although everyone’s times were way slower than usual, I placed in the top 25 percent of finishers, an accomplishment I had yet to achieve years prior. My cross country team as a whole at Cedarville High School ran extremely well at SNL and we are hoping to carry our speed all the way to state, where, hopefully, the course won’t be a minefield of mud.
Emma Minor is a student athlete at Cedarville High School.
