By Lee Corey,
Media Editor.
For the last two years, the boys and girls varsity cross country teams have traveled to Pomona in Southern California for the Cool Breeze Invitational cross country meet. The road trip is long, roughly a 9-hour drive, but the team makes this long trek to and from Southern California in a single weekend that most athletes describe as a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
The coaches who come along on the trip to SoCal are Carrie Joseph, Doug Courtemarche and Justin Thurman. The SRHS cross country team has been traveling to a meet in Southern California since the mid-90s, so it is safe to say that this is a long held tradition. Joseph said, “I was fortunate to be on a high school team that traveled out of state annually. My strongest memories as an athlete come from these team trips — not the actual meets, but the time in the school van, the pasta feeds, the shenanigans that happen while traveling.” The significance of trips like this is really in the connections between teammates. “Although we expect kids to race hard and give their best effort, the real purpose of the trip is to offer our team a chance to create some core memories, strengthen bonds and learn how to balance having fun with working hard,” Joseph shared.
For some athletes, performing well enough to be invited to SoCal was very important to them. Senior Cooper Arseneau struggled with an injury that prevented her from running during the track season in the spring, and she worked hard to recover so that her injury would not affect her senior year cross country season. “I haven’t been able to race in eight months so this will be my first race back and I’m very excited that I’ll get to be surrounded by my cross country family when I do race,” Arseneau shared before the team went on the trip.
Senior Michael Spears shared his experience of SoCal, saying that “the SoCal trip is important because we all spend so much time bonding as a team, spending time in hotels and getting food and in the car together. The racing experience is really secondary, and the time spent with the team is what matters most,” he said. The top nine runners from the boys team and the top eight on the girls team were selected to come to the SoCal meet, but the real deciding factor for who will come on the trip is their attitude. “We are chosen to go on this trip not just because we worked hard to race in Pomona, but also because we value what it means to belong to the team and we all sacrifice for each other and have a good time doing it,” Spears said.
The physical and mental strain of traveling and being in a new environment for such a big meet sometimes leads athletes to be somewhat disappointed by their race times, but the overall experience is positive for everyone no matter how they raced.
