It Takes. (States 2010)

It takes.
It takes a lot of courage to sign up for something completely foreign to you when you first enter high school. It takes many miles and countless crunches (even though they all actually were counted) to reach your peak as a team and as a runner. It takes getting to know wonderful people from across the state that all share something extremely important in their lives in common with you. It takes horrible races that make you cry in the finish chute, and injuries that wont heal fast enough. It takes making memories. It takes teammates that are there to motivate and inspire you, even if they have already graduated. It takes a bit of sucking up at the beginning of the season when you first dig your new spikes in the muddy puddles, but then it takes too much effort to avoid them after that. It takes someone who's good with pliers to get old spikes out when the spike bottoms have become shot. It takes tons of pasta. It takes peeing- on average- every couple of hours or more. It takes a lot of stamina to step up to the line, knowing that the next some-odd minutes are going to feel like hell, whether you run a 15 minute or a 27 minute 5K, but somehow, you're always craving the next season when the present one comes to an end. It takes adventure runs through the woods. It takes Who am I, Ninja destruction, The animal game and Jeepers Creepers. It takes being tagged in 40 bajillion facebook pictures in which every single one looks like you're being tortured. It takes going with the flow and accepting that no one else in the school cares if you got a new record or made school history. It takes realizing your ultimate potential and what you aspire to achieve by the end of your high school career. It takes enjoying XC music. It takes a good team cheer to pump you up, whether its a creative rhyme the team has used for the past couple of years or all you do is scream your heads off together. It takes proud parents and fantastic coaches to guide you along the course. It takes spankies. And in the end, it takes as much as you are willing to give, and the more you give, the less you'll lose when you sprint your way down into the finish chute. But it doesn't take much for me to love the XC runners across and throughout Maine. And to anyone who followed our team blog over the COURSE of the season, we hope you enjoyed getting to know the way we do XC. To MB(se)XC 2010, whatever it takes <3
KKNW, Addie