“I’ve done cross country for four years, track and field for four years, and I’ve been doing Frisbee the last two years. All three are in different seasons. My favorite is cross country.

One good thing about cross country and track is when you’re a distance runner, you do practice in the mornings. So it’s easy to go home and get your work done after school. But previously, in freshman and sophomore year, practice would be after school. It’d be a lot of late nights studying. You have to really take advantage of being efficient with your time.

I ran a little bit in middle school. I knew I wanted to do a sport in high school, so I figured running would be it. It’s definitely a lot about the community—the people that surround you. When I was a freshman, there were a lot of seniors and juniors [who] I could look up to and who essentially acted as role models.

Sophomore year, we won our district championship for cross country. My biggest lesson running-wise: it’s definitely how much work you put in. There’s no easy way to get around the work, so you just have to put time in to get results out.

I used to play football a lot with my friends during lunch. We kept getting too sweaty during lunch and it was kind of yucky. So we started playing frisbee, which wasn’t as physical, so we didn’t stink during 5th period. We started playing more often, and then we started talking to Mr. French, the club sponsor. We eventually grew it into a club. I’m definitely not fast enough to be doing cross country or track in college, but I’ll try my best to do some Frisbee recreationally.

As a senior, it’s a little sad because I know I’m not going to be able to get my high school years back. But I’m happy with the time I spent, and I’m content with how I’ve ended it.

Over all my high school years, I wish I had known how fast the time would go by. When I was a freshman, one of the juniors told me that it’ll go by really fast, and you won’t even realize it. I don’t think I really believed him until this year. I’ve had a pretty good impact on some of the underclassmen because I’ve acted as a good role model. I hope this projects them to act as role models to their underclassmen in the future. Similar to how those above me acted towards me. I think that they can carry it on and pass on their knowledge to the next generation.”